At 16 I began to question my faith. I was brought up as a Hindu, but I found many practices disturbing and beyond logic. For example, I am not allowed near an altar when I am menstruating. If I was to believe that God created all of us, therefore God created women, therefore God made women menstruate, then why in the world would He prohibit women from going to see Him when they are menstruating? Many people had many explanations for this, for example we are getting rid of unwanted blood and are therefore dirty, we attract negative energy during this time because we become weaker, etc. None of this made any sense to me. First of all, I believe, or I wanted to believe, that the God I am praying to is a loving God. So whatever he gave me or didn't give me, was for a purpose which I hope I will know in time. I cannot believe that God was cruel, or unjust, or anti-feminist, or inequitable.
So I made a promise to God. I told Him that I would stop believing in Him until I found the answers to my questions, whether through Him or through my own efforts, and until then, I will continue praying for the sake of praying (the Hindu practices were very important to my father and I didn't want to hurt his feelings) but in my heart I had lost my faith, but I would genuinely pray again once I found my answers.
I then started reading anything I could about all the religions in the world, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Bahaism and Sikhsim (I didn't go as far as the Incan religion). I found Buddhism the most attractive because of its scientific reasonings and basis, but I had a problem - Buddhists do not believe in God. I could not reconcile this perennial problem for the longest time, until I underwent my very own renaissance period in university.
So I made a promise to God. I told Him that I would stop believing in Him until I found the answers to my questions, whether through Him or through my own efforts, and until then, I will continue praying for the sake of praying (the Hindu practices were very important to my father and I didn't want to hurt his feelings) but in my heart I had lost my faith, but I would genuinely pray again once I found my answers.
I then started reading anything I could about all the religions in the world, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Bahaism and Sikhsim (I didn't go as far as the Incan religion). I found Buddhism the most attractive because of its scientific reasonings and basis, but I had a problem - Buddhists do not believe in God. I could not reconcile this perennial problem for the longest time, until I underwent my very own renaissance period in university.
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