This post was going to, originally, be, why I am a liberal.
At one time many years ago I thought and would have told you that I was a Christian, and a Faithful person, in my own way. My way of believing was deeply rooted in growing up in a predominantly Catholic family and in a liberal family. My faith was built around a personal relationship and understanding of God and how he worked in my life. This has eroded over many years to the point that I would say that I now run from atheist to agnostic to a kind of deism. But in all of those things I am not a Christian.
Here are a few of the reasons I am not longer a Christian.
The first step on my journey away from faith was coming out. I came out at a Christian college and it isn't like the moment I came out I lost my faith. What happen is a complex mix of losing the refuge of religion and the anger and homophobia that was directed at me. Before I came out I could hide myself in religion and against the homophobia and anger that a community that professed to love me directed at me and those like me. Instead of being embraced and loved by a religion built on love, I was pushed away and demonized by it. It is hard to keep faith in something that consistently turns it back on you and harms you. So I moved away from my faith and stretched too far it broke.
Another thing that affected my faith is science. I studied biology in school and witnessed many people ignore objective truths about the natural world because religion told them it couldn't be. Over the years things like evolution, and climate change.These are observable facts in and about the world, we ignore them and make ourselves ignorant to science at our own peril. Science will always overtake religious explanations for natural phenomenon.
There is something called Occam's razor, when there is two or more competing explanations the simplest or the one with the least assumptions is probably correct. I am a fan of simplicity, the simplest explanation is the best for me. There are two many assumptions with god and I go with the simplest explanation that there is no god.
There is beauty in Christianity there is no denying this fact. There is the call to justice and helping others that fits very much with my outlook on life. I believe Jesus called people to look outside themselves and to help the other. To look upon the less fortunate with compassion and to offer a hand out and hand up. There is also a very ugly side to Christianity this I find very hard to deal with. There is a strain that offers no compassion for those less fortunate, that equates faith with money and social status, that puts sin before love, that puts the unborn before the living. That believes in their right to their beliefs trumps others rights to their own beliefs. Love is the story the Bible tells, Love and forgiveness is what Jesus offered and much of mainstream American Christianity offers only a cold shoulder to those in need, they care only for keeping what is theirs, they will not defend or support the living while professing that they protect the unborn, or think that capital punishment is ok.
I am not painting all Christians this way but there are a great many vocal Christians and no vocal ones who align themselves this way. Think about this, if you think it is unfair for all Christians to be painted with this brush, speak up. If your reasoning for not helping others is that it is an affront to your religious beliefs then I think you need to re-evaluate what you believe. If you think that you are not obligated to help others, re-read your Bible. If your religion is defined by who isn't a part of it or in opposition to something you are wrong.
If you are sad for the my loss of faith please don't be, I have a rich spiritual life that does not hinge on believing in a god.
Thank you for reading my, probably, incoherent writing on my faith or lack there of.
