by Tara --
I was raised in a very Christian home. I was baptized at two weeks old, just one day after being released from the hospital. I went to a private Christian preschool and kindergarten and hardly ever missed a Sunday service. Yet even with all of the Christian influences in my life I found myself questioning god at a very early age. I remember being in kindergarten and wondering why the Christianity and the dinosaurs didn't go together. As I got older I wondered where god came from. The answer that he was "timeless" just didn't suit me. And if there was a god, and he loved us, then why did he allow so much evil in the world? Why are there children starving in Africa? What about the people who live in countries where people are raised in other religions without hearing much about Christianity, would they go to hell even though it's not their fault they were raised to believe in a different religion?
Even as a child I knew that that something wasn't right. As I grew older the things that I was learning in church really didn't make much more sense, but I pushed it out of my mind and tried to dedicate myself to god fully. But I always had this feeling that it was all lies. I remember being in the eighth grade and being at a back to school party at my church. My friends were joking around about being freshmen "fish" when one of them turned to me and said "I guess since you're in the eighth grade you should be called 'eighth grade atheist.'" One of the girls standing near us immediately said "Oh, you're an atheist; I cant be friends with you." I told her that I wasn't an atheist, and that I believed in the Christian god, but what she had said to me just stunned me. If I had been an "eighth grade atheist" at church, wouldn't she have wanted to befriend me? To shun someone because of a belief didn't seem very "Christian" to me.
As I entered high school I began to see a lot more hypocrisy in the church. Not only within my youth group, but within the adults attending as well. In fact it seemed as if the adults were the ones the thrived on drama and talking badly about others.
I began to "drift" away from the church even though I was attending different activities at the church several times a week. Church began to become more of an annoyance than a fun time. Time passed and I went to college, by then I stopped believing in a personal god. In the back of my mind I knew that there was no god, but I felt guilty turning my back on the religion I had been raised in for so long.
It wasn't until October 2009 when I was on YouTube that a video of Kirk Cameron caught my eye. I clicked on it and began to watch as Kirk spread blatant lies about Christians being denied basic rights, and about Darwin, and listening to those lies just pushed me over the edge. Something snapped that day and I realized that it was all a bunch of, pardon me, crap. I went to my library and checked out a copy of the "Origin of Species
" and began to read about evolution. Next I started learning about the Big Bang (seeing as to how I got the "Texas Christian" version in school), and as I read and started to actually learn some real science, it all made sense. Taking god out of the equation made everything that I had ever questioned make sense. So I would like to thank Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort and all of the wonderful people at the "Way of The Master" for putting out that commercial that finally pushed me over the edge and brought me to the truth.
All I have to say is, Oh... the irony!
Even as a child I knew that that something wasn't right. As I grew older the things that I was learning in church really didn't make much more sense, but I pushed it out of my mind and tried to dedicate myself to god fully. But I always had this feeling that it was all lies. I remember being in the eighth grade and being at a back to school party at my church. My friends were joking around about being freshmen "fish" when one of them turned to me and said "I guess since you're in the eighth grade you should be called 'eighth grade atheist.'" One of the girls standing near us immediately said "Oh, you're an atheist; I cant be friends with you." I told her that I wasn't an atheist, and that I believed in the Christian god, but what she had said to me just stunned me. If I had been an "eighth grade atheist" at church, wouldn't she have wanted to befriend me? To shun someone because of a belief didn't seem very "Christian" to me.
As I entered high school I began to see a lot more hypocrisy in the church. Not only within my youth group, but within the adults attending as well. In fact it seemed as if the adults were the ones the thrived on drama and talking badly about others.
I began to "drift" away from the church even though I was attending different activities at the church several times a week. Church began to become more of an annoyance than a fun time. Time passed and I went to college, by then I stopped believing in a personal god. In the back of my mind I knew that there was no god, but I felt guilty turning my back on the religion I had been raised in for so long.
It wasn't until October 2009 when I was on YouTube that a video of Kirk Cameron caught my eye. I clicked on it and began to watch as Kirk spread blatant lies about Christians being denied basic rights, and about Darwin, and listening to those lies just pushed me over the edge. Something snapped that day and I realized that it was all a bunch of, pardon me, crap. I went to my library and checked out a copy of the "Origin of Species
" and began to read about evolution. Next I started learning about the Big Bang (seeing as to how I got the "Texas Christian" version in school), and as I read and started to actually learn some real science, it all made sense. Taking god out of the equation made everything that I had ever questioned make sense. So I would like to thank Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort and all of the wonderful people at the "Way of The Master" for putting out that commercial that finally pushed me over the edge and brought me to the truth. All I have to say is, Oh... the irony!
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