My Faith Journey (Part 1)

My Faith Journey. I grew up as an agnostic. At about age fifteen, I briefly and naively embraced Christianity, but my newborn faith quickly fizzled when my father assailed it with tough questions for which I had no answers (many of which are addressed in my first book, Beyond Blind Faith).

Unfortunately, when I talked to Christian friends and acquaintances, I found that they had no satisfactory answers, either—only the lame response, “you just have to believe.” But I could not “just believe” in a religion that seemed so foolish and nonsensical. On the other hand, I had no satisfactory alternative. The other world religions seemed to suffer from the same flaws as Christianity—or worse. Deism offered only a non-communicative God who was apparently indifferent to His creation. Christianity, as foolish as it appeared, made more sense than that.

I can remember being intensely disturbed by the thought of eternity. The incredible vastness of time and the endless expanse of space diminished my own existence to a desperate triviality. I craved immortality, but saw no way to attain it. Thoughts of suicide invaded my mind—if I must die anyway, what difference would it make when or how that occurred? In a hundred years, no one would care anyway. Suicide would at least end the struggle, the pain, and the feelings of hopelessness. But I lacked the courage to attempt it.

Convinced that Christianity was a lie, I evangelized on behalf of my hope-crushing dogma. During my early college years, I aggressively confronted matriculating Christians with the absurdity of their religion. I asked them those tough questions, and repeatedly found that even these intelligent and educated believers could not defend their faith. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was attacking a caricature of Christianity. Yet the Christians I encountered never challenged this flawed image of their religion—until I met B.P. (on to Part 2)