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The way out: A light at the end of my journals

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The  Creation/Evolution journal in the library at UCONN  that I wrote about in my last post is like a sacred symbol to me now, because it represents my first glimpse of freedom from the oppressive religion I was captive to for so many years. But there is another "journal" that is the opposite kind of symbol. My personal journals--about ten volumes, are still sitting in a drawer in our bedroom. I haven't gotten rid of them, even though they have become almost repulsive to me. They are a record and reminder of the 20 or so years of my life when I was caught in the net of Conservative Christianity. They don't record my escape, though they record some failed attempts, but they do hint at one of the keys to my final breakthrough. I started journaling shortly after I started college. I had met a girl at a Christian club on campus. I was really attracted to her, but I knew that my religion wouldn't allow me to have sex with her. So I started to question my religion. That
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The first fetter to fall

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It’s not easy to give up conservative Christianity. For me, it happened in steps and took about 20 years. Here’s the story of the first step. It was the early 90s, and I was walking around in the bound journal section of the UCONN library, as I often did. I don’t remember what I was looking for, but a scientific journal on the shelf caught my eye. There were only maybe four volumes, I think. They were all by themselves on the top shelf, or at least that’s how I remember it. It was called the Creation/Evolution Journal and it was published by the American Humanist Association. I grabbed a volume and started flipping through, and that moment in time stands out as one of the turning points in my life. As a freshman in college, I had become a fundamentalist Christian. I got involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and found a little church in my hometown that was focused on a literal interpretation of the bible. This clashed a bit with all of the geology and biology courses I was taking, s
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