Questions for former fundamentalist Christians

Great Debates
1

In the **** you, Christian Evangelicals thread in the Pit, several Dopers commented that they were former FC’s, but that they had gotten out of that and taken a dim view of some practices of Evangelicals. If I’m reading people correctly, most of those same Dopers managed to retain their faith even as they rejected their religion. While not a Christian --actually agnostic–I do find that sort of thing admirable, because it offers hope for both (many?) sides. My questions are:

What got you thinking and caused you to re-evaluate this?

What was the process?

Finally, and I’m thinking this is the reason this thread belongs in GD instead of IMHO (though if I am wrong–could a mod please move it at their discretion?):

What do you, or for that matter any Doper, think might be a way (or ways) to reach the rest of FC movement? Is it possible to neutralize the effects of F. Christianity on the rest of society?

2

Great questions.

I was born into a Southern Baptist family. Had to attend church services as often as they were held. Got baptized at a tender age (well before the “age of reason”) and was involved in church activities as a primary social avenue. Little else outside school was available until we moved to a larger town.

In my teens I began questioning the beliefs and teachings I was forced to be exposed to. Don’t know how to separate out the basic teenage rebellion thing, but it was a general questioning period for me.

Read a book with a title something like “How The Great Religions Began” and saw there was no clear distinction among them. Felt cheated for believing stuff like that as if it was The Way. Rejected religion altogether. Later thought I was an atheist until I realized that’s as strong a belief system as what I had left. Decided I vacillate between agnostic and one who tends to believe that creation can’t be totally random.

I do not associate belief in a supreme being with the morals and ethics aspects of religions. To me that’s a manmade thing that has high value for society. The mumbo-jumbo about the supreme being’s interest in human affairs escapes me.

As for how to persuade others of my “faith” I just don’t try to. It’s not my concern.

Arguing religion is a waste of breath and time.

Looking for common ground is the way to get towards progress.

I don’t seriously think the average person wastes a lot of time thinking about religion. It surprises me how much space and time is devoted to it here at SDMB.

One person’s opinion, which is not apt to change through attempts at persuasion otherwise.

3

What got you thinking and caused you to re-evaluate this?

The realization that my faith was based on a belief in an inerrant Bible that contained the “Word of God” - and that said Bible was anything but inerrant or infallible.

What was the process?

I began to read some Biblical scholarship, such as works by A.N. Wilson, Marcus Borg, Paul Tillich, Karen Armstrong, etc. I also read a number of theologically based books by J.S. Spong. This helped me to better understand the mainline to liberal sectors of Christianity.

On the freethought side, I read Dan Barker, Bertrand Russell, and a little known author named Paul O’Brien, whose book Gentle Godlessness: A Compassionate Introduction to Atheism" really touched a nerve within me.

Of no small influence were the large number of religion threads in GD. I had discovered the SDMB about the time I began my process of inquiry, and was (I am now embarassed to say) astounded that there were so many people out there who weren’t FC’s and yet had most definitely thought it through in a reasoned manner. <sigh>

This was all rounded out by obtaining a good grounding in comparative religion, courtesy of OCRT.

**What do you, or for that matter any Doper, think might be a way (or ways) to reach the rest of FC movement? **

Education is the enemy of blind ignorance. It is their only hope.

Is it possible to neutralize the effects of F. Christianity on the rest of society?

That is a looong subject, but IMHO their influence is already waning, and has been for some time.

My comments

My conclusion is that there is no compelling reason to believe the exlusive truth claims of one religion over another. It is IMHO highly likely that no Supreme Being such as has been popularly conceived, exists in reality. That being said, my continued exposure to mainline and liberal theists has convinced me that religious faith has, and can continue to have a positive effect on both individuals and society. Thus I have no quarrel with those Christians who gain comfort from their faith, but do not use it as a weapon against others.

Recently, I have been spending some time reading the teachings of Zen Buddhism, most notably as expressed by Thich Nhat Hanh. Their philosophies are very interesting, and IMHO are very applicable to life in the modern western world. But I digress.

As Zeldar said, great questions!

