I have been ridiculed for leaving church. Most of my Christian friends and family do not want to know why I left, they are more interested in telling me what will happen to me according to their religious beliefs. I think the reasons why I left are paramount for them to understand what it was that pushed me away. I was not led away but pushed. It was the unveiling of the bibles authors and the council of Nicaea, as well as the horrible idea of Christian style free will (not a choice at all). It is the behavior of my fellow Christians that helped widen the gap between me and their beliefs, but the bible itself when read with a complete and rounded education was the ultimate tool for my divergence from the dogma it carries within. I always tell folks I am not leading you away for I always wait for them to ask me. And if they ask I give them honesty and through respect for them and their belief try to understand their views. Now I have a background in engineering so asking questions comes natural to me. And it is these questions that have alienated me from my friends in the clergy as their answers have always been vague and generalized. It is because it is a faith built upon "no one understands god and his ways are mysterious". I wouldn't attempt to make a particle beam rail gun if I did not understand the instruction booklet. So therefore, if I cannot understand this god, then I wont worship that which I do not understand. All powerful and all seeing but yet thousands of little innocent children die every year of curable diseases and lack of clean drinking water and starvation and the one that gets me straight to the heart, cancer in children. There is no god of love who watches idly by while a child slowly dies painfully of cancer. All I am saying, if I had the powers of god I know what I would do with those powers. Why hide?

- James Johnson