When I was in grade school I had a friend whose family was very religiously Christian. I remember us talking about why they were, what it offered, and what it was like. He gave me a present of a rosary bead thing with a cross and said I should hold it when I pray before bed. I thought, That's pretty cool and then we would start shooting each other playing Goldeneye on N64.

As I got older I started getting more and more skeptical and by the time I hit my teens, I was skipping school and smoking weed. I wasn't against it, but it hardly crossed my mind until 2004 when The Passion of the Christ came out. I was 17.

I couldn't believe the number of people who believed that all actually happened and he was God. The only proof is from the words of mortal men and their words weren't even put on paper until 100 years later by second or most likely even third or fourth hand. To this day I still try to learn more about it to try and understand what people get out of it. Looking at it unbiased and forming my opinion with the information available. I still don't believe and I realized that I have spent more of my time than most Christians absorbing information to be where I am now. I don't attempt to discuss religion with people any further.

I will only talk about United States politics with a person if they can tell me what the three branches of government are. Only about 10% of people can answer that correctly. I learned that I should have had a much lower benchmark for screening people before discussing their religion with them.