The last thing the world needs is another blog, yet here I find myself, anonymously typing the first post of this blog. What makes this one any different? From your point of view, probably not much. I'm just one more guy rambling on about what's going on in his life. For me, though, this one is different in a few ways. For one thing, I find myself struggling with beliefs I've held for over a third of a century. I've never known any other way of thinking than the one I was raised with. For another thing, this is the first time I've made any attempt to blog anonymously. For a person living in a Bible belt community, writing about the process of losing your faith is not exactly something I feel comfortable attaching my name to just yet. I'm still in the early stages of this, and I have a lot of information to process. I hope that by writing about the things I'm struggling with, I'll do a better job of arriving at a decision that I can be comfortable with. I am not sure how long the process will take, but I don't expect it to be short.
Let me start with a little background information about myself. I had a fairly typical Christian upbringing. I was raised Lutheran, baptized as a baby, and taken to church and Sunday school each week. During middle school I went through the confirmation process, publicly affirming my own baptism, and my intention to serve Christ. I had a few moments during high school and college where I doubted things a little bit, but nothing major. I got past these moments by praying and reading my Bible until the doubts subsided. I never really had any major "God spoke to me" moments. I never heard an audible voice, or even a voice in my head. When I prayed, or heard certain sermons, I'd just get a warm fuzzy feeling, and I assumed that this was God or the Holy Spirit working in me.
After college, I started working with computers. At this time I was in my mid twenties, and the internet was just getting started. I was a graphic artist and a web designer. I transitioned over into software development and kept myself busy until web 2.0. I managed to snag a nice Christian wife during this time. We've been married for 7+ years, and have a 3 year old child.
We started out going to church regularly, praying together, and reading the Bible together. Over time, my wife let it be known that she did not think attending church was necessary, and that she would rather sleep in than go to church. Each Sunday morning became tense, as I struggled to get us to church, and she resisted. I suggested that we try other churches, or different times to see if we could get anywhere, but for the most part, it was still a battle to get us to church with any level of regularity.
Fast forward a little bit, and our daughter is born. This pretty much put the final nail in the coffin. My wife used this as an excuse not to go, and I had lost all of my steam for fighting. I gave up.
While all this was going on at home, other things were developing at work. I managed to have a little time to check digg, reddit and twitter while working, and would often stumble upon articles or comments where Christians and athiests were getting into debates or flamewars. Prior to the internet, I never had to deal with very many serious challenges to my faith because of the community that I grew up in. The comments, discussion, and flame wars I saw made me realize that not only had I never really been challenged, but that there are a lot of people out there on both sides of the line that are very passionate about their beliefs.
Although I never really had to face any serious challenges during my teen years, I did develop the belief that I should never be afraid to hear an opposing point of view. I prided myself on being much more open minded than most people I knew. I believed that if I listened to someone that believed differently, I'd either learn that they were right about something, and I would have to change my beliefs, or I'd learn that my beliefs stood up to what they had to say, and I could become more confident in what I believed. For the longest of times (from my teen years until I was married), I was always able to dismiss an opposing point of view for one reason or another. I became stronger in my own faith. It wasn't until web 2.0 that I started to encounter arguments that I could not counter to my own satisfaction. That's when the walls started to crumble. That's what this blog will be about.
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