Get a grasp of reality.

Where can one come to calm waters with regards to our origins or our meaning for being? For me it was as easy as an examining my beliefs realistically, and I would suggest for any person finding themselves full of questions their religion can’t answer, to do the same. You may find that once the dust is settled you are actually closer to atheism than you though. But maybe you are still a Christian, Agnostic, or even just that you believe in “your” god and not the bible. But after that process is over it is imperative that you NEVER STOP ASKING QUESTIONS. Ask questions of yourself and your motives. What sociological or psychological contributors brought you to this process of thought, and what are the facts and your real ethical beliefs on the subject. To put what I am saying more simply, clean out the cupboards of your mind. The second step for me was to find my feet again, if I wasn’t going with “god did it” then how did I get here? Evolution seemed to be something. As Richard Dawkins once said, ‘if god just did earth, who just did god?’(Paraphrased) so I began to look into what other people were saying. My revolution started on youtube, what I was looking for was atheists that were not bad people or Christian haters; I found this on the big think channel, in the form of Penn Jillette. If I had to credit one person who I have never met for having helped me through all of this, it would be Penn Jillette. His videos of how he became an atheist helped me think of not being a Christian in a more positive way, and slowly video after video my stomach un-turned itself. Penn Jillette spoke of being a respectful atheist while at the same time being honest about your opinion, because tolerance is condescending. He talked about how to raise an atheist family and I often agreed with what he said (though, his political opinion I could not be more opposed to). Penn talked also of how sometimes just reading the bible alone will make you an atheist. I think that there is some truth to that. For me if the lack of realistic numbers didn’t get me, the cruelty did. I found that my thoughts didn’t line up with the thoughts that the bible imposed in many areas, but for me, it was the bible’s opinions of other people that bothered me. I had absolutely no doubt that I didn’t hate gay people, agree with slavery, or believe in the Abrahamic separation of tribes. I also believed that if your going to say you believe in what the bible said it had better be the whole thing. Christians like separating this from that, using strange logic, I had friends that spent a great deal of their time debating LGBT people but had absolutely no qualms with saying “I sin everyday and am forgiven, everyday.” An extremely flawed worldview, but I found it to be very common among Christians, I guess they reckoned that they had a speck in their eye compared to the horrible sin of homosexuality. So how does one find calm waters? My answer is to find "spirituality" in the mystery. I find such a peace in knowing I can never know everything, and that I will always have a mystery unraveling in my mind. So when I say never stop asking questions I mean that of every aspect of your life, never be complacent or happy with “god did it” or “evolution did it,” ask yourself how and spend the time to find the right answer. If your ever unsure of something research it using the resources our world has to offer, if you'd like you can start with the information your religion has to offer but never end there.

how my journey started.

I remember how this all started very well.  I remember the thoughts leading up and the thoughts leading away. I was frustrated I had realized again that I was straying from church and that things definitely weren’t going to work out in a few areas of my life. I was frustrated about money, that I never quite had enough and that I was hitting a wall. That morning I went to a coffee shop near my work, got a coffee and scrolled through my twitter feed. I had Adam Savage (from MythBusters) on my twitter I saw he had been tweeting about an atheist kid standing up in school over something or another. Being somewhat of a Christian I immediately discarded this tweet and read on. Further up my feed Adam had posted a link and something about atheism again. I was annoyed because he had ruined my coffee with this humanist/atheist bullshit. For some reason or another that day with everything going on in my head I decided to click on his link, it was an article on his humanist/atheist views. I remember thinking: “I’m going to read this and I’m going to tear it apart” What happened next was very much the opposite. I read that speech, finished my coffee and headed to work and from that day on my perception of the world would never be the same. That article never left my mind. To this day it has never left my mind. I wasn’t mad when I was done reading the article, I wasn’t annoyed, instead only one thought came to my mind: “that is very sound thinking” that one thought smashed through everything, I tore apart every aspect of my life now, I looked into every belief I had harbored and when it was all over I had changed everything about my life I lived now with no weight on my shoulders.  As far as Christianity went I realized how much I had to limit my thoughts to stay in that box I realized what type of person I had to be to continue living that life. I couldn’t lie to myself anymore I was nowhere near the category “Christian” I didn’t believe what the bible said and I did not agree with the actions of the Christian church.

 A pastor I met when I was very young had introduced me to Christianity. Soon after I began to re-evaluate my beliefs the pastor, whose church I had attended, was exposed for who he was. So leaving Christianity became very easy, unfortunately for many of my friends, girlfriend and other uncategorized people of that church it meant the end of our road together, it was a good time for me but a very solemn time as well. A lot of time spent alone and a lot of time listening to people’s explanations for why I should just find another church or why I needed to strengthen my walls, I had heard all of this before. I had heard all of this because I had said thing to that effect to friends in similar situations. I guess I should have played safe when I left that church. I watched the people fight with one another, confrontations, I listened to gossip day in and out I saw my closest friends realize the time they had wasted some of them looked to the next chapter while others stayed in that chapter and fought to their sanity’s demise for some slight meaning to the effort they put in. At the end, when all the dust had settled most of us left with little to no good experiences to remember. Some people clung together but I just walked away, I had collected enough pain for now, I had lost enough.

Adam savages “humanist” speech:

http://www.boingboing.net/features/savage.html