Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
For those of you who were not born into/raised with some kind of religion, how did you find your way to it in your adulthood?
I'm a male lawyer in my mid-40s. I was raised by irreligious boomers (who have drifted into extreme anti-religion in their old age). My childhood experience of religion was essentially zero. I'm not a hard atheist or anti-religious, but I also don't feel a "god-shaped hole" where many people seem to try to shove some kind of belief system (including the Current Thing) in an attempt to fill it. It seems more like I'm lacking the socket where some kind of faith module would even go.
I do much outdoors (pondering hiking the PCT next year, which wouldn't be my first thru-hike) and enough time outside will have me thinking "this has to be intentional Creation to explain why it's so amazing in so many ways." But it's a big gap from there to "sin is real and Jesus Christ was the son of God and sent to cleanse me of my sins" (yes, I'm aware that gap is where faith comes in).
I have investigated some churches around me, but all feel very culturally Alien (discounting the ones that would clearly be a bad fit since their doctrine appears to be "We Support the Current Thing, but we do so with a sprinkling of Jesus"). Church websites alone are enough to give me that Alien feeling. It's like the "Women Lawyers" associations that are technically open to all (to avoid problems with anti-discrimination laws) and some men do join, but it would take a Hannibal Lecter gurney and straitjacket to get me there--it is so obviously Not My Place that I would never go voluntarily. I get that feeling from any church I've looked into, too. So I can't say of the options I have near me call me into trying to learn more.
Mine was a combination of psychedelics and meditation slowly opening my mind over years to other possibilities, then having an odd string of coincidences leading to me taking Christianity a bit more seriously. Over time I began to learn more and more including listening to Jordan Peterson's lectures, John Vervaeke, and reading a good amount of the sort of "post-modern" Christian apologists. Eventually I decided to go to a church and slowly work on my faith.
In terms of the culturally alien thing... yeah. That's kind of the point if you want to fill the God-shaped hole. Anything that fills that is going to be alien to you, because your worldview is basically secular materialism. Even if you don't realize it, you have a 'religion' right now with extremely strong precepts. A big part of the journey to a "real religion" is recognizing that secular materialism is a philosophical system with axioms that must be investigated as well.
If you want a super dry book to read on all this, I'd recommend All Things are Full of Gods by David Bentley Hart.
EDIT: Sorry misread the God shaped hole thing. Also it helps to think of sin as "error" or "missing the mark" which is the Greek translation.
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