MH

4

I was raised Church of Christ, which is a pretty virulant strain of fundamentalist Christianity. They believe that they are the only ones going to heaven, and that any one who does not submit to their particular baptism ritual (conversion experience, public admission of sinfulness in front of the entire congregation, and full emersion baptism) won’t make it. They claim to be directly descended from the first century Christian church, despite the fact that the sect splintered off from Presbyterianism in the last half of the 19th Century. They do not allow instrumental music in the church, only a capella singing, and do not officially celebrate Christmas, Easter, or any other religious holiday. Their rationale is that none of these things are directly commanded in the Bible. The rural county where I grew up had a population of about 30,000 (I think they were counting the dogs and cats) and over 70 congregations of the Church of Christ. The number would change periodically because a congregation of 50 would split in two or three because the preacher was “too liberal” for some of the members.

My first inkling that something might be out of whack with the beliefs I was being taught Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night came when I was in the first or second grade and I told a friend of mine they were going to hell because their family was Methodist. I made her cry and she said “Is everybody going to hell but you?” That got me to thinking. Was Abraham Lincoln going to hell? He wasn’t Church of Christ. What about Ghandi? According to the preacher, even the folks who went to Central Church of Christ in town were going to hell because they were “too liberal.” What kind of person is God if he creates billions and billions of people knowing that 99.9% of them are going to hell because they’re not Church of Christ?

The more I thought about religion, the less I believed. I was a full-fledged atheist by the time I was 12, and I terrorized my Sunday school teachers by questioning everything that came out of their mouths. I refused to be baptized. I once clandestinely overheard two men of the congregation arguing over who would have to teach the Sunday school class I was in. “I’m not going to do it! Vibrotronica’s in that class!”

Today, I guess I am a “soft atheist.” I used to argue religion constantly with anyone who would listen and tear into believers with the goal of destroying their faith, but then I realized that I was no better than the intolerant Church of Christ bigots I hated. I think religion is silly, but everyone has the right to believe whatever the hell they want to believe as long as it doesn’t involve strapping bombs to their chest and blowing themselves up in my favorite restaurant. My motto is “Just keep it out of my face.”

As to how to fight fundamentalist Christianity, direct frontal assaults are not possible. Telling someone how wrong they are in their beliefs only serves to make them circle the wagons and live out their pathetic persecution fantasies and prove that they are righteous because they are being attacked by infidels. I think education is the only way to go. The more people learn about science and the more they are exposed to the religious beliefs of others, the more difficult it is to honestly believe that they have the one true way to salvation. Fundamentalism thrives on willful ignorance.

5

Like Vibrotronica, I was raised in the Church of Christ, then went to a Church of Christ college, then got a job teaching in a private Church of Christ school. It was a very, very sheltered existence, and my knowledge of what happened outside of the church came mostly from books. Thanks, Mom, for never censoring my reading like the other kids’ moms did!

For me, it started pretty personally. As I got older (and more educated), I wanted to be active in the church, to serve in the areas I was skilled in. But I kept running into walls. Women aren’t allowed to participate in a lot of types of service, and there were more that were only accepting husband/wife pairs, not unaccompanied single women. As I got older and stayed single, people started getting more and more uncomfortable with it. I had been told more than once that the next step in my life would be to marry and raise my children, and I become more and more odd when I declined to do so.

I got really frustrated about not being allowed to help at tasks I KNEW I could do. I asked God why he had been so cruel as to give me a brain, a mouth, hands, if he didn’t want me to use them. I started reading about the subject, and realized that my church was just wrong.

Once I had dealt with the idea that my church could be wrong (a new and somewhat disturbing idea), I started reading more, and discovered a lot more areas that didn’t seem to hold up to scrutiny. Why on earth shouldn’t I drink in moderation? How is it a sin, when Jesus did it? Isn’t it ridiculous to say that people who don’t practice our form of Christianity are condemned? Why would God reject the Methodists, or even (gasp!) the Catholics? Would he really send his son to die, then wait another 1500 years until my little church was founded to start saving people? (They believe they have always existed, but they don’t have a strong sense of history).

Coming out of fundamentalism without losing faith altogether isn’t an easy thing to do, but the process has made me stronger in my faith, in the end. I had so many questions, so much doubt, and was so very confused, that I think I would certainly have become an atheist if God wasn’t still guiding me towards conclusions that would work for me.

It’s hard to describe what it was like, emerging from the Church of Christ, to anyone who hasn’t experienced a similar process. There was so much more to the world than I’d ever had a chance to experience. Imagine a child placed in a remote convent to be raised, then as a woman, being sent on her way. It’s kind of like that.

Sometimes people think I’m cute because I get so excited about things, so amazed by all the different kinds of people and different experiences, and I guess that even though I’m fairly mature and well educated, I sometimes come off as childlike. But that’s why-- the world is so amazingly big and complicated and beautiful, and I’m just now getting to explore it.

