Anne Rice, Dean Koontz... easy to read authors I love because they create worlds that are fun to live in. But obviously fiction. The Jews had done the same thing. To set themselves apart from the other ethnic groups they co-existed with, they decided to chose from among their many gods ONE god who would become THEIR God, and thus, somehow, better. Holy COW! I just sat there in awe. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, to lose my religion. No spotlight, no corner, for those R.E.M. fans. Me and my own mind trying to tear down all those walls that Christianity had built. For months, I wavered between athesim and some sort of concession between me and god, that maybe Christianity was a poor interpretation of a benevolent diety floating out in space who just wanted to watch and see what would happen. Ants, magnifying glass, but in a five year old didn't know what was gonna happen kinda way. But, because I am obviously scientific by nature, ultimately science won out. And I let go of all that guilt and all that self-doubt. I was worried though. If no god, what motivation do I have to do good? Turns out, I still love people. I do more community projects, outreach programs, and philanthropy than I did in the Christian world. Because I am not bound by the assumption that those outside my world are wrong, "lost", hellbound. I love people, I love LIFE more than I ever did. I found this book called "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality" by Andre Comte-Sponville and I wanted to go to France and KISS him. I don't need God to be good, ethical, generous, kind, loving. I can be a good mother, wife, friend, daughter, citizen without any diety or dogma. Acutally, I can be better.