garyneal
JoinedWas raised in a non religious household. Parenting Beyond Belief, a book that describes how to teach morals without religion, actually describes my upbringing. I was influenced into belief by my religious uncle and a friend who got the religion bug when we were little. I became a born again Christian around 1991 but backslid sometime later by 1994 when I was fed up with the rigid rules and doctrines of the cult like Independent Fundamental Baptist churches I attended. My faith was renewed in 1997 when I became involved with a Christian ministry at college and remained faithful up until 2011. During that time I met and married my JW wife and began studying with them in 2003 up until 2009. They were nice people who had a unique perspective on the scriptures and found some of their doctrines to be truthful or at least make sense during that time. By 2009 I was not sure what was the true faith and set out to find it. Operating on the premise that the Bible was the inerrant word of God, I sought to read and study it most thoroughly to discover the Truth (with a capital T) and ultimately found myself going down a rabbit hole that eventually led me away from my belief in the certainties in Christianity. Long story, too long to tell here but follows the whole narrative of me discovering the truth about the Bible, about my faith, and me trying to run from my doubts until I had no choice but to embrace them. I consider myself a skeptic now who sees God in a more deistic perspective with my answer to the question, "Is there a God?" being "I don't know." A kind of a weak atheist.