I grew up as a chrisitian. That's just the way it was. As a child, I never thought to question anything about the religion. I believed almost everything I was taught. I started faltering around my Junior/Senior years in high shcool, but most of my deconversion came after I graduated from High School. A lot of things changed in my life, and the internet was one of them. I became friends with gay people; atheists and more christians.

There were three major events that led me to start seeking out my own path. The first was hen a friend of mine "converted" to Christianity. She became a fanatic, and gave up things that had been very important to her before. It seemed to me that there should be no need for a person to give up who they are in order to become a Christian - I had never had the experience of converting, since I had grown up in the relgion.

The second thing that happened was one of my best friends telling me he was Gay (ironically, this happened in the parking lot of our Church). It wasn't that he was gay, I had other gay friends, it was his admission to me that he had prayed to God to make himself straight. I thought that that was the most horrible thing, to have a religion so ingrained into your head, that you actually prayed to become something that you were not. Also, the reaction of my other best friend at the time made me dislike the attitude that Christains had against gay people.

The third major event that lead me to loose a grip on the Christian religion was online. I went into a Christian Chat room, labled "Debate". I assumed that the debate would be over things like If it's neccessary to say the same prayers over and over again, if you can be christian without belonging to a church, etc. Instead, the people were arguing about which Church was "Christ's Church". It was petty, and egotistical, and nothing that spirituallty should be.

These events rocked my world, and shook me up a bit. Though, I slowly slipped out of the Church, and the teachings of the Bible, the thoughts that I've grown up with effect me to this day. Now, however, I believe in a Universal Spirit, and that every religion is "Right". Thoguht, I am technically, still a United Methodist, and I do still attend the Church I was brought up in for the music alone; my beliefs are not what they were, and though I believe Jesus Christ is a great spiritual master, I know he is not the only incarnation of God, and that we are all God, and everything in the universe is One. I'm apart of movements and organzations that promote love, tolerance, and a better world for our children.

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