I was agnostic, but leaning Christian and raised with Christian values and beliefs, though turned away from organized religion for similar reasons that many others end up overreacting and jumping on to /r/atheism. Too many bad messengers claiming the authority of God, and never willing to be challenged.

Agnosticism relies on the fact that due to God's omnipotence, you cannot prove or disprove that existence because God is everything anyway -- this is very different to atheism, which has become a theistic religion all its own at this point, who will actively work against God in modernity.

For example on being challenged, I took a dislike to the statement of a simple prayer being enough to be saved, to be forgiven.

Confession and repentance are more than that, and no one can say that another person has been saved on those grounds because we are judged by God himself.

I want to elaborate with recent discussion why I take issue with this:

Do you think a child raping, abusing, evil blackmail artist like Epstein could just say a simple prayer as he was being murdered and be saved? I should think not, because all of those things run contrary to Christian beliefs, and those beliefs are the world's collective guiding moral compass.

To believe that you can do anything awful all of your life right up to the very end without doing anything to "balance the scales" as it were and still be granted entry just because you said sorry doesn't jive very well, nor does it with traditional teachings dating back before modern day Christianity.

I was agnostic, but leaning Christian and raised with Christian values and beliefs, though turned away from organized religion for similar reasons that many others end up overreacting and jumping on to /r/atheism. Too many bad messengers claiming the authority of God, and never willing to be challenged.

Agnosticism relies on the fact that due to God's omnipotence, you cannot prove or disprove that existence because God is everything anyway -- this is very different to atheism, which has become a theistic religion all its own at this point, who will actively work against God in modernity.

For example on being challenged, I took a dislike to the statement of a simple prayer being enough to be saved, to be forgiven.

Confession and repentance are more than that, and no one can say that another person has been saved on those grounds because we are judged by God himself.

I want to elaborate with recent discussion why I take issue with this:

Do you think a child raping, abusing, evil blackmail artist like Epstein could just say a simple prayer as he was being murdered and be saved? I should think not, because all of those things run contrary to Christian beliefs, and those beliefs are the world's collective guiding moral compass.

To believe that you can do anything awful all of your life right up to the very end without doing anything to "balance the scales" as it were and still be granted entry just because you said sorry doesn't jive very well.