I was introduced to Christianity at a very young age. My parents gave me a biblical name with the intentions that I would someday be a minister, and so my beliefs were very much influenced by them. I never associated myself with a certain denomination. My parents would hop churches, everytime a problem arose, which was quite often. Moving on, I accepted jesus at age 12. For a long while, I was a very devout Christian, as I was planning on fulfilling my parents wishes. At around 18, the repetitive messages were not spiritually satisfying for me, and some things were not making sense. My interpretation of the biblical message was a bit different, and I simply found myself in disagreement with Christian theology. I believed that all sin was the same in God's eyes, whether that was a lie or a murder, and this was because I saw similarities hidden in the motives, before we even commit a sin. I saw selfishness. It's not that selfishness is an ethical issue, as driven by survival. But it becomes an ethical issue when the self interest of an individual takes unecassary precedence, to the point that it causes harm and suffering on the lives of others. Sin to me, was not commited externally, but internally. It originated within the heart, it originated with a motive. Rebirth, to me, was a change of one's heart, a change of mind, a change of motives. It's to become selfless. The death of Jesus to me, was the epitome of selflessness. I didn't believe that it supernaturally washed away my sins, I believed that being "saved" took effort on my part, and what I was being saved from was myself, my own selfish heart. Following this personal ideology, I would analyze people's motives, and I found myself alone, caught in a world where people were completely motivated by self interest, even when it came to self-conduct.
I didn't agree with "pay tithe or you're succeptible to hell". I didn't believe in saving people so Jesus will come sooner. I didn't believe in, "accept Jesus so you can go to heaven". I didn't believe in "do good works so you can go to heaven". I didn't see any differences between this and self-bribery. I saw the adulteration of works with self-interest, where our survival becomes our every motive. When I saw Christianity (no offense), I saw people who were only concerned with themselves and the meaningless dogma entertwined. I saw what I thought was falsity and corruption.
Following this was my digression from Christianity. I began studying different religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim, Taoism, Judaism, you name it. I found other religions to be more compatible with my beliefs, such as Buddhism. Not too long afterwards, I began studying evolution, psychology, neurology, astronomy and other scientific fields. Science gave me a more profound understanding of nature, and I felt it was more compelling, because it explained things wherease religion didn't. As faith and spirituality began to subside, logic and reason compensated. At age 20, I became agnostic, which is where I still stand as of today. And of course, I also abandoned my ideology.
After a year or so I realized I didn't feel any of these gods, either, and fiddled around in Wicca and Asatru. When neither of those worked I reverted to basic 'something kinda paganish,' then through RF learned about Taoism. Since I've stopped trying to tell myself 'there are God(s/esses)! You need to look for them!' my belief in any higher power has steadily gone downhill until it got to where it is now: 'If there's anything out there, it either can't or won't care about us.'
