I’m a 20-year-old guy living in Brazil. I was born and raised in a Christian denomination—and environment—that is extremely fundamentalist. Since I was a kid, I was taught that science is wrong and only tries to disprove God’s existence.
After my father’s death in 2019 (I was 14), I started to question things. Even though I was still a Christian, I began to value atheists more than Christians. But that phase ended in 2021, after the pandemic.
In 2023, when I was 18, I met the first skeptic in my life. Although that person never tried to convince me of anything, their presence made me start doubting God’s existence. That was followed by constant panic and anxiety attacks. I desperately searched for answers everywhere. After some months of digging around the internet, I came across the Discovery Institute. At that time, I became anti-evolution and opposed to secularism in science. But that “love” didn’t last forever. I soon discovered that their work was heavily criticized and, in the end, they didn’t offer any real answers about why to believe in the Christian God.
That’s when I found online communities like the Sentinel Apologetics Discord server—people who don’t deny science, who engage seriously with scholarship, and who helped me rebuild my perspective. Thanks to their work, I found a more balanced and thoughtful way to approach faith.
Today, I’m a Christian—though a pretty liberal one when it comes to the Bible. I don’t believe in a literal Adam and Eve, I think many things in the Gospels are either embellished or made up (especially the birth narrative), that Jesus expected an eminent end of times (kind of a failed prophecy), and so on.
I want to thank Michell for his amazing reply to one of my posts here, where he explained why he is a theist. And thanks to everyone else here and in other communities who helped me not lose my faith!