Guided by Reason, Not by Faith
By Kei Y ~
I am a private Christian school student in the Bible Belt. My religious background is a bit of a mess. My family is predominantly Christian, and anyone who isn’t a pastor of some sort, is a devout fundamentalist. My parents are very controlling and self-admittedly closed-minded.
This environment caused me to be a very gullible child. Even though I loved science and saw the problem of light existing before the Sun and stars in Genesis, my upbringing led me to call these contradictions “God’s mysteries.” When I learned about evolution in school, it became clear that my parents had no idea what they were talking about when they said that “we didn’t come from pond scum.”
In my house, all reasoning that disagrees with the Bible is discarded.
As a result, I was a Christian until I was 13 years old. I began questioning God, because he never spoke to me. He also never seemed to provide solid evidence of his existence. After hearing a sermon on the evils of witchcraft and all of the demons people would see and hear, I decided to try it out for myself to see if perhaps Satan was real either. Even after four years of practicing witchcraft I couldn't do or see anything supernatural.
As a result, I became a Buddhist and an atheist because I was tired of living by faith. Faith never paid the bills or taxes. Faith never advanced human knowledge of the world. The blind faith that my parents pushed me to live by was just that -- completely blind faith.
Now I am a 17-year-old irreligious atheist who is very skeptical about religion’s ability to provide accurate models of the world.
However, there’s still a problem. When I was 12 I volunteered to play on my church’s worship team and became a leader in the class for children. I am still in these positions, and I don’t know how to escape. I've already come out to a few people and got mixed reactions (from immediate acceptance to apologetic media being shoved in my face).
I hope that I can save my siblings and friends from this dogmatic brainwashing. I am proud to say that I am guided by the light of reason.
This environment caused me to be a very gullible child. Even though I loved science and saw the problem of light existing before the Sun and stars in Genesis, my upbringing led me to call these contradictions “God’s mysteries.” When I learned about evolution in school, it became clear that my parents had no idea what they were talking about when they said that “we didn’t come from pond scum.”
In my house, all reasoning that disagrees with the Bible is discarded.
As a result, I was a Christian until I was 13 years old. I began questioning God, because he never spoke to me. He also never seemed to provide solid evidence of his existence. After hearing a sermon on the evils of witchcraft and all of the demons people would see and hear, I decided to try it out for myself to see if perhaps Satan was real either. Even after four years of practicing witchcraft I couldn't do or see anything supernatural.
As a result, I became a Buddhist and an atheist because I was tired of living by faith. Faith never paid the bills or taxes. Faith never advanced human knowledge of the world. The blind faith that my parents pushed me to live by was just that -- completely blind faith.
Now I am a 17-year-old irreligious atheist who is very skeptical about religion’s ability to provide accurate models of the world.
However, there’s still a problem. When I was 12 I volunteered to play on my church’s worship team and became a leader in the class for children. I am still in these positions, and I don’t know how to escape. I've already come out to a few people and got mixed reactions (from immediate acceptance to apologetic media being shoved in my face).
I hope that I can save my siblings and friends from this dogmatic brainwashing. I am proud to say that I am guided by the light of reason.