Another thing that’s hard to explain is how central a role the church played in my life, and how hard it was to separate myself from it. It was my spiritual life, but also my professional life and my social life. My work, all my friends, and all of my family were part of it. Leaving has put a real barrier between me and my family, and I have to hold my tongue around them in a way I never did before. I’ve had to make new friends, find new ways to live, and, in many ways, almost completely reinvent myself, and none of that is easy.

But I wouldn’t go back for anything. The last two years or so in that church, I was growing so miserable that complete recreation of my life is a small sacrifice to make. The feeling of freedom is incredible, and the idea of grace means so much more to me now that I’ve stifled under legalism and been freed from it.

Lots of words, not all of them all that useful, but that’s some of my experience.

6

Echoing the previous post: I was raised Church of Christ too, and I think there’s a reason that denomination (and other extreme hardliners) thrive in rural areas. It’s lack of exposure to other Christians.

When a certain fundamentalist showed up on this board, who is or was a Church of Christ member, I predicted that she’d have her horizons broadened just by getting to know good people of other faiths. (I turned out to be wrong, but oh well.)

Many members of these little isolationist groups really believe that everybody else is evil, that God is planning on destroying all the big cities like he did Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. One heartfelt conversation with a loving, faithful, well educated Catholic, say, can cure this. I have seen it happen; people trained to believe Catholics are evil can drop this belief once they actually get to know one.

As far as biblical inerrancy, I’ve noticed that many who hold to this doctrine aren’t even aware of possible contradictions in the Bible. You ask, for example, “How did Judas die”? or “Who was Joseph’s father?” and receive a blank stare. Until you point out the differing accounts, the true believer likely never even noticed the discrepancies. Usually they’ll come back a week later with a pre-fab response from their pastor, but it’s a start if you get them to start looking at the Bible as if it were another book, with a slightly more critical eye, as it were.

As for the OP: I had to go through years of agnosticism and atheism before I returned to Christ. I still distrust organized religion; although I feel I ought to be going to church, I can’t quite.

7

Wow! I had no idea there were so many ex-Church of Christ people on the board. I think masonite has a very good point about geographical isolation breeding religious intolerance. FisherQueen, were your church experiences in a rural setting?

8

vibrotronica-they only have a capella music-I just thought I’d mention that so do the Eastern Orthodox, and boy is it beautiful.

Do they have pretty stuff like that, or is it fundy hymn type stuff?

9

I started by having a series of profound (but admittedly highly subjective) experiences that I believed (and still do believe) to be interaction with God - I won’t go into details here, but suffice it to say, I was convinced.
I fell in with a bunch of fundamentalist Christians who helped
me to explore my new-found faith and we went along like that for probably ten years until I was quite the good little ChristBorg.

What got you thinking and caused you to re-evaluate this?
What was the process?
A number of things; dialogue with atheists, sincere persons of other religions, moderate Christians - all of these groups I had been led to believe, were evil and not very intelligent, but as it turned out, this was not really the case at all.

This bit is really funny though; it took me ten years to realise that in all of the stuff that I (believe that I) have experienced as coming directly from God, there wasn’t so much as a murmur about evolution or treating the Bible as infallible/inerrant/literal etc - God never spoke to me once about those kind of things (assuming for the sake of this post that he spoke to me at all, that is) - all of it was imposed by the people around me.

It was like being pulled up out of a deep, dark hole into the warm sunlight- I’m not the brightest person in the world, but I have an insatiable thirst to know all kinds of stuff, but I hadn’t been allowed to think - seriously - everything was predigested and pre-thought for me - I just had to swallow it whole without chewing. To suddenly realise that God actually wants me to use the squashy thing between my ears in an individual way, well, it was like waking up from a bad dream.
**What do you, or for that matter any Doper, think might be a way (or ways) to reach the rest of FC movement? Is it possible to neutralize the effects of F. Christianity on the rest of society? **
This is more tricky, because a lot of my aggressive dogmatism has dissolved, so I’m not so keen to impose my views on anyone, however, insofar as phundamentalist Christianity seeks to inflict harm, or promote ignorance, I’ll stand against it.
It is tricky because the phundies have their own little self-reinforcing bubble of reality; they refuse to listen to anyone who disagrees with them, because those folks are wrong/evil In some cases, opposing them actually strengthens the bubble.

