So going into 2016 I was an atheist and had been for about 15 years. I was raised catholic but rejected it fairly early in life because the obvious hypocrisies. Along with that I rejected the notion of God, not that I didn't think it was possible or likely there was some sort of generative force that caused existence, but I rejected the idea that there was a sky daddy who loved us and wanted the best for us. All the suffering and corruption in the world seemed to negate that possibility.

It's worth mentioning that around the same time I left religion I became politically aware. It started as casual conservatism, dnc policies sucked and something felt wrong. I won't outline my entire political development from there but by 2015 I was done with the gop, recognized we has a single ruling uniparty in America, and that the dnc branch of said uniparty was the legacy of slavery and had adopted communism as a means of enslaving all. At this point I was still and atheist.

Enter Jordan B peterson's lecture series on the Bible. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQD_IZs7y60I3lUrrFTzkpat

This lecture series explains from a rational perspective how the Bible, as a artifact of human psychological development, is accurate and usefull. Moreover it explains how integral story telling is, truthful story telling whose truth can transcend mundane reality to be more real than reality, in that the truth of the archetypal message is true across most human experience. Juxtapose that to the obvious deteriorating story telling of our culture with its propagandized characters who fall flat and my politics started to jive with my new understanding of the bibel and story telling in general on a foundational level.

That was the first chunk in the armor and it easy to share, the rest of my journey has been deeply personal. I met a woman who has so deeply improved my life, saved me from living in a lock down state years before the pandemic. I have watched her awaken during all of this, and I won't Dox myself with details but its hard to believe someone like me could have found someone and a situation so perfect.

But still I concidered myself agnostic right up until Jan 20th of this year. Things are so awful and blatantly bad, most of my friends are completely asleep and impossible to talk to. Violent communism is about to seize America and death is at our doorstep. Simply put, if their is not a loving God with a plan to let the love and good intentions of this who want the best for their family and their country flourish, we are doomed. So I started praying.

Odly enough I have found that Jesus is an antidote to communism. Even from a atheistic perspective, the archetypal story of the most moral man that could exist being punished and tortured for how good he was, is and incredibly powerful phychological tool. It is an antidote to feeling victimized; I find myself saying to myself throughout the day, "I am not that good, and I am not suffering that bad". It is a powerful reality check.