My name is Henry Cao and I am 16 years old.
I am a second generation Chinese American. My parents were victims of the state-induced atheism that was prevalent at the time in 20th century unenlightened Communist China. Up until the age of twelve, I was told that there is no God, and I believed it.
However, at that point I began to question what was told. I realized that my arguments against the existence of a God basically took the form of "You were told by your parents that there is a God. Why do you have to believe it?" I realized how hypocritical this was, having myself been force-fed "There is no God" by my own parents.
I began to question. I read enlightenment philosophy, and tried to understand it as well as a 12-year old possibly could. I read on scientific explanations for the nature of the universe. I practiced debates with both atheists and theists to check the worth of their arguments.
By the age of fourteen I was absolutely certain that atheism was wrong. Scientific explanations for the origin of the universe, taking the form of theories such as that of strings, seemed way too exotic to make any sense. Occam's Razor lead me to the conclusion that there must be a God.
Of course, we have all heard the reasons why revealed theism does not make any sense, so I will not repeat it. I'm not going to reword The Age of Reason. I was of the impression that there is a God that created the universe, and may or may not interfere with its workings from time to time.
I had not yet declared myself a Deist, not having heard that term yet. I called myself a "reasonable theist", and this was what was posted on my Facebook profile up until a little more than a year ago, when I happened upon the term "Deism". After a sleepless night reading the majority of articles on this site, I am now proud to call myself a Deist.
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