The thing that now chills me the most about the whole thing is not that this groups is opposed to homosexuality, or that group is trying to push for creationism to be taught in schools, but it is the underlying ethic that You Must Not Think For Yourself - they can have control of my brain when they pry it out of my cold, dead cranium.

10

I said in another thread here that Fundamentalist Christians don’t know nothing about the history of the Christian Church from A.D. 33; they only know to some degree Martin Luther and the King James Bible. Should I apologize?

Susma Rio Sep

11

Another former one here, although I’d more accurately have to say that I was more of a conservative evangelical. I’m also not completely out of the mindset, so some of this is a bit irrelevant.

What got you thinking and caused you to re-evaluate this?

I grew up in a family that was nominally Christian, but my mother decided that she wanted me to be raised in a religion and she wanted some peace and quiet on Sunday mornings, so she shipped me off to a quasi-fundamentalist Southern Baptist church growing up. I soaked it all up like a sponge.

The first time I ever thought about it, I was just shy of my 16th birthday and I was almost done reading the Bible through for the second time when my mother’s constant refrain went through my head again: “Why do you go to church/read the Bible if it doesn’t do you any good?” Suddenly, it clicked, and I quit reading my Bible. Six months later I quit going to church. I know that’s not what she intended, but she did get me thinking.

After that, I just constantly re-evaluated everything having to do with religion.

What was the process?

I can’t talk in the past tense, because the process is still ongoing. It’s an eternal cycle of guilt because I can’t properly swallow FC-style belief whole but I doubt that FC is correct.

**What do you, or for that matter any Doper, think might be a way (or ways) to reach the rest of FC movement? **

I don’t think it’s necessary – in fact, I often suspect that the FCs are correct and that my problem is that I cannot believe properly.

Is it possible to neutralize the effects of F. Christianity on the rest of society?

I don’t necessarily see the effects of FC as needing to be neutralized, aside perhaps from FCs who insist upon codifying Biblical moral codes in secular law.

12

Like** Lel**, I was never a “real” fundie though many freinds were, and I am not an athiest now.

More than anything else, it was the shocking realization that I was not, in fact, actually “holier-than-” anybody.

On an intellectual level, it was THEO 101, where I learned how the Biblical Canon was formed. This didn’t shake my faith in God, but as a (then) Baptist, it shook up my theology pretty good.

**

Church History, Graham Greene, Flannery O’Connor.

Almost-fiance dumped me.

A decade of suicidal depression.

Inability to stop believing, despite repeated efforts.

**

I have no interest in “reaching” any “movements.” I do care about people.

**

And have the militant atheists start picking on me? Bugger off.

13

Yet another former C of C’er here. (Maybe we should start a support group.) These days, I’m an atheist, though I’m not religious about it.

The singing is actually the part I miss most about the church. It was “fundy hymn type stuff” I guess, but the songs were all written in four-part harmony, and if you happened into a congregation that had some good singers, it could be really beautiful. (Of course, if you were in a congregation with bad - and loud - singers, it was another story. I was mostly lucky.)

I much preferred the a capella singing (known to some as “shape note singing”) to the organ-backed singing of other denominations, because to my ear, the organ tended to dominate and drown out singers. Plus it seemed like the organ was always half a beat ahead, dragging the congregation along against its will.

What I really miss is the “all-day singings and dinner on the grounds” we would have from time to time, because those tended to draw the best singers from various congregations, and you got some really superior music.

If only we could have the good singing, dinner on the grounds, and softball games without all the fundy claptrap, it would be great.

As for my thoughts on the OP, I agree with the posters who have said education is the key. Fundamentalism (when you define it as a belief that the Bible is infallible) cannot survive education. There are just too many things in the Bible that are obviously wrong. College courses on anthropology and comparative religion were my cure.

14

Your all welcome in my Catholic Church. We don’t have any pedophilic priests, honest. And we’re very nice.

15

smiling bandit; were you a former FC? I’m trying to see how your post furthers the debate, but am afraid I can’t. Because I’m not the brightest bulb in the box, perhaps you could enlighten me? Thanks.

16

Reviewing the posts in this thread, I feel obliged to remind folks that “fundamentalist Christianity” is not some monolithic entity. There are many different denominations, with many different viewpoints.

For instance, there are references in the thread to bringing religion into the schools. Most members of the church of Christ I know are adamantly opposed to religion in public schools. Why? Because they are a minority denomination in most areas, and don’t want members of the majority denomination (i.e. Baptists) steering their children down the wrong doctrinal path. I recall that when I was a kid a Baptist preacher was brought in to speak (i.e. preach) to the student body. That caused considerable consternation in C of C circles.

