the way I couch this is, there is a God-shaped void that needs to be filled. I have a friend who is an atheist. He spends a lot of time watching content by other atheists, and "young earthers." I think a lot of his objections to Christianity rely on the wholesale belief of how creation happened. I agree with him on a lot of it, but my faith was never developed on believing wholesale the story of Genesis at face value.

At the same time, he does have a religion. I think we all do. It could be science fiction fandom for some, wokeness for others. I think I have become a "devout libertarian." I say this even as I do not know all that entails. From intuition though, I believe that more freedom is better than less freedom, at the very least when you are free, there is no one else to blame. I am not a full on Christian, nor am I an atheist. I used to question the existence of God, but now more than ever I think I see a hand in all of what is going on. Does that make me a believer again? I don't know.

Years ago, my brother confronted me about my lack of "fallen" faith and lack of going to church. I remember openly weeping. I was mourning the person that I was. I did enjoy my previous life as a Christan, but felt that I could no longer, in good conscience, participate in it, not due to others, but due to my own questions and problems with it.