indra said:
Just a question -- before you settled on your current (not meaning it's just a phase or anything) belief, did you look at other religions? Not just other branches of Christianity, but at other world religions? I'm just being nosy, and don't mean to imply it's good or bad.
Honestly, not before I settled on it. And while I have looked at other religions and know what they believe, I have never considered leaving Christianity. So, I've never looked at other religions under the scenario of "well, let me take a look at what's out there, so I can see what works best for me." The truth is that God has pulled me through so much stuff (even saving my life at least once and pulling out a miraculous healing of my dad), I've never really had a reason to want to leave. I've had plenty of bad times, but in each instance, I knew God's presence. Even in times when I openely rebelled against him, I knew he was with me. Christ is as real to me as any person I see on a daily basis.
But it's not just a question of "having felt his presence" for me. Christianity also makes more sense, on a rational, logical level than any other belief system.
First, athiesm is right out for me. The idea that the big Bang happened, without intelligent design as the driving force, and led to the process called evolution eventually leading up to complex, rationally thinking creatures such as human beings (again, without intelligent design), makes no sense to me.
Amongst all religions, Christianity actually makes the most sense to me. In fact, it makes perfect sense to me. Other religions are concerned with what man can do to reach up to God. Christianity is the opposite; it is about what God did to reach down to man, since man cannot reach up tp God. If there is a God, it just makes sense to me that he is so holy and righteous that man couldn't measure up to his standards and please him with good works, no matter how good he tries to be. Christ is the perfect solution. He pays the penalty for man's sin, on the cross, and reaches down to man to pull man out of the mud in which he is quagmired. Christ doesn't say "do this and this and this, and I will be pleased". He says "You can't be good in your own power. Come to me, ye who are heavy laden and burdened, and I will give you rest." That's what grace is all about. It makes perfect rational sense to me.
So, while I never gave serious thought to joining other religions, I have given serious thought to Christianity.
And yet there have been many people who started out with other religious beliefs or no belief that have become Christian. C.S. Lewis was an athiest who became a Christian as an adult. Another prime example is Madelyn Murray O`Hare's son, who became a Christian pastor; no one can say he became a Christian because of the environment in which he was raised.