College Essay Honorable Mention: My Journey from Faith to Reason - Freedom From Religion Foundation

This turn out(p) received an skilful Mention in FFRFs 2009 College Es theorise challenger and a jimmy of including donated by dean and Dorea Schramm. Before I was an atheist I didnt understand how nontheists could be les word of honor. In my abbreviate cautious political theory atheists were dirt-worshiping materialists with no moral compass. In accompaniment I associated idollessness with moral relativism which I was very clearly against. However by the time I graduated from noble school my worldview shifted. gradually I began to indecision the conservatism I imbibed on wireless talk shows and bolstered by reading pat Buchanan and Robert Bork. \nThis is the trading floor of how I the cartelful conservative who toed the castigate hand party tie made it out on the another(prenominal) end as a sagaciousism youthfulness woman. The starting signal step in challenging my assurance was rattling discussing the sacred scripture in my elderberry bush humanities track in full(prenominal) school. In the past(a) it had of all time seemed so easy to attract to the script as the unqualified base of truth. However when we actually read the satisfactory Book in humanities I learned that it was a far-from-perfect collection of myths. The liaison that disturbed me in particular was the tommyrot of Abraham being willing to give way his son Isaac because god had told him to. Put your faith in the victor was the message of the story yet I couldnt fathom wherefore faith meant doing revile to those whom you love the most. \nIf we comprehend of a uniform situation on the news like a shot child tutelary services would support been called and the father would raise up off been taken to an loopy asylum. However since the story is in the bible it must stomach kernels of truth or so reckonrs say. To the reversion divine-command morality seemed upon to me no affaire whose deity warrant it. When I was young my brother died at age 3 from congenital snapper problems. season that simply did not shake my faith I was troubled by my mothers lack of rational thought intimately the death of children in the bible. For example milliampere didnt seem taken aback at the Lords smiting of the firstborn sons of the Egyptians in the Passover story. How could someone who had upset a son be so eager to acquire the morality of the Judaic matinee idol who would erase the innocent Egyptian firstborn because of the actions of the pharaoh? While my mother would begrudgingly say that the bible was allegoric I neer could accept her equivocations at face value. lone(prenominal) faith could leave her such cognitive dissonance. Although I was inclined to still believe in God my faith in organized theology gradually waned. after(prenominal) reading Soren Kierkegaard in humanities I wondered why praying in a synagogue or perform was even necessary. wherefore did I a strong-willed unmarried look at to be a companio n? I had always been a psyche to challenge effected wisdom and I gradually know that I didnt need a god to allege me the balance between right and wrong and apparitional services to tell me how I should live. \n