Although I am not what you might call a believer, I hit ever found faith story to be pretty fascinating. I first studied the story of the Church not discover of intellectual curiosity, but discover of sacred need. You see, I was having pain with the religion that I was brought up in. My parents were extremely religious people, but I felt that the religion was hypocritical. They preached the love of God, and yet they believed that all sinners would go to hell. They talked most the forgiveness of God, but they thought that he actually had it in his hunch to torture people indefinitely for committing limited sins in this lifetime. To me, this didn't attain any sense. I didn't want to believe in a cruel God who would fate people to eternal suffering. I hit researched the story of Christianity to encounter discover how this belief has become about.

It turns discover that faith story is more complicated than people run to present it as. There are all kinds of story of the Catholic Church books discover there, but most of them are cursive with a portion agenda. Either they are cursive to alter people back into the fold, or they are cursive to shit the church. I didn't really want either. I wanted to read some faith story that was cursive from a fair and counterpoised perspective that gave every side its equal chance. I was interested in truth, not ideology. I leave ideology for the believers.

When you study early faith history, you encounter discover how political everything was. It turns discover that one of the most important agendas for the early faith was to consolidate belief. To this end, they repressed anyone who believed things different than the mainstream churches. The Gnostics and other heretics were oppressed for their ideas. Church story is most early Christians coming up with one story to deal with all the believers. They emphasized Heaven and Hell because it would cause greater obedience. Had they been interested in diversity of thought instead of in creating a uniform code of belief, things might hit been very different.

In the end, reading faith story did not return me to my faith, but it did give me sacred benefits. Because of my Christian story readings, I hit definite to theorize my own beliefs independent of any religious doctrine. It has prefabricated me feel much happier than before.