I am a Christian as well I'm quite new to the faith actually. I was brought up Catholic, and was very spiritual for awhile, and then in my teens I began tackling the deep questions-the meaning of life and the nature of the universe, and applying what I learned to these questions, and for awhile I was agnostic, and then as I thought about it more deeply and learned more things I became a pantheist who still very much disliked the concept of organized religion, believing it to be too arbitrary and divisive, and as having done more harm than good. And I'll admit, I was one of those people who believed that conservative Christians were little more than a bunch of bible-thumping backwoods fundamentalists who savoured every word that came out of Pat Robertson's mouth and were a threat to our democracy (and I am genuinely sorry for this now). And at the same time I was quite fascinated by them and did a great deal of research, and slowly began to realize that I was wrong, and that a lot of ideas I had about them-and Christians in general-were misconceptions and generalizations based on things I'd heard and read from those who disagreed with and disliked them and not on genuine knowledge about them and their beliefs. I began to look more closely at the religion, especially the very logical and compelling field of Christian apologetics, and at the same time I was becoming very interested in how Judeo-Christian values could be used (and defended) in a secular context, particularily in terms of bioethics issues, and how beneficial they were to society. I also learned more about history, and realized that the simple desire for power and territory (greed, in other words) had probably caused far more wars and far more deaths than Christianity did, and that a big part of the reason Christianity has such a bloody history is that people were simply and unfortunately more violent back then. And while it was certainly abused for power and monetary gain, this is much more an indictment of the people than the religion-history if full of people misusing good things for terrible ends, and had they not had religion to use, they would've used something else. And I realized how deep, complex, and sound Christianity was, and that it was not nearly as irrational as it was made out to be. I used to think that when someone adopted a religion, it would be a quick, simplistic, and convenient answer to everything, but instead I feel I've just embarked on a tremendous intellectual (and of course spiritual) journey. I hope none of that sounded harsh, but I have to admit, I feel that I was lied to about it and lead to believe things that weren't necessarily true, and it really stings to see Christians-and religious people in general-criticized and attacked and insulted as harshly as we are-if just about any other group of people were attacked and insulted like religious people are, people would rightly be slammed for it, and yet a clever insult or well-timed attack on religion will usually get you applause nowadays. It is actually making this transition to Christianity really difficult for me, because I am afraid that people will look down on me and ostracize me, and even get mad. I recognize religious people can be insulting and harsh too, but we are called out for it (which we should be), and what people have to realize is that such attacks are going to put us on the defensive and make us more prone to attacking back (not that this excuses it; we should take the high road in my opinion). The other side should be called out for it too. I mean, why are they attacking our alleged narrow-mindedness and bigotry with narrow-minded and bigoted attacks? Ok, I'm sorry, I'll stop now, it's just that it really cooks my noodle.