Reply to How did you become religious?

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "How did you become religious?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was raised Protestant, but never really felt like it made sense, even as a kid. As a teenager, I became agnostic, mostly because I couldn't reconcile so many tragedies in the world with the concept of an all-powerful, loving God. I never considered myself an atheist, because I couldn't fully commit to the idea that there is nothing out there, but I was comfortable with questioning and being uncertain of God's existence.

In college, I became friends with an atheist and her certainty that God didn't exist caused a knee-jerk reaction in me that God [i]did[/i] exist. Acknowledging the certainty I felt caused me to reexamine my agnosticism, and ultimately I went looking for a religion that embraced the uncertainty of God's nature (or our understanding of God) without necessarily being uncertain of God's existence. I found Judaism, which encourages questioning and critical thinking and views those not as a crisis of faith, but as an expression of faith. I converted to Judaism and married a Jew and am now raising a Jewish family.[/quote]

"I couldn't fully commit to the idea that there is nothing out there" - Overcoming the fear that has been instilled in you through most of your life both through direct teaching (you were raised protestant) and society/culture (christianity is the majority religion in the US) is typically the last step to realizing truth. It's a shame you have not yet been able to reach it, but I respect your search. [/quote]
I think you may have misunderstood my story. It wasn't out of fear that I rejected atheism (which I never committed to) or agnosticism. I wasn't afraid of the possibility of nothingness or the uncertainty of not knowing; I embraced the unknown of God's existence and largely lived my formative years without God. I realized when presented with atheist certainty that there is no God, that I did, in fact, believe there is a God, and that my issue was simply with the Christian understanding of God, rather than God's existence itself. I'm not still reaching or searching for a truth. For me, Judaism is it.[/quote]

Perhaps your atheist friend expressed certainty, but atheism simply means not having a religion and/or not believing in God: a - theism.  Nothing about certainty.

In fact, most atheists will acknowledge that you can't be certain about any invisible entity, like God or fairies.  I am an atheist because I studied religion and found it to be man-made.  I also am scientifically savvy and don't believe in any other invisible beings (e.g., fairies) and I see that humans have no expectations for their believed pets to live forever (they put them to "sleep").

So at some point, giving up the idea of God and everlasting life in heaven seemed natural.  Though it wasn't easy to give up the concept of living forever in heaven. Once I gave up that idea, I started to enjoy my life here on earth more, knowing it's the only one I have and I'm lucky to have it.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics