by Kate Willis

Created on: February 07, 2007   Last Updated: March 22, 2008

I grew up in a household that did not require me to attend church. Many people are not given a choice as a child and are forced to become members of a religion when they are too young to decide for themselves. In my case I only started to attend church services when I was around 8 or 9 years old. I chose to join a Methodist church because this sect seemed to be more accepting than others. In my past, the northern Baptist seemed to preach more about hell, fire and brimstone than more cheerful subjects. The Catholic religion seemed to me to be all about following precise rules and regulations and being confined to certain ideals about love, relationships, marriage, family and so on. Not until later in life did I decide that this religion also turned me away because of their blatant disregard for people I call my friends, such as gays, lesbians, and people who generally think on their own. As well, I find that for a religion that follows many rules to the strictest confines, that the Catholics forgot who they say they truly worship: Is it Jesus or Mary? Protestants seemed to be very dramatic, as if they needed to SHOW people that God was in them by dancing around and speaking in tongues. I don't really need a show if I feel something in my heart and soul.

For years I studied the Bible and attended church retreats, camps and Bible groups. I even became baptized as a Methodist. But in all my years of searching for complete answers and studying, I never became completely comfortable with restricting myself under the laws and rules of a book written solely by men. In it's entirety, the Bible seems to blatantly disregard the physical and emotional beauty of women, instead it molds them into a baby-producing, unclean, sin-bearing group. I had never in my own right had answers from my elders that ever came close to answering my questions of why women were so put down.
Another idea of the Bible that became cloudy to me was the creation of the world and how man came to be. It has been an ongoing discussion in classrooms and churches around the world for years, yet no one can come quite close to understanding the truth. The Bible claims that God spoke and it was. He created the Universe in a matter of days, rested, and then created man from the clay of the earth. He also managed to create all of the species of the world all at once.
LOGIC. It's what made me stop reading the Bible and assess my own beliefs. I attended school like so many young people, and I had learned about

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