I was a Christian when I was arrested, 18 years ago, and I’ve since become an atheist and a profoundly changed man. Religion made sense to me once. I went to a church youth group, handed out flyers door-to-door for our church, was baptized in front of a roomful of strangers, etc. I accepted Jesus as my savior even when I wasn’t acting well.

But over the years, I realized that the reasons I had for believing these things were BAD reasons. None of them held up under real scrutiny. And I believed many things for bad reasons when I was younger (obviously, such as thinking it was okay to rob a man). The great thing about learning and educating yourself is it leads you to doubt. To question yourself. And you can form better thinking habits, better reasons for believing things.

Daniel Turner
DOC #767569