Why, old pals, it is actually quite tedious. But as I'm sure you know, I'm sharing it with you anyways!
Here I shall offer you the interweb transcript between my friend & I:
Friend:
So what made you go from being Christian to being agnostic?
Me:
Well, I don't want you thinking I'm trying to convince you of anything in my reasoning (so please keep that in mind when reading this, I love discussing religion but it's a passion for a lot of people and I have no intentions of trying convert people away from Christianity - this is just how I found my own self), and it's kind of a long story, but...
(Insert flame-retardant suit / shield here...)
My first instinct reading anything about Jesus Christ in the bible itself, was that he was misunderstood. From everything I've read (and I'll admit I don't remember every detail and can be completely wrong - but this is my interpretation), he doesn't claim to be the messiah. He claims to be God's son, but then says everybody is God's children, so to me that wasn't proof of anything special. A lot of people use the argument of when Jesus says "I am" as his proclamation, but if I remember correctly, that was only in response to the Roman's asking him "Are you the man they call Jesus Christ, son of God" (or something along those lines) and that's true. They called him Jesus Christ, son of god. They referred to him as the messiah, so even if he was asked "are you the one they refer to as the messiah" and said "yes", it wasn't proof to me that he was.
Then there's the fact that the Christian religion is only 2,000 years old, and the Old Testament is only 1,000 years older than that, making it extremely young in the great scheme of things. To me, if I was going to be right about the christian religion, then I would have to give Scientology a chance, and wonder if maybe the Mormon sect was right.
I don't really look at the bible as anything more in depth than a fiction story based on real life events anymore, because it is a good example of history, but even the oldest stories in the new testament were written 50-60 years after Jesus's death and none of them by the apostles they were named after. Then the fact that the entire bible was written in Hebrew, translated to Latin, translated to English and various other languages (when it's obvious that no language has perfect direct translations) makes me feel that the bible I've always read was unreliable. If I learned Hebrew (and if I still called myself a christian, I probably would just to try it) then I would want to read the bible in its original text to try to understand it better. Even then, though - the bible was written by multiple people, in multiple times, and then rewritten for dispersion by people (who,unlike the god they worship, make mistakes) things could have been written wrong, and we already see the bible contradicting itself in multiple sections about multiple issues. It was then that the bible stopped being evidence in either direction to me.
Then there was the political aspects of religion that upset me. The different factions of Christianity changing the rules to suit their purpose - like the roman catholics and their crusades. Us Americans and our unequal rights for homosexuality (this is a big issue to me, two of my sisters are gay and I won't follow a god that says they're anymore wrong about life than I am). For awhile, I resented my father for trying to instill in us that lifestyle when it obviously hurt one of his daughters so much. I came to learn that it's normal for someone who's beliefs are swaying away from their parents to go through a variety of emotions like that, and eventually I realized that Christianity was a good thing for my father. It changed him into a much better man than he was when my sister or I were growing up. If anything now, I'm jealous that my youngest sisters had him as a better role model.
I came to the conclusion that religion was about the people that needed it, and had very little to do with truth about the afterlife or our creation. People don't necessarily find god because they lived bad lives or are weak in any sense, but for a lot of people that faith makes them into a better part of humanity. My quest for faith in someone else's religion wasn't going to result in anything but depression and uncertainty in me. I needed to realize that I didn't actual believe there was a god, but that that was okay. When I came to terms with that, I began to feel so much more confident and comfortable with myself. And that's why I no longer fit the mentality - "I'm right and anyone that disagrees is wrong" anymore because I'm right for me, and not necessarily right for other people. Christianity is right for a lot of people, and they are no less right about their spiritual beliefs than I am. Unfortunately I do end up butting heads with a lot of Christians about that, but since the US population is somewhere in the 90% christian, it's inevitable. I'd butt heads with any religion that chose to argue with me.
My husband and I like to debate politics and beliefs a LOT, and we'll both take both sides so that's usually an enlightenment to us both on what someone else might feel. He doesn't conform to any religion either, but I have a feeling he believes in a god because he wants to, just not the christian or Wicca gods he was raised with (at least, that's how he conveys it to me)
This actually is only a small portion of what I've decided about my faith and doesn't really touch on what I believe, but it's hard to actually put everything into words. You know you'll always forget something. I've actually been trying to write out my beliefs for awhile, but my thoughts aren't very organized. Now that I have a son, I want him to understand what led me and his father to who we are, and then hopefully he'll be able to make whatever decision he wants about his own religion.
That's right folks, the good people at agnostic diaries actually can maintain a moderate amount of seriousness in dire situations. That's not to say we enjoy it... that polite attitude you might of sensed? Oh, that's part of the unreliability of interweb speak. It's unfortunate you had to bear witness to such atrocities.
We shall be returning soon with more tales from beyond the sarcasm
