tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649417.post-40562484972212192202008-04-08T04:52:00.002-05:002008-04-08T04:58:13.874-05:00<span style="font-style:italic;">Sent in by <a href="http://www.skepticalmonkey.com">Ted Goas</a></span><br /><br />I hope my testimonial is short and sweet. I was raised by two educated, traditional parents in the New York metro area of the U.S. I was introduced to, schooled in, and eventually confirmed Lutheran. At no point was I ever enthusiastic about my religion or going to church. But like many others I took religious teachings at face value, went through the motions and believed what I read in the Bible.<br /><br />But then I went to graduate school, which turned out to be my turning point. There I learned to question things, filter out bad information, ask for proof, and basically ask “Says who?”<br /><br />During this time I watched a documentary and heard this quote from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shermer">Michael Shermer</a>: “Smart people come to revisit things they learned for not-smart reasons,” or something to that effect. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.<br /><br />It made me realize that children can’t control how they’re raised. But we can re-evaluate what we were conditioned to think. After doing so, my story is probably similar to many other testimonials on this site. I converted to militant agnostic / atheist. My fiancé and I constantly research the subject of skepticism (in which the topic of religion naturally falls) and publish our findings on <a href="http://skepticalmonkey.com">skepticalmonkey.com</a>.<br /><br />-Ted Goas<br /><a href="http://www.skepticalmonkey.com">http://www.skepticalmonkey.com</a>webmdavenoreply@blogger.com