(Now in some parts of Tennessee and Texas, the C of C may be in the majority. Maybe there, religion in public schools is looked upon more favorably by C of C-ers.)

There are dozens of denominations which might be classified as “fundamentalist,” and though they might all have similar ideas about religion, they do not have a unified, organized agenda.

Well, except for the Baptists. Watch out for those guys. :wink:

17

Another former fundamentalist checking in to agree with Mangetout that it is possible to cease to be a fundamentalist without ceasing to be a Christian.

I was very much a fundamentalist/Biblical inerrantist as a younger man. Not anymore.

What triggered the change was basically twofold -
[ul]
[li]Evolution (believe it or not) vs. creation. I was told by a person who was both fundamentalist and creationist that, if I looked at the evidence with an unbiased and objective mind, I would conclude that creationism was the truth. So I did, and he was wrong.[/li]
Evidence for evolution is not strong, it is overwhelming. It is simply not possible that the creation stories in Genesis are literally true. Therefore, all of the Bible cannot be literally true. Unless, for some reason, God is trying to trick me, and I have no chance whatever of outwitting Him. So I might as well fall for it.
[li]I discovered at almost the same point in my life that my understanding of the Trinity had been officially condemned as heretical by the Church in the third century AD. It is funny that this was such a liberating experience, but I also realized that I couldn’t explain the difference between what I thought and what the official church teaching was in terms that made any sense. Add to that the arguments in the Church over the exact nature of the Eucharist, and you have a Shodan confused over why there were such conflicts over things that didn’t seem to make any difference. And a distinction without a difference is no distinction. Could it then be possible that issues of equally fervent concern to the modern Church are equally trivial or meaningless?[/ul] [/li]And so I no longer felt myself to be a fundamentalist. I decided to stick to what I really believed, rather than what I was told to believe.

Maybe I am wrong about all this. I can only trust the Lord to continue to lead me into all truth, as He has done to date, and see where I end up.

YMMV.

Regards,
Shodan

18

I don’t recall seeing any suggestion of bringing religion into schools, though I have seen several suggestions that education is key and/or helped them. Education can happen in many contexts, including college, which seems to be for many people the place where it happened to them.

This thread has been a real eye-opener for me, personally. I didn’t really consider myself a former fundamentalist, but after reading lel’s story, I guess I have to re-evaluate that. My story is similar. I was sent to (interestingly enough) a Church of Christ every Sunday via schoolbus, so my parents could have some time on Sunday morning. Occassionally my aunts would take us to their Church of Nazarine (sp?). Anyway, I guess this was from about age 3 to age 10 or so.

As a teenager I was an atheist, occassionally rabidly so, usually in the face of attempted conversion. I went to a very liberal Christian college (Berea) and there had the defining spiritual moment in my life thus far. I went through a course called Western Traditions that traced the religious history of the west from goddess cultures right up to Martin Luther. The man teaching the course was a former priest who had been in attendance at Vatican II. He’d left the priesthood, but he was still a believer. Anyway, he very deftly pulled the wool right out from over our eyes–every one of us, believers and non-believers and those who didn’t care too. He revealed to us the historical truth that allowed us to recast our own opinion based on our own thinking. For me, I ended up being so grateful for the process that I spent three weeks in that class crying my relief (yeah, it was kind of embarassing). I wasn’t an athiest anymore, and I still didn’t believe. I came to the conclusion that nobody knew anything for sure–and that allowed me to let it go.

In the ensuing eight years, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that there is no god, at least as far as it can be comprehended by the errant human mind. It’s been a gradual change, based on the constant input of information to my mind, and I still hold to the idea that I don’t know, I’ve just given it my best, educated guess.

I live on the Kentucky-Indiana border and this area is pretty thick with the religious, and increasingly evangelical in nature. I try not to worry too much what other people are believing, but it’s hard to deny that there is an impact legally and finacially speaking. Just last week the state had to mail a check to the ACLU when it lost its legal fight to erect giant copies of Moses tablet outside the statehouse. It’s these legal and financial influences that I was speaking when I was speaking of neutralizing the effects. I really don’t have any idea how to do that, except to vote, which I do.

Anyway, thanks for all the answers, and thanks for teaching me a bit about myself as well.

