I quite by accident found the WUD web site and since have read and re-read every article on it. I am so pleased that I have found exactly what I have believed for 49 years but did not know it by name. Let me share a bit about me.
I was raised a Lutheran. We weren't real strict but went to church/Sunday school every Sunday. Around the age of 12 or so, I attended Lutheran catechism and started questioning my pastor. My pastor and I couldn't agree on so very many things and I would openly argue with him during these classes. I seldom ever got a good answer to any of my questions which made me ask more. He would become angry with me because his answers didn't make any sense to me. The church lost me there. If you can't make a child believe, something must be amiss.
At the end of military high school, 64 -65, I attended a church in the south as was mandatory. I observed a Black family blocked from and turned away at the door of this Christian church. That was one of the first overt racist acts I witnessed. So much for tolerance and goodness. Now even the military school couldn't make me set foot in a church.
I joined the army in 66 and soon married a Catholic girl. I had to attend another indoctrination on Catholicism. I went to the classes to sleep mostly. Found it was a bunch of superstitious rituals that made no sense and everyone seemed to be guilty of living.
Than I was off to Viet Nam and soon became a stone cold atheist. I care to differ with anyone that says there are no atheists in fox holes!
My daughter was born in 71. I couldn't look at her and think there was no Creator. Now the search began for a meaning or a religion for me to believe. Buddhism seemed the likely place to start. I explored it and some Native American religions but rituals and other things kept me from finding real answers. I finally decided that maybe I was a Pagan. I became very Earth based in my way of thinking. No religion, no rituals, no spells or magic thinking, but a respect for Mother Earth and humankind.
A friend of mine is an avid amateur astronomer and I observed him working on his computer. He brought up a screen of the Big Dipper. He asked me if I had any idea how many stars were in our galaxy, the Milky Way. WOW!!! I was so shocked at the size of this universe. If that wasn't an eye opener to the power of The Creator of all..... And it's all perfect, no guilt, no shame, no bigotry, no rituals to follow, just one huge universe and we are part of it. We have been given life, endowed with a mind and body to interact with the universe and the knowledge to appreciate and understand by learning. Natures God is all, I'm in its hands after this life, and I trust that. No revealed religion can compare with that!
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