My father was raised a Catholic, but after Vatican II, his family dislike what was going on in the Catholic Church, so they stopped going. My mother was a Disciple of Christ. When they got married, they became Methodists sometime afterwards. I think they attended church semi-regularly until my father went to Los Angeles to work while I stayed with my mother most of the time. We still went to church occasionally, but it was rare. Although I thought a lot of Christianity was hokey, I was afraid of God and would do anything to gain his pleasure.
From a very early age, I remember reading about dinosaurs and the solar system and this scientific view of the universe seemed so neat, but more advanced that what I knew about Christianity, which seemed more personal, thus creating the first sign of conflict. I asked my second grade teacher, "Which came first: dinosaurs or Jesus?" She didn't answer me, probably to avoid any conflict.
Before I finished elementary school, my parents were back together. In sixth grade, we learned a little about evolution. It seemed reasonable to believe in, given the fossil evidence. Also, at this time I wanted to be a better person. I was pretty suicidal, although I prayed every day. I decided that I wanted to go to a nearby United Methodist church, with or without my parents, and so I did, without them. In eighth grade, I learned about the Big Bang. It seemed to be an alternative explanation of the creation of the universe, one of which I thought sounded reasonable. I didn't think whether or not God had a part in it, because I never considered it. Although I was aware of science and Christianity, I didn't put two and two together like I did in elementary school to see the conflict. I may have glossed over it once, but I thought it was irrelevant overall.
Eventually, I went to church so often, that I got my mom wanting to go with me and she became very active in the church ironically. My Dad I could care less about. If he went to hell, that was fine, because that would mean that I wouldn't have to put up with him in heaven. I didn't like my Dad very much, but that's a different story.
In high school, the conflict between science and Christianity arose again. I remember hearing my Dad talking to the news channel on the television screen that evolution and Intelligent Design should be taught alongside each other. That was in my freshman year in high school, when I was introduced to biology, although despite my agreement with Dad over the issue, I saw evolution as sound. It was like I was living in alternative universes that weren't aware of each other. Eventually, those universes would collide in my sophomore year, when we were taking standardize tests to pass the grade. I don't remember how, maybe it was a classmate nearby that mentioned it, but I became aware of the conflict between science and Christianity. I've always thought of Jesus's existence as being a fact, and in extension, his death and resurrection. I thought of the Big Bang and evolution as fact. The two seemed to conflict. I read the Book of Genesis, but never really made it through. It was so boring.
I was online a bit and I decided to research it. A friend on GameSpot referred to me to Kent Hovind, although I never got into him though. He was a creationist and he seemed reasonable to me so I became a creationist for a very short while, but I just couldn't see how the evidence for an old Earth, plate tectonics, changes and development in species were answered by the Bible.
In my second part of my junior year, I decided to read the Bible again, this time starting with three pages a day so I'll finish it within a year. I finished it within six month, more than half of it within one month span in June. I supported both a literal interpretation of the Bible and theistic evolution in a way I think that they were compatible. I essentially thought that the days described in Genesis 1 referred to long periods of time in which the Earth was formed and that Adam and Eve were simply the first humans to evolve from primates. The process of God creating man from dust was essentially abiogenesis and evolution. During this time, I became ironically more liberal despite becoming more religious. I supported same-sex marriage and abortion and opposed the death penalty and torture, thinking that Jesus died to forgive all sins, and struggling to even find abortion to be a sin, although I struggled to maintain the notion that a fetus wasn't alive. Also at the time, I tried to become as least superstitious as possible and developed a more materialistic-God hybrid belief. God was essentially materialistic and worked through matter to develop the universe and to intervene in it, though I wouldn't use the word "miracle".
When I read Revelation though, I realized that my interpretation of Genesis was wrong. I was trying to redefine what literal meant to constitute a meaning compatible with science. I realized that with the destructive and ridiculous book of Revelation, there was hardly much difference between the two books when it came to reality. I realized that my material God was in conflict with the God of the Bible. It was based too much on the pacifist Jesus and too little on God in the Old Testament and in Revelation. I became a materialist, although I would have used the term "atheist", and have been so ever since, save for an agnostic period in the first semester of my freshman year in college when I was trying to be objective. Agnosticism is not impartial though. It, too, casts an opinion
Although I maintained my liberalism for a year after becoming an atheist while taking cover as a Christian, during my agnostic period, I became a libertarian, because I realized that liberalism, fiscally, does not support freedom and only rewards laziness and corruption. I became an atheist again in the second semester of my freshman year and a conservative. During my libertarian phrase, I realized that I could not support the practice of abortion if I wanted to protect my right to life as a human being, so I become pro-life. I slowly became a conservative afterwards, preferring order and justice over disorder and "peace", thereby promotion immigration control, the death penalty, and torture. I've always been a skeptic of climate change though, even as a liberal though. I've been a conservative materialist for a year and a half, the longest duration I've spent under one political/religious philosophy since thinking about this issues seriously. The second longest was me being a liberal atheist for a year and tied for third longest was me being a libertarian agnostic and a liberal Christian for half a year.
The reason why I bring politics in this is because that's how I remember where I stood at certain periods of time. I do believe that politics and religion are entwined to a thorough extent and am astounded by the paradoxical nature of the religious and political beliefs that almost everyone holds.
Log in to comment