Hello from Perspective

[oldschooldoc]

Welcome aboard Perspective. As you have seen already, you will be challenged greatly here. We welcome the same from you.

I'm sure you have some great reasons for your beliefs, and why you think that is what changed your life. Let me share a similar story (less the privileged upbringing) with a very different outcome.

I too found my life entangled with drugs. Meth, cocaine, alcohol, etc. After a year of this continued way of life, I began to realize something. I didn't pray to be saved, I didn't have to. I realized, through reason (I wasn't high at the time), that I was not doing what I thought I could to help others. I had already come to believe that we (as humans) should do good things for the good of, well, doing good things. Not for personal advancement or because I was being watched by some all-knowing being, but because it was the right thing to do. So, just as you did, I quit cold turkey. I quit because I would be better able to help my mother, my brother, and my sister, the people who needed me. It doesn't take divine intervention, or some life changing religious experience. It just takes the free will to choose and the realization that doing those things aren't helping others.

I respect your views because they are yours to choose, but not the views themselves.

Again, welcome, I'm sure we all look forward to fruitful discussion.