It was a slow process that started with anger at God. My father passed from illness when I was very young. To fill the void, my mother found an abusive alcoholic. My mindset eventually became: "Why would a loving God take away a good man and replace him with this monster? I'm not stronger from this, I'm riddled with overwhelming fear and crippling anxiety every day." On top of that, seeing illnesses take other family members, seeing mothers and fathers outlive multiple children, made me question why any "loving God" would let his followers experience so much pain.

I admit I let my emotions control my judgement, rather than a logical observance of reality. But that was what started my path. The Christian view of God made no sense to me, and I wasn't content with the universal answer of "God works in mysterious ways". I became content with "The universe is an uncaring force of nature that we have a marginal understanding of, and the only way to understand more is to observe and report facts as we see them, rather than filling in the blanks with fiction."