I still remember the day I realized my faith was gone. It was standing in the middle of my church congregation after a Sunday service. I heard several prominent individuals talking about the “bad neighborhoods.” As I listened more closely, I realized they were using racial slurs to refer to black people. I found this hard to believe coming from individuals who had the nerve to call themselves Christian, but there it was. I brought it up to my mother on the way home from that service. She said that it is not my place to judge them. That only God can judge others and hold them accountable. And this was where she and I disagreed. We are flawed and need help from one another. We must hold each other accountable for our actions, or else, we are doomed. I simply could not accept that God simply watched these people spiral downward without lifting a finger to try and make them be better people. This was followed by years of reinforcement attending this same church and hearing horrible things from even more horrible people, solidifying my exit from the faith.

The short of it is: I couldn’t handle the hypocrisy. I don’t recall there being as asterisk after the phrase “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Yet, I was surrounded by hundreds of men and women who only wanted to cherry-pick the segments of the bible that they agreed with and use the others to condemn entire groups of people. I still remember saying: “If these are the types of people who are going to heaven, then I don’t want to go there.”

I set out to explore and learn out various religions and spiritual beliefs around the world, hoping to find a connection with one of them. During my time in basic training, I attended a wide array of services on Sundays. From Orthodox Judaism to Islam to Scientology, simply to learn as much as I could about various world religions. And so, I did. I have spoken with traveling Hindi monks who passed along a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. I have sat in on Pentecostal services, much to my alarm, as women began rocking back and forth, speaking in tongues and holding their children’s head in their laps. I have conversed on the value of personal faith with a group of Atheists and directly called Richard Dawkins an asshole. It was unbelievable how connected these walks of faith are and are so seemingly unaware of it. All of this has shaped my spiritual journey through America. All of them being here is what makes this country so incredible.

Some may look at my beliefs and label me an atheist. Some may see my desire to believe and call me deist. Some may look at my realist side and call me pantheist. Whatever label you decide to put on me, it does not change the fact that my religion is a personal thing to me and me alone. I ask only the same respect for my journey as you wish others to perceive yours.