In Reply to: of course... part 1 posted by FRSP on October 06, 2006 at 03:41:20:
Thank you for answering. It really is a wretched world. In my case, I liked church and even wanted to be a priest at some point but things never made sense to me when I started thinking critically about them. At about 18 I simply dropped the whole story and set it on a shelf for later examination. I could see very clearly that the problem was not the story of God and the Bible and all those things I have learned very intensely. I grew up in the catholic church and had a fairly good religious education. I understood the problem to be the lack of people who could explain things: teachers. I had too many questions - I still have.
Eventually one day I was able to take the story again from the shelf and by practicing the step by step rules of engagement with God, I was one day granted the greatest gift: faith in God.
Since then, and I have had some very dark valleys of doubt, the blessing remains on me as the shadow of the Almighty.