Very interesting story. Nothing shapes a person like suffering. I have written a short respons to you with a useful link under my article “who gets to decide when it’s a drug.”

I also started thinking about life and death at a very young age, and even questions like the shape of the earth have intrigued me. I found General Byrd interesting for example, from the military operation High Jump.

Personally, I eventually considered myself a more traditional Christian, although I question everything. The Bible has obviously been tampered with to fit different people’s agendas. (For example, Paradise is a Persian word. Three different people killed Goliath and King David also had a nother father according to the Bible named Nahas, who was an Ammonite..) earth seems to be very old, and civilizations have risen and fallen. Abraham was a monotheist, while many of the Hebrews following were not,they were monolaterist, they believed other gods also existed, but they didn’t follow them. The Pharaoh Akhenaten, on the other hand, was also a monotheist. People claim he worshipped the sun, but looking at his prayers,he obviously just considered the sun a great work of creation that reflected the greatness of the Creator. So God must have revealed himself to different people during history and pre-known history. How and when we don’t know. What did the civilizations that are now under water know about Him?

The Bible like we know it today, does obviously not tell the whole story, and the Bible Alone approach therefore does not work for me. I will always have to go through life with some questions. I try to deal with this the best I can.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and early life story.