“I am not sure if God exists or not. These things cannot be proven and will always be a matter of faith, whether or not I believe in a higher power. I used to. But, I lost my faith in a god, because to me, it did not make sense in light of the fact that one could have faith in any set of beliefs. I have had many spiritual experiences. I grew up in a very “religious” home, that revolved around believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as my personal Savior, and that the infilling of His Spirit and baptism in Jesus’ name was imperative to salvation from sin and spiritual death. I no longer embrace these beliefs.

My beliefs were, despite argument, engendered in fear. If I did not believe them, I was damned to hell. That was a very powerful hold to break on my mind. In the summer of 2005 (when I was 21), I was in a lot of emotional, spiritual and intellectual pain and struggle. This continued throughout the beginning of the next semester, because nothing seemed to make sense to me anymore. I was forced to face that my beliefs were just one of many, and everyone else had an equally legitimate reason to believe what they were believing. Why the Bible? Why not the Koran or the tablets that began Mormonism? I began to become very depressed about these thoughts and slowly realized that I was losing my faith even as I was fighting so hard to hold on. Only when I let go of them and faced all my fears did I find happiness and the freedom to be myself.”

JL, 22/F, Boston, agnostic

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