Followup to: Crisis of Faith
I thought this comment from "Jo" deserved a bump to the front page:
My mother raised us with Christian values, baptised us, sent us to catechism. I always rejected all of this, but had to do it anyway until I was 12. My father has always been an atheist. In the country I'm from, religion is a personal matter. The Churches and the State have been separated since 1905.
The secularism of France is a cultural and political trait that I've come to really appreciate. What I see and the stories I hear in the US seem very strange to me. I hear families who turn their back on a brother, a cousin, because this person came out and admitted to be an atheist. I read work emails where people call to God. People in politics must have faith if they hope to be elected.
Maybe you would consider moving to a country where religious freedom is guaranteed by law?
"So here I am having been raised in the Christian faith and trying not to freak out over the past few weeks because I've finally begun to wonder whether I believe things just because I was raised with them. Our family is surrounded by genuinely wonderful people who have poured their talents into us since we were teenagers, and our social structure and business rests on the tenets of what we believe. I've been trying to work out how I can 'clear the decks' and then rebuild with whatever is worth keeping, yet it's so foundational that it will affect my marriage (to a pretty special man) and my daughters who, of course, have also been raised to walk the Christian path.
Is there anyone who's been in this position - really, really invested in a faith and then walked away?"