This is a condensed version of my story as to how I ‘walked away’ from mainstream Christianity, to find myself where I am today, unburdened and unfettered by the restrictions and emotional constraints that I felt when I was younger and in living in a more regimented, Christian village and society.
At a certain point in my past, I came to a realisation: when I came out of the birth canal, there was no "holy" book hung around my neck. What God gave me instead was a heart and a mind, as well as eyes and ears. The book was given to me later by men. Pondering this, I decided that I would no longer allow the abstract ideas of men to overshadow the heart and mind given me by Source (God to you perhaps), nor would I allow them to convince me to close my God-given eyes and ears.
Having been brought up in the Christian paradigm in the very rural outback of the South Africa, it took till my early adulthood for my fear of hell to be overcome by the disquiet in my soul. Even as a child, I remember being troubled by many of the ideas about God and me that were conveyed in the “holy” book. So once my mind finally wriggled free, I began to explore all the existing religions looking for something better...
I got to travel extensively as a young man, many countries cultures, faiths...and as I pondered each faith, I found many ideas that resonated with my soul, and many others that did not. Each established religion was, in my view, a mixed bag of truth and misconception. Some of those mixed bags were nicer than others, but none of them set my soul on fire.
During this exploration, one thing that struck me as odd was the fact that the believers of each religion thought theirs was the “only true faith.” I knew that, at best, only one group could be right about that, but how could someone know if he or she was in the right one? Most people practice their religion because it was the one they were raised in, so they accept it without question and are afraid to look outside of it. But what if the full truth of God lies outside of the particular religion you are stuck in? Where should your loyalties be, to God or to the religion?
To be continued in Part 2.
Thanks to Ken from RedefiningGod for your inspiration and help.