Thanks everyone for these very touching posts. I talk to some of you a lot, and even so, didn't know all of your stories. This is so cool.
Enlightened: Welcome to the forum! Lot's of different people with many different worldviews--you never know where you'll end up.
FreeGirl: We've never met, and I'm so glad you posted your story. You have certainly investigated this very thouroughly, and nobody could ever say your conclusions were reactionary. I will be thinking about your mother's story all day. It brought tears to my eyes. I'm so sorry you had to watch her suffer that way.
S&G: I will be absolutely honest. I cannot even begin to understand how you can sometimes be an atheist and sometimes a theist. Great if it works for you, but I have come to some firm conclusions, and part of that is accepting things they way they are not how I wish them to be, so I don't think I could convince myself there is a god even for 30 seconds just for the comfort. But you seem to have that ability, and it is working for you. It reminds me of a story my brother told me. He has been an atheist all his life (since at least 8) and he got into a pickle where he actually feared for his life. He was climbing this tall structure and worried about his ability to hang on. Part of his job---not the bridge job. He laughed and told me he had even prayed! Yeah---like I was gonna let him get away with that (I was a believer at the time). But he calmly looked at me and said, "I was under a great deal of stress. That kind of stress sometimes pushes a person to suspend belief and grasp at straws. I knew when I prayed there was nothing, but I was willing to try anything. Don't take it to mean anything other than what it was---grasping."
Re: Atheist/Agnostic. Richard Dawkins has a way of explaining it, and it is a satisfying explanation to me so I will share it. Because TECHNICALLY I am agnostic---otherwise I would be intellectually dishonest (applying this to me only, not to anyone else.)
Imagine a scale of 1 to 7. 1 is absolute belief with no doubt. I spent most of my life here. 7 is the absolute certainty there is no god. Everything in between is agnostic. Dawkins puts himself at a 6.9. I put myself at 6.8-6.9. I think I went from a 1 to a 6 in just a moment. But I was still willing to think on it. Now I am no longer willing to think on it UNLESS new evidence is uncovered that would honestly require I reevaluate it. Because I feel the most honest answer is we don't know what we don't know, but that can also apply to fairies, unicorns, elves etc. I put gods in that category, which means I think it is HIGHLY unlikely that any new evidence will ever present itself. But I leave that tiny window open because I would hope that I would not be like I used to be: Unwilling to examine evidence in order to maintain my opinion.
NC