Hi, I'm Ana!

[anamg_mb]

Hello everyone, nice to meet you. I was a Christian all my life until a couple of weeks ago. I'm 33 years old so you can imagine how the process has been for me. I identify myself as an agnostic, I'm still learning and it's my desire to learn from all of you, your perspectives, your insights, and although my husband is also an agnostic, I really want to connect to a community.

I've had anxiety attacks in the last weeks because when reallity hit me I realized being a Christian determined more than I thought, and I'm trying to find peace in all the areas of my life in this new light. I'm so happy to finally be a part of this world without feeling caged to an ideology. I still hold on to the hope that god might be real and if that's so, with all my mind, with all my heart I would like him to introduce himself / herself / itself / themselves to me, because the god I believed in was invented by humans, I don't want that anymore and I don't feel like going back.

So yeah, that's me in a nutshell. What's up, y'all?

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Welcome to the forum Ana, and thanks for sharing your story!!

You are in the right place as I can say that I'm also an agnostic going through life, trying to figure it all out. One of the goals of the forum here is to be a place for many agnostics to unite so that way we can support each other (intellectually-speaking, for-starters) and have a voice.

I never went through any anxiety while I was becoming an agnostic, but I can empathize with you. I'm thinking that it can be scary going out in the world without the roadmap and support that Christianity provides - all neatly packaged for you.

Speaking from experience, I've tended to use my agnostic mindset to develop some of my values, and I can say that the journey through this has been rewarding. As an agnostic, I don't feel the need to shun religion completely since religion has some good aspects, so some of my values come from BOTH religion and secularism, as opposed to just one or the other. BUT if asked about the validity of those values, I stand ready to say that they are just my beliefs instead of being dogmatic and trying to impose them on others.

I've done enough rambling. I look forward to talking with you on all the topics we cover on the forum!

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

I'm so happy to finally be a part of this world without feeling caged to an ideology.

That was kind of my feeling in leaving fundamentalist Christian. A little bit of a let-down that I wouldn’t experience the “big” stuff like the Rapture. But also relief that I could live my own life.

I seemed to go through a process of:

Christian —> mystic —> agnostic —> atheist

You certainly don’t have to go through the same process!

I’ve kind of become pretty good at pulling the weird parts of the Bible and have done about 10 total threads on it. Not necessarily out-and-out contradictions, and evangelicals have a very high threshold of what constitutes that, but the weird parts.

That show the Bible was written by human beings, just like Beowulf and Shakespeare.

 

[anamg_mb]

Thank you guys for sharing your stories with me. It's amazing to find support in other people.

Right now I'm trying to learn as much as I can from youtube videos, so if you can recommend channels that help me in my journey of learning to live this life, please do, your suggestions are more than welcome.

My journey went more like from Christian to agnostic. But what can I say? I'm a newborn agnostic

I'm about to read Sophie's World because I want to learn a lot. I feel I've been missing out a lot so I definitely need to catch up with the world lol

Nice to meet you guys!

 

[AgnosticBoy]

I'm about to read Sophie's World because I want to learn a lo

Let us know if that turns out to be a good read.

Here's one review of it from Amazon.com

The author does a brilliant job intertwining two fascinating stories. The journey of discovery by young Sophie and a beginners guide to philosophy. I loved it.

I never heard of it before but I think it's a brilliant idea to get people to learn about philosophy, especially for teens.

But what can I say? I'm a newborn agnostic

Welcome to the club!

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Right now I'm trying to learn as much as I can from youtube videos, so if you can recommend channels that help me in my journey of learning to live this life, please do, your suggestions are more than welcome.

The “Atheist Experience” of Austin, Texas has some good hosts, although some of the shows are too long.

On the description of the show, if you click on the “…more” you get a timeline, and for a particular call, you can click on the time in blue.