Personal HIstory 2

Despite, or maybe because, of my dad's disdain for religion, I took hold of my mother's beliefs very early on. Thanks to my mom's influence I was raised in Lutheran Church and went to the Church's elementary school from preschool onto sixth grade. In the fourth grade I recall sitting at my desk and for the first time comprehending Christ's sacrifice as a substitute for our sins and then asking for forgiveness for my sins.

Christianity and the church became a refuge to my father's irrational anger, constant criticisms, and belittling. Accepting a strict Christian doctrine was my way to rebel from him and find acceptance in something that I wasn't finding from my own father. As time went on and I entered junior high his anger and abuse increased and likewise my faith in God also increased to compensate.

I went to a private junior high that was extremely conservative; believing in a very literal interpretation of the bible and fundamentalist world view. We were frequently indoctrinated in class that the earth was 10,000 years old and that homosexuality was purely a choice. These lemmas were presented to us as crucial to accept otherwise the entire credibility of the Bible would collapse. It was an all or nothing dilemma presented to me; believe in everything in a literal interpretation or you might as well be an atheist.

This dilemma was especially disturbing to me because of the psychological need the church satisfied as a refuge to my father's abuse, but at the same time I knew facts and observations about the world that were not inline with my religious beliefs but nonetheless had to di facto accept. I was coming to release that my hope and concept of the universe was showing some severe cracks in it.