19

I don’t recall seeing any suggestion of bringing religion into schools, though I have seen several suggestions that education is key and/or helped them. Education can happen in many contexts, including college, which seems to be for many people the place where it happened to them.

This thread has been a real eye-opener for me, personally. I didn’t really consider myself a former fundamentalist, but after reading lel’s story, I guess I have to re-evaluate that. My story is similar. I was sent to (interestingly enough) a Church of Christ every Sunday via schoolbus, so my parents could have some time on Sunday morning. Occassionally my aunts would take us to their Church of Nazarine (sp?). Anyway, I guess this was from about age 3 to age 10 or so.

As a teenager I was an atheist, occassionally rabidly so, usually in the face of attempted conversion. I went to a very liberal Christian college (Berea) and there had the defining spiritual moment in my life thus far. I went through a course called Western Traditions that traced the religious history of the west from goddess cultures right up to Martin Luther. The man teaching the course was a former priest who had been in attendance at Vatican II. He’d left the priesthood, but he was still a believer. Anyway, he very deftly pulled the wool right out from over our eyes–every one of us, believers and non-believers and those who didn’t care too. He revealed to us the historical truth that allowed us to recast our own opinion based on our own thinking. For me, I ended up being so grateful for the process that I spent three weeks in that class crying my relief (yeah, it was kind of embarassing). I wasn’t an athiest anymore, and I still didn’t believe. I came to the conclusion that nobody knew anything for sure–and that allowed me to let it go.

In the ensuing eight years, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that there is no god, at least as far as it can be comprehended by the errant human mind. It’s been a gradual change, based on the constant input of information to my mind, and I still hold to the idea that I don’t know, I’ve just given it my best, educated guess.

I live on the Kentucky-Indiana border and this area is pretty thick with the religious, and increasingly evangelical in nature. I try not to worry too much what other people are believing, but it’s hard to deny that there is an impact legally and finacially speaking. Just last week the state had to mail a check to the ACLU when it lost its legal fight to erect giant copies of Moses tablet outside the statehouse. It’s these legal and financial influences that I was speaking when I was speaking of neutralizing the effects. I really don’t have any idea how to do that, except to vote, which I do.

Anyway, thanks for all the answers, and thanks for teaching me a bit about myself as well.

20

I don’t recall seeing any suggestion of bringing religion into schools, though I have seen several suggestions that education is key and/or helped them. Education can happen in many contexts, including college, which seems to be for many people the place where it happened to them.

This thread has been a real eye-opener for me, personally. I didn’t really consider myself a former fundamentalist, but after reading lel’s story, I guess I have to re-evaluate that. My story is similar. I was sent to (interestingly enough) a Church of Christ every Sunday via schoolbus, so my parents could have some time on Sunday morning. Occassionally my aunts would take us to their Church of Nazarine (sp?). Anyway, I guess this was from about age 3 to age 10 or so.

As a teenager I was an atheist, occassionally rabidly so, usually in the face of attempted conversion. I went to a very liberal Christian college (Berea) and there had the defining spiritual moment in my life thus far. I went through a course called Western Traditions that traced the religious history of the west from goddess cultures right up to Martin Luther. The man teaching the course was a former priest who had been in attendance at Vatican II. He’d left the priesthood, but he was still a believer. Anyway, he very deftly pulled the wool right out from over our eyes–every one of us, believers and non-believers and those who didn’t care too. He revealed to us the historical truth that allowed us to recast our own opinion based on our own thinking. For me, I ended up being so grateful for the process that I spent three weeks in that class crying my relief (yeah, it was kind of embarassing). I wasn’t an athiest anymore, and I still didn’t believe. I came to the conclusion that nobody knew anything for sure–and that allowed me to let it go.

In the ensuing eight years, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that there is no god, at least as far as it can be comprehended by the errant human mind. It’s been a gradual change, based on the constant input of information to my mind, and I still hold to the idea that I don’t know, I’ve just given it my best, educated guess.

I live on the Kentucky-Indiana border and this area is pretty thick with the religious, and increasingly evangelical in nature. I try not to worry too much what other people are believing, but it’s hard to deny that there is an impact legally and finacially speaking. Just last week the state had to mail a check to the ACLU when it lost its legal fight to erect giant copies of Moses tablet outside the statehouse. It’s these legal and financial influences that I was speaking when I was speaking of neutralizing the effects. I really don’t have any idea how to do that, except to vote, which I do.

Anyway, thanks for all the answers, and thanks for teaching me a bit about myself as well.