It's been a while since I ventured out into rational world. In July, I was bumbling around looking over the website.
I was of conflicting views about religion and me and was reading just about everything I could looking for a path to peace.
I was for all intents and purpose, raising myself to the challenge of a dear friend and very involved Evangelical who admonished me as " wishy-washy Christian ". My quest for the truth of my faith (or faithlessness) was challenging my many decades of religious indoctrination which had always been simply accepted and unconsciously adapted to fit my acceptance and sensibilities.
Then, last August, I came across a medical journal piece discussing the ever-increasing cozy relationship between the psychiatry profession and the pharmaceutical industry. In a certain frustration over the evidence and conclusions of the piece, plus additional research, I discontinued the psychotropic medications that seemed to provide no serious improvement of my (decades long) diagnosis of clinical depression and various improvements added to that diagnosis. For the 3 months while my body and mind were weaning off the drugs, it was a roller coaster ride which settled out to I was taking these meds for years and the major effect seemed to be a sort of "zombie" level of suppression and indifference to stimuli.
I think I am telling this to help me understand the changes I have undergone since learning, researching my search for the best evidence to both define and validate me.
I know I am still dealing with the conflict of my "since day one" religious indoctrination and my sentient, questioning self and it will be long fight between me and this god of mine. (Hint: I'm winning. Reason and intelligence and is winning.)
More later...