Sportsdude wrote:
Its not that I don't believe its that I've graduated from church (been confirmed, grew up in the church enviroment) and that I already know what I'm going to do with that knowledge. I'm going to help people. There is nothing wrong with being 'secular' even thou I'm really not 'secular'.its just I know I will get that label if I stick around the midwest. To me religion is a private matter between you and whatever you believe or not believe in. I don't need someone who might not have an outlook on the world that is favourable to my beliefs. (It was at the missouri synod church, so I didn't want to here anti this and anti that) and (I have a problem with them because they create women as second class citzens, they can't be pastors or even deacons.)[/DIV]
What one believes is indeed a matter between oneself and one's creator - one reason why creeds have always 'got to me' is the way in which one is expected to stand up and quote the beliefs of another person or body, rather than one's own.
Your history seems to have been somewhat like mine, Sportsdude. I too grew up in the church and went through confirmation: strange thing was that it was immediately after I became confirmed that the doubts came into evidence - doubts which plagued and worried me for about 30 years until I found myself able to sort it all out and come to the realisation that my contiued, albeit tenuous, connection to the church of my youth and childhood had its foundation in the guilt that had been laid upon me simply because I was expected to believe what I couldn't.
Happily I have found a new stage on which to perform.
