Why did you first seek out god?

[Confused]

Having not been raised in a religious setting, I grew up hearing of this thing called god, but not really finding any desire to explore the details of it. My mother raised 9 of us independently in alaska working 2-3 jobs as a bartender. We were the white trash of North Pole, Alaska. We all wore hand me down clothes, seldom did they fit right, were picked on at school for being poor, lived in run down houses. etc etc etc.. But somehow, my mother raised us all without state aid and we are all relatively healthy, none in jail, two of us have college degrees and the rest make a comfortable living. Most are married and happy. Of the 9 of us, two are what I call religious. They are christians, go to church, truly believe in what is spoken etc... 3 are christians when it suits them (to make themselves fit in though they probably have never even picked up a bible). The rest don't consider it a topic worth questioning.

I didn't consider it worthy of my attention until ~4 years ago when I went to see my brother. He is an engineer with a facination in physics. But he was weird on this trip. He started asking me if I met god? Seriously, that was his first question. My brother is a lot like me, very high strung, logical, tempermental, skeptical, and devoid of emotion. But this new brother was relaxed, calm, and appeared happy. He attributed this to god. So I figured, why not. I let him introduce me to this god. Afterwards I had that intense desire to learn more. I returned to Florida, bought a bible and read as much as a I could. I even got books on how to read the bible. From that day on, my life sucked. I went from church to church asking preachers/pastors/priests what this passage meant, and what that meant. I attended their sermons (which confused me even more). I lasted at each church about 3-4 weeks. I almost always ended up leaving because what they were saying made no sense, and when I questioned it, everyone looked at me like I was a alien. The pastors were never available for more than a few minutes and the people they referred me to for guidance treated me like I was ignorant and who was I to question their pastors interpretation of a passage. The last one I went to, I stuck with it for almost 3 years. Without getting to much more personal, I will say it ended because they essentially told me that my 7 year old son's illness (high functioning autism, aspergers, severe ADHD, and personality disorder not otherwise specified) wasn't getting better and I lacked the ability to feel emotions because my faith wasn't strong enough and my son was being punished because I wouldn't allow them to pray over him any more.

So I sought out to teach myself about god and decide if he existed or not. I often question my motives. Am I trying to prove gods existence so I can put all my faith in him to restore emotions and help my son, am I trying to disprove his existence to exonerate guilt that I may be the cause of my sons problems, or do I believe in him and am just angry because he refuses to help me or my son so I reject him.

While I know that was a very long beginning, it was needed to set up the background in which to get your minds thinking. The questions are simple:

1) Why did you first start to seek god? Was it family influenced, trauma realted, curiosity?

2) Did you immediately accept him or reject him, or did it take time before you decided he was real or not.

3) If you immediately accepted him, why. IF you immediately rejected him, why?

4) If it took time, what was the ultimate reason you had for accepting or rejecting him.

[chosen]

1) Why did I first start to seek out God?
First you must understand that God exists whether we seek him or not. I was born with the knowledge of a creator and so were you. We become Atheists and doubters by or environment. Mankind throughout time have always come to the conclusion that there is a God. That is why we have so many religions. The apostle Paul said "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead"; When I look at nature I know that God exists. The other day I found a cocoon from a monarch butterfly. It amazed me how beautiful it was. I could not have made this if I wanted to. It looked like jade jewelry with gold inlays. Intelligent design need not be taught. It is common sense. Something outside ourselves created the world we now live in. Our problems is that circumstances, our emotions, and people blind our eyes to this truth.

[methylatedghosts]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" - William Shakespeare