Thoughts of a former atheist.

The other day I saw a cartoon picture [in regards to the recent school shooting in Oregon] of two people walking side by side. One said, "Why didn't God stop the shooting?" The other responded, "How could he? He's not allowed in school any more." But that's not the focus of this post. The focus is on what happened next. Someone commented and basically said they did not believe in God, he isn't real, and until proven factual with evidence, they will continue to be agnostic. I understand where they are coming from because most of my life I thought the same way.

A little background.

I grew up in an atheist home. Though I did have some exposure to church and 'god' it was not the God of the bible (but I did not know that at the time). Religion was forced upon me by way of prizes, treats, and other such bribery. "If you come to sunday school x times in a row you will get a free bible!" "If you bring a friend you will get a snickers bar!" "Do you want to burn in hell? Then ask Jesus to come into your heart!" "Do you believe Jesus died on the cross? Then you are saved forever!" etc. That was mostly the IFB church, however I also attended Catholic mass many times with the other side of my family. Stand up. Sit down. Kneel. Sit. Kneel. Stand. Kneel. Say this. Say that. What was the priest saying? How do they know exactly what to say all at the same time? Talk about confusing! Once I became "old enough" to absolutely refuse to go to any sort of church, I did. I hated it; all of it. It was like torture to me and I hated anything that had to do with Christianity.

As a child and teenager I LOVED science. Really. I soaked in all I could, did all the extra credit that was offered, went the extra mile in every project. In 9th grade Biology class my overall score for the year was something like 110%. Chemistry. Physics. Anything that had to do with science and I was there. I cannot remember most of my teachers names but of all the ones I do remember most were my science teachers. Mr. Floyd in 7th grade. Mr. Kennedy in 8th grade. Mr. Dappen in 9th grade. Mr. Doctor in 11th grade. For 10th grade I was in Phoenix and everything was messed up ... I cannot remember my teacher's name but I do remember she was from Boston, had a neat accent and a really good way of teaching the metric system which I still use to this very day. I liked her a lot. And of course I dropped out in the 11th grade so that was it for me. I did however go on to ace my GED test and get a college degree ... in accounting.

Anyway, these teachers had a huge impact on me. And science was my passion. I wanted to be an aerospace engineer with the goal of becoming an astronaut. Yeap. That was my dream for a long time and I was on my way ... until I got pregnant :) for which I am very thankful.

I was a strong advocate of evolution. It was a fact to me without any doubting in any way whatsoever. I thought those who believed otherwise were ignorant or brainwashed or just plain stupid. I was really good at arguing my beliefs.

Then I started homeschooling my children and hanging out with a bunch of professing Christians. At the request of my oldest child, we started attending a contemporary church (that's where Tylor wanted to go because we had visited in the past with close family). Though I still did not pick up the bible and actually read it and I still claimed to be an atheist, I was going through the motions of modern Christianity and feeling good about myself ... feeling good knowing that I was getting my children involved in 'good things' with 'good people'. This actually went on for 3 or 4 years, but at one point in there, a family member and I were driving around hitting all the garage sales we could find and  we started talking about science. I really cannot remember the flow of the conversation but I remember very specifically saying, "Can you believe there are actually Christians who believe the earth is only about 6,000 years old? That is so ridiculous! Science has proven it is millions or even billions of years old!" She said, "Lots of Christians believe that." Though it was not spoken, I knew she was part of the "lots of Christians" group. We dropped the subject but I never forgot it.

Somewhere in that time I got hold of the Kent Hovind seminars on DVD. He had one seminar that was titled something like, "Lies in the textbooks." In this seminar he explained all of the different THEORIES that are taught as FACTS ... and many of those THEORIES were proven FALSE or FRAUDULANT years ago, yet the school textbooks (and many museums) still taught them!!!!!! (I just did a youtube search - the seminar is titled as I said and it's been posted several times if you are interested in seeing it ... though I'll say now I do NOT agree with everything he believes.)

This was very hard for me. My whole system of belief was crumbling down all around me. I honestly felt so BETRAYED for all of those years ... being taught evolution as a FACT instead of a THEORY and never being offered an alternate belief or theory ... this is NOT proper science!!!! I was well aware of the Scientific Method, and that's what made me feel even more betrayed and helped me see that I WAS THE ONE WHO WAS BRAINWASHED!

Back to the commenter ... they will not believe in God until there is absolute PROOF that he exists. This person needs EVIDENCE. Well, come on now, let's look at this logically. I am using a computer. The very fact that it IS tells me that someone CREATED it. It did not just evolve over 'millions of years' 'by chance'. The believer in Evolution would think I was stupid if I believed the computer evolved by chance. And the human body is MUCH MORE COMPLICATED than a computer!! Why do we look at a painting or a computer or a car and KNOW that someone created them but then we look at a human being and KNOW (or I should say, "know") that it was a complete accident or complete chance? That makes no logical sense whatsoever. We'd rather believe we were a complete accident and formed by chance out of sludge than to believe that we were created by choice with a purpose.

Well, believe it or not, I've always been a very logical thinker, but it took me a while to see through the poison I was inoculated with. Poison, plain and simple. Such BAD, TERRIBLE SCIENCE!!!

Though still a huge skeptic and teetering on the fence of belief and unbelief, about 10 years or so ago when I finally first picked up the bible and started reading what Jesus taught with an open mind and a heart really just wanting to know the truth, I learned of another way where my thinking had been skewed or corrupted. You see, all of my life I hated a god that really did NOT exist. The Atheists are RIGHT! When I read what Jesus taught I learned very quickly that the God he teaches about is not the same god that most of professing Christianity is following. It was not God's fault! It was OURS!

And that's all I have to say about that ... for now ...