Ever since my early teens, I've been unsatisfied with the religion I was raised to believe. While I still loved God with all my heart, I had the hardest time accepting the "facts" in the Bible. So many Christians that I knew were quick to preach, and the exact opposite of what I consider "Christ-like". I felt so guilty for even questioning Christianity, and I was afraid to go to hell just because I didn't agree with the belief that one set of rules could apply to and control the choices of so many people. I eventually decided that I didn't have to belong to a religion to love God, but I still didn't like not having a name for the way I felt and believed.
One day I was in the library with an Atheist friend of mine and we got into a discussion where Deism was brought up. All I knew of Deism was the minimal information from history class in regards to our founding fathers. As I do whenever I come across something that I don't know much about, I decided to do some research. I was first led to an article on Wikipedia, where I saw several links to websites of modern Deist societies, which led me to deism.com. As I was reading about the basic history and beliefs of Deism, I finally felt like I had found the one belief system that actually made sense. It wasn't even like hearing a good idea that you would consider adopting as a personal philosophy, it was like having your own thoughts and feelings written down in an articulate way, and then given a name. After years of guilt and searching, I finally felt free in my beliefs. Thank-you so much so making an effort to spread light and reason in the world, and to set free those trapped in the illogical chains of revealed religion!