My faith

This is a bit fragmented and all over the place, but here goes ...

I'm 63 years old now. I was raised as a Catholic, attended a Catholic grade school and was taught by nuns.

After returning from military service at age 23, my wife and I settled in St. Louis, Missouri. Our marriage wasn't doing so well. I no longer attended church. I never wanted to. I had to go. I've never been an atheist or agnostic, but my religion was based on my upbringing and I had no real awareness of God. I just believed out of fear, I think.One day my wife issued an ultimatum of sorts and I was extremely distressed by it. I loved my wife and wanted our marriage to work. As I was driving to work one day, I saw my hands on the steering wheel and became strongly aware of my mortality. I also, for the first time in my life, felt what people call "the presence of God." It was bizarre. I got to work, got a cup of coffee and sat in a break room mulling over my marriage situation. A man I knew, not a friend, walked up to my table and announced, "If you don't have God in your life, you're marriage will never work; it was a second bizarre episode in that I never told anyone about my marital problems. Later he explained he was acting on an urge to do that and was shaking in his boots about being wrong or religious, but he did it anyway out of a sense of obedience to the urging he believed was from God. That was the beginning of a series of circumstantial marvels ... and making a long story short, at some point I experienced what is referred to as being "born again."
Since that day, the sense of the presense of God never left me. I don't defend this. It's just the way it is.

Now, having said all that ...

I think an atheist is in a better position than I was. I agree with atheists who say that religion is offensive or arrogant. I still find it so. I've read the bible through many times and aside from the book Ezekiel, I understood what I read. I never disected it scientifically as some Christians do. First, the bible isn't one writing, but a collection of writings that have to be assessed on their own merit and not used as a basis for science, but to hear what the writer is saying. Nowhere do I find anything in it that is intended to teach or reveal facts about the physical world--at least not as the purpose for the writing.

I hear christians talk about the teachings of Jesus. From my perspective Jesus didn't teach very much that is new to us. He taught Tau, didn't he? Even the Law (of Moses) doesn't teach anything new. The ten commandments and the teachings of Jesus all talk about relationships we have with each other and with God. Paul wrote, "But the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." -- Galatians 5:22. These are
n't new things or unique to christianity. Atheists value these qualities too. These are ancient. Christians believe we are fallen from these virtues.

Why do atheists value these things? Why are they not all hedonists? I think if an atheist becomes a "believer", they're the real deal. Some church-raised folks are too, b
ut sadly not most of us.

I love the atheist discussion web site. I don't respond to very many postings.

Oh, another thing I do ... one of the atheists on this site pointed out that the word faith means trust. Love it. He's right. I prefer the word. I mean, how does it make
us better to just beleive with our minds that God exists? I see no value in that. But I do value trusting God. In the military (I'm a disabled veteran), we had a term "
holding the rope". Who would you trust holding the rope (while you dangle over the cliff)? There are men I trust holding the rope. There are men who will stop a bullet f
or me. God is like that.

Perhaps it is more arrogant for us to think we are the center of things or science is the arbitrator of truth. The truth is, unless you've had God come after you, like he d
id with me, I don't see how anyone can know the truth about him.

I've been asked to share my experience on this site by atheists and never would do it. So now I've done it.

Be gentle with me please--I'm wading through this perplexing life just as you are.

Chris, is this over the line? I'm not trying to convert anyone; I'm just sharing my life from my perspective.

Ken

Thanks for sharing. I know a lot of religious people who have had religious experiences and feel that they are extremely compelling. I don't discount the experience, I believe that as a neurological phenomena it was probably very real. The reason I don't find them personally compelling is because people of every faith make similar claims, and since we know how fallible the brain is and how fallible our memories are, it seems that the events you are describing are more likely attributable to neurology and not to the actual existence of the supernatural. I intend no disrespect towards your experiences, it may very well be that you are correct and these experiences are real, but I think we can both agree that a personal revelation shouldn't be accepted by a third party as evidence given the other possibilities of it's origin. Given a similar experience it's hard to say how I would react to it. I will say that I like your perspective on religion and wish more theists shared it. Cheers.

I actually just moved from Whitehorse to Red Deer.

I went to the college for the Pre-Employment Program, and worked briefly for Ben's. It's odd going fro a ridiculously liberal town to a ridiculously conservative town. I've always been somewhere in the middle.