Been a Year

Well Its been a year since I have left the church and Christianity as a whole.  I suppose I can use this as a recap of what has happened.  I was raised in a non-denominational church, honestly it was an alright church.  The people were great, but there was always a sort of strange distance that people kept with me. Even the friends I made throughout the years always seemed a little put off with me.  I was the guy who took everything literally, thought deeply and researched everything I could about the bible.  When others were worrying about dating and school I was only concerned with God. As I progressed in my faith, I’d say around the age of 14 or so, I was studying end times prophecy fervently.  I read everything that anyone wrote about the end times. My thoughts on life at this point were very cynical. Why worry about school, work, love, and life in general when the end times are at hand?

Of course This lead to bad grades, and a non existent love life.  But I was happy in my little universe.  This all changed of course as all things do.  I joined the army and went to Korea, I never questioned my faith while their, but it did put things into perspective for me.  I was completely miserable in Korea, probably the most depressed I have ever been in my entire life.  But I never did ask god for help in Korea.  I never thought to, and you know what, even though I hated my life there day in and day out and all the trials I went through.  At the end of the day it was me who survived my time there.  No one helped me, physically or spiritually.

Once I finally got out of the army I was still a christian and I decided I should be a pastor, so I studied for 3 years straight, living on unemployment and doing nothing but studying gods word, eating and sleeping. Then one day I remember praying this prayer, I didn’t think much of it at the time but now that I think of it, it was quite profound, “Lord if thier is anything I lack, anything I believe that you do not think right of me then show me.”  It was the next morning when I woke up and thought to myself for the first time ever, “If their is a god or gods then why would it have to be the god of Christianity?”  It was that question that began my search.

Started my search with Deism as it seemed a logical position to me at the time, why not start with an impersonal god?  Then after some time I went through being an agnostic, a Taoist, an atheist, and a heathen.  And at this point Ive come to accept that I may never know if their is a god, or many gods, or whatever but to me its become a moot question.  It no longer matters much to me if there is or not, I now just take from philosophies I like and enjoy life.  I don’t harm others and in turn expect no harm from them.  And thankfully I live in California where my skepticism of religion is met with “Yeah okay, lets drink another beer.” or “Who cares.”  I like to think if their is a god, he heard my prayer that last time and showed me that their is much more to life than following dogma and living like a hermit so as not to displease some Deity.

Anyways I won’t miss you church, I have gone on to better things.  My life has exceeded my expectations in this short year that I have left you and I must say I am much more content now than I could have ever been with you…