I never really thought about what I believe in, and always viewed religion as a huge and interesting mess of ideas. I read clever people saying God is a thing, and clever people saying God isn't a thing, and I never considered that I was better informed than any of them, so kind of figured that I'd not assume anything is up there and carry on with my life.

Christianity was a really weird world to me, and I felt that as an observer, I was in a great position to just sit back and watch the ugly side and the beautiful side of the religion. So I took a degree in Christian Theology - spent four years learning about the religion in terms of the Bible, church history, a whole bunch of theologians and what they thought. I spent that whole time thinking 'this is how other people think' and I can't say that I graduated with any higher or lower opinion of Christians, other than just an understanding that they're just people. I decided to go into neuropsychology research / lots of statistics after this.

Not many people buy this, but I genuinely didn't really care about my own beliefs in religion, I just liked getting into what people think about. Religion, to me, is a domain of culture, and like most other beliefs, some people don't care, others really care, some people don't know they can change religion, some don't know that they are changing their religion, others switch between distinct views, some people just couldn't change if they wanted etc. I think the same idea applies for things like politics, or what kind of people you hang out with.

And I guess I'm a fluctuator in life - I've never voted for the same party twice, I decide that I don't like what I used to wear, and I flip and switch between what I want to do with my life. So right now, I'm a bit religious, and I've had people (atheist and religious alike) get pissed at me for it, especially as I'm now in the sciences, but my opinions and beliefs aren't a controlled experiment and I don't feel the need to convince or discredit anyone who thinks differently to me. I like to think that there's some kind of God, and it's comforting to believe there's an afterlife. Sometimes I pray, and I'll always start by saying something like "I don't know what you are, if you're listening, or if you exist, but I only want help from you if you're loving enough to accept that about me".