Thought Sparkk

I've grown to respect fundamentalist religious people far more than their moderate counterparts.  Moderates, to me, are merely religious people who lack conviction in their own beliefs or those who refuse to dive too deep into those beliefs for fear of knowing too much, or even worse, actually having an opinion.  Moderates serve only to dilute any and all attempts at a real fact finding conversation by making the religion forever liquid.  They dissuade you from applying critical thinking to find truth on the topic.  They discourage real attempts to find out if the religion is true, and what is even worse, they don't care if it is true or false.  I give fundamentalists at least the nod of respect for taking what is written in their holy text and applying it rather than ignoring it.  They don't attempt to reinterpret it for their own reasons.  If their holy text outright states something, then they admit that it is part of their belief.  Even though...

I still find myself being bitter and disgusted at the lies that I was fed as a child about Christianity and salvation.  Not only the lies I was fed then, but the utter disownment by that same group and theology once I walked away from their brand of faith.  Here is the path that I took.  I was brought up in a devout baptist christian household.  We went to church every sunday, almost no exceptions.  At age 9 I decided to become a christian and so I explained my feelings to my pastor after youth group one wednesday night.  We talked about it and what it meant and the ins-and-outs of salvation.  I said yes!  I want this!  So that night I sat with my pastor and prayed for salvation and became a christian.  I went home and told my parents and they were thrilled.  We hugged and mom cried tears of joy.  I didn't start questioning my faith until about the age of 19.  So for 19 years of my life,  10 of those years of being a ...