Have you ever watched the show Ancient Aliens? I watch documentaries all the time and this show is great. The idea is that our (humans) religion is something that has stemmed from ancient contact with "aliens", if you will, and ancient people interpreted them as "gods" bc space travel wasn't a part of their imaginations as something that was remotely possible. Anyway, I'll not go into it here in depth...
But it has been proven on several occasions that man has manipulated religion over the years, and what "they" chose for man to study and worship was what was best used to control man under a government, rather than the whole truth. Constantine created the Nicean (sp?) counsel to choose and decide which books were to be included in the bible and which would be left out. His decisions were based on politics rather than spirituality. The books that were left out were banned due to their content. Some of these books tell extraordinary stories that are vastly different than the ones we grew up hearing in church. Why were they left out? What made one man qualified to choose which books we held sacred and which we did not?
Turns out now that we know that the 4 gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not the only gospels written. We also know that they were not written by these four men as many think. We do not know who wrote them, only that they date back to 40-60 years after the death of Jesus.

All of this is debateable and certainly contraversial, but these are the reasons (there are many, many other reasons but this is the nutshell) which lead me to believe that we have been mislead by power hungry men and leaders of the past.

So the "outcome" that I refer to is hard to put into words but it goes something like this: I still have faith that "something" is out there. We are not alone, and there is some other higher power somewhere. There are things I don't and cannot understand bc I am not a part of that greater power.
I just don't believe that the greater power is some "GOD" that is all knowing and all powerful looking down and judging all of us. I believe that we were given life and created in our maker's image. I do not believe that someone is deciding who will burn in hell and who will go to heaven based on our life. A God like I am supposed to believe in that is goodness and love would not send people to burn for eternity. Even the mother of a murderer does not wish their child to be tormented forever, so WTH would we believe that a God that loves unconditionally would wish that upon us.

I don't believe that god has a "plan" or "will" for my life, other than he wants me to live it to the fullest the same way any parent wants their child to live. I believe that he made us individuals and gave us free will bc he wants us to be the person we chose to be, rather than who he made us to be.

I believe that "God" is a master scientist and chemist and he knows much much more than we will ever know about that sort of thing. However, the more we learn and the more technologically advanced we become, I believe we get closer to understanding our origins and closer to "God". I believe that science and God are absolutely linked...

And yes I do feel guilty being myself. If I could make choices unique to myself it would hurt the feelings of everyone I love. It's not that I want to hurt anyone bc I don't and I hate that I do. It's just that I would choose to participate in certain activities that other people don't agree with or believe in, and/or chose NOT to participated in certain activities and would ultimately hurt those close to me. For example: I love to kiss. It is my utter weakenss. I love to kiss so much that I wish I could just go around kissing people all the time. Random people, people I know and don't know, anyone I feel the urge with, anyone I find attractive or has kissable lips. It means nothing to me, just an action that makes me feel good and happy. But I can't go around doing this bc it would definitely hurt my husbands feelings, lol. And I wouldn't want him kissing other women either, so I realize this is a rediculous thing to want. But it is just one of the weird things about me that make me, me. I can't help that I would do this if I were given a golden pass. But what counts is that I force myself no to do it day after day bc I love my husband. Not sure what that means for me, just an observation.
Something I would not do anymore would be go to church. Because I don't like the way it is. It feels like brainwashing now that I am skeptical of everything.

As far as my dad, I actually have gotten to the point where the pot boils over. He is extremely volatile, but I am too when you get me past a certain point. We have screamed, cussed, cried, and he even put his hands around my neck like he would choke me when I was in the middle of standing up to him and simply saying what i wanted to say without backing down from him when he rears up and gets loud and hostile. It was scary and it definitely changed our relationship. I guess for the better. I feel guilty for hurting his feelings but it makes me feel awesome that I have finally stood up to him. I was in my middle 20s when I finally wrote him a letter to say some of the things I would have been terrified to say in person to him. Took me 20 something years to stand up to him. It didn't change him. He still thinks the same way, but he respects me slightly more now and he won't be as quick to try to impose his opinion and his will on me.

Doc