I was asked to introduce myself...

[Harry Seaward]

I'm new to the forum and someone noticed that I hadn't checked in here so they asked if I would.

I'm not sure what everyone would want to know about me, but things that are relevant to the topics on this board would be that I'm presently agnostic, I was raised in a non-denominational church, attended a Bretheren chruch school from k-8, then a christian high school for 2 years and then public high school for the last two years.

Around 18 or so I started to question some of the things that were presented as facts when I was growing up. The more I thought about them, the less sense they made to me. The part that bothered me the most was that there is only one way to salvation, but that "one" way depended on the denomination of the guy proclaiming it. Since every religion works this angle, I've realized they are all pretty much based on superstition and fear of the unknown, and is why I identify myself as agnostic.

On a non-religious note, I'm married for 8 years and my wife and I have a 6 month old son. I also have 14 year old daughter from a previous relationship that spends her weekends with me.

What brought me here was I was doing an internet search for this freaky dude named Sketch Erickson. For those that don't know him, in the '80s Sketch would travel around to churches and christian schools to scare kids away from listening to rock music by playing it way too loud while showing slides of the devil and telling stories about how the musicians were told what to write by evil spirits. This board was the first hit on google.

I hope I don't get kicked out because I don't share the religious ideologies that seem popular around here. I enjoy a debate and this happens to be a subject I know about, if only because I was steeped in it from the day I was born. (Almost literally - I was baptized when I was a month or two old, as if I had a choice in the beliefs that be mine for the next 18 years of my life.)

[Don]

Welcome aboard the Black Pearl of Great Price Before Swine, glad to have you sailing with us.

[Tikatu]

Welcome, Harry.

You'll find quite the crew here: agnostics, atheists, theists, Calvinists, Arminians ... just a lot of different outlooks and religious affiliations. Even the occasional IFB troll. Give it a little time; you may find you fit right in.

[Ricardo]

(From a previous "welcome" thread

Very few of us left the IFB because we no longer believe in God.

It takes a while to realize that there is only one mediator between God and us. Then one day we go: "Duh."

And then the "I'm Spiritual, not Religious" finally clicks. Yes, in spite of the many sermons we heard precisely about the evils of this phrase.

Yes, many of us felt like we were about to abandon Salvation itself if we left the church. What we most definitely left behind was "Certainty."

We have stepped out into the world, we think, with no nets under us.

Have you experienced a baby learning to walk?

As you learn to walk in the world, you will fall. Many times. And God will be there not to punish you (as we were told over and over,) but to encourage us to get up and try again.

Eventually we learn that walking in the world, with God at our side, is FUN. (even as we have no clue where we are going.)

[MKxcomm]

Welcome!

[elfdream]

Welcome. I was an agnostic once upon a time. Most of the people who post here are either just coming out of fundamentalism or have been out for sometime so there is a whole spectrum of views represented here.

[EmilyKing]

Welcome! I consider myself agnostic too, though I wish I wasn't. (A world with a god seems so much more appealing to me, but I don't know how to make myself believe.) I've been out of fundyland for two years. This group has a wide variety of people, and most are friendly. Make yourself at home.

[WifeofBill]

Welcome.

[Naomi]

Hi! Thanks for the introduction! So do you have experience with the kind of fundamentalism talked about on the blog?

[Scorpio]

Welcome aboard.