Is it real?
At age 15 I was walking back from a church softball game and a thought suddenly popped into my head, "What if this was all made up?" The thought stayed in my head for another six years.
In my early 20s I wanted to determine if the Holy Bible and Christianity were real. My first step was to read the entire Bible, cover-to-cover. Hmm, there was no smoking gun or silver bullet that hit me with a "WOW." So, I began reading other books, most notably Edward Gibbon's "Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire."
By my 30s I was determined to give religion one last try, and I dove into it big. I helped to found a church and in January 1996 I was ordained as a lay minister. I remember for the final test we had to "save" someone. We role played and I used the "saving" techniques I was taught. It was all a big disappointment because nothing supernatural happens when you "save" someone — it's simply a mind game.
About 15 months later in April 1997 I crashed and burned internally — I could not trick myself with mind games any longer. I still stayed in church for another 7 years, but my heart was out of it. In 2004 I started reading more books and doing extensive research into the origins of Christianity.
To summarize, the Abrahamic religions evolved from earlier religions and societies, and these ancient societies got their ideas from cavemen. To this day religion continues to evolve and modify itself with changing social norms.
So, sorry, it's all fake. We humans evolved from primitive animals over the span of 3.5 billion years. Of course, it took 1 billion years for the first life to form — it's a mind boggling accomplishment but nature had plenty of time.
Spirituality
While all religion is man-made, just recently I've come to feel that there is a supernatural element in the universe that guides everything, somehow. I'm not sure what it is — I'm still trying to figure it out.
And I do believe there are benefits to prayer. If anything, it is good meditation for the mind and it creates positive thinking.
As far as religion goes, I'm not anti-religion at all. Religious mythology is part of our rich culture and it helps to define who we are. Fortunately, the vast majority of people do not take their religion too seriously and just "play the game" — eat cookies at Christmas, hide Easter Eggs, etc... Those who do take their religions literally tend to be dangerous, i.e. ISIS.
I don't care if there is a manger scene on public property, it's no different than a Santa Claus. And it's okay to me if there is a prayer before a government meeting, as long as different religious groups can take a turn praying.
If anyone has seen supernatural activity first-hand, please let me know. If it's convincing, I'll become religious again. But, in the meantime, I'll just remain spiritual for now.
