Quote

I grew up in a religious community, and like everyone, I went through a period of doubt and later made a conscious choice to embrace the faith of my childhood.

I was raised Christian; I was raised in the South where everybody's raised Christian, but at this point, I'm 41 years old, and I've been an atheist, at this point, a little more than half my life.

We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. Look back in your own life and notice how often you have gone through the same experience.

It's our culture, Christian history, that's what formed me. Even as an atheist, I believe. We're just built that way.

I grew up with a very religious background.

The faith I was born into formed me. I come from a missionary family - I grew up in China - and in my case, my religious upbringing was positive. Of course, not everyone has this experience. I know many of my students are what I have come to think of as wounded Christians or wounded Jews.

I realized that conventional views of Christian faith that I'd heard when I was growing up were simply made up - and I realized that many parts of the story of the early Christian movement had been left out.

My whole belief system is that our paths are drawn for us. I believe in reincarnation. I believe we're here to learn and grow. We choose how we come into this life based on what it is we have to learn. Some people have harder lessons than others.

My upbringing was faith-based, but we believed you should love all others as you want to be loved, because everyone should be treated equally. That's helped me have an understanding of people on different journeys and in different walks of life. At the end of the day, we're all the same, because we all want to be loved.