I was driving over to pick up Gary Saturday night and I heard the last portion of This American Life -- it was a woman (Julia Sweeney was her name, I found out) retelling the story of how she changed her mind about her faith -- from being a Catholic, to being an atheist. Although it was years ago that I did the same (although I consider myself agnostic for epistemological reasons), I am fascinated by the process of (as she calls it) "Letting go of God" and a lot of the questions that led me down that path remain with me. She walked through all of the really personal and sometimes gut-wrenching emotions that I had to go through in the process. It hit close to home. It can be awkward living in a culture where Christian fundamentalism is more prevalent than ever when you're not Christian at all.
Some of the most compelling portion of the "testimony" was the section in which she tells the seminal event - a bible study that she was participating in where she actually read the bible and discovered the mean and vindictive side of her diety and his son. This is not the god we talked about in my youth group, either.
Anyway, I found it riveting and wanted to point you towards it-- I haven't heard the first half of the show which probes the question of why we want a separation of church and state in the first place. I'm about to go do that. But I suggest you skip on over there and listen to at least the last half of that fantastic show. Christians will certainly relate to her struggle, if not her conclusions.
If this link to the RealAudio file doesn't work, you'll need to look up the RealAudio file for June 3rd on the This American Life The WHOLE show is about an hour -- I think she's in the last 1/4 of the show if you want to skip ahead.
Found out that Julia Sweeney is the comedian who played "Pat" on saturday night live, and was a cast member there for 4 years. This section that she did is from her one-person show "Letting go of God"
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