"History" Or perhaps, "How we got here"

First, I should explain that Camille and I live in what may be the reddest of red states, yet I think that my upbringing was still relatively unusual, even for the area we live in. My parents are good people--really. I deeply love my parents and siblings, and I don't harbor any ill will toward them for raising me in congruence with their beliefs.

My parents are evangelical Christians, and I was raised in a strongly fundamentalist environment. I shared their views (almost entirely) until my third year of college. I was active in student ministries and I regularly attended services either in my home town, or in the town where I attended college.

After two years of college (and, not incidentally, two years of dating C), C and I got engaged and I decided to transfer to my hometown's well respected engineering school. Shortly after I transferred, C and I married.

Between our ridiculous workloads (academic and professional) and our newly-wedded bliss, C and I relaxed our habit of regular religious services. Nothing changed overnight, but over the next several years, I slowly slipped into agnosticism.

It's very hard to pinpoint exactly what drove me to that point, but I think it occurred in a piecemeal fashion. Bit by bit, my views on homosexuality, evolution, and politics broke with what I had been raised believing. Having had a thorough Christian education I had dogmatic explanations for what I believed, that is, homosexuality was a sin against God and nature, the Genesis account of creation was accurate, and God loved Republicans. I held these views sincerely and without ever having critically questioning them. Any time I "challenged" my beliefs I turned to theological books which shored up beliefs that I already had.

In retrospect, it is odd to me now that I persisted believing these things without really challenging them. I am an engineer by trade, a profession that suits me because of my analytical nature. I consciously try to think about everything I do, right down to determining the most efficient ordering of the coffee-making process. My lovely wife says I'm a delightful mix of The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon and Leonard.

So what happened?

One of my best friends came out of the closet. I was forced to critically examine what I believed about his sexuality and to square this longtime friendship with his supposed eternal damnation. The friendship won. I now support equal marriage rights for gay couples. I think it's ironic that some religious communities will simultaneously condemn premarital sexual relationships, and yet seek to prevent homosexual people from "legitimizing" their relationships through marriage. It's equivalent to encouraging promiscuity, but only for gays.

Next, I took a real interest in politics, and reevaluated the red-state mentality that I was raised with. I consider myself politically independent-- a radical departure from my family, which generally votes the GOP party line without question.

Finally, after some consideration, it occurred to me that for evolution to be completely false that there must be an incredibly vast world-wide conspiracy. The scale of such academic repression required for this to be true renders such an idea ludicrous.

[As a sidebar: In my Christian high school biology class, we actually had a debate between "creationism and "evolution-ism." We divided on opposite sides of the classroom and exchanged arguments (conveniently presented in table form within our Christian textbook) for creationism (things like: "the Grand Canyon is evidence for Noah's flood") and against evolution-ism (such as: "so-and-so had a doll radio-carbon dated and the results showed that the plastic was millions of years old, thus radio-carbon dating isn't accurate, and the earth is 6000 years old).]

With my thinking altered on these three ideas, I slowly moved on to bigger issues. This loosely considered agnosticism is roughly the state of my belief about a year ago. At that time, I still considered myself a Christian, and from time to time, C and I would visit a church. These visits were generally followed by lengthy drives in the countryside (or lunch at a cheap restaurant). During these drives, C and I would dissect and rehash everything about that morning's service.

So that is where I was, circa early 2008. I'll post again soon to document the changes wrought by this last year-- there have been many of them.

Sincerely,
_Scott.