In the first couple of posts of this new series, I started with a simple overview survey, followed by part two which was divided into a couple of chapters to cover the wider scope. The first was to set a little background of my childhood, and the second was to bring one to the end of experience before I turned a corner in my life and began to explore the world in a different direction. This part is to begin this journey and discuss a shift away from Christianity into something a little more grounded in the views of the world. Views which when looked at intellectually helped form my conscience on how to think of the world in a more reasonable way, less on the unenlightened view that I experienced as a child. The childhood years a common expression to any science-minded question I might have would be answered with, “that is how God made it.” This lead to a healthy exploration not merely into the material world, but also into the philosophical.

In this post, we are going to be moving from me being fifteen years old to around twenty-two. We will spend a bit of time on this topic and cover it over the course of a couple of posts. This one will be about my experience in the world and what was happening in my life that lead me into this situation. I will begin with some overview of history as it was occurring during these years. I will also speak about entering into foster care, and eventually a Home for Boys. This is also the time in which even the family dynamic I was familiar with prior to entering into a new life would start to fall to the ground around me. I will be closing this post with a short introduction of philosophy as I came to interact with the world on an intellectual level.

This is the late 90’s the new millennium is fast approaching, and so is some interesting national events. President Bill Clinton begins his second term as president. The Green Bay Packers when the NFL championship over the Patriots for the first time in thirty years. An unusual series of lights are seen above Phoenix in March of 97 which spurred an inquisitive investigation into other than terrestrial life for me. On Independence Day, July 4th the NASA Pathfinder probe landed on Mars. The US Navy set sail in the USS Constitution for the first time in 116 years, celebrating Old Ironsides’ 200th Birthday. Then in 1998 Microsoft releases Windows 98 transforming how one interface with the Windows program. Then Google, Inc. is founded in September that same year. Then in 1999 the much-anticipated movie Star Wars: The Phantom Menace hits theaters and reinvigorates a newer generation into the franchise, and would propel my love of Star Wars into a new world of new characters, Legos, and toys. Finally, the year 2000 came, my graduation from High School, and my enlistment into the United States Navy.

Due to my learning disability or whatever anyone wants to call ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder) or as author Neil Gould calls it “Always Dialed into Higher Dimensions.” It is suggested that the ADHD child is not having an issue with attention, or with focus, as these children and myself included could engage our brains on any topic we so chose. The caveat required us to be interested or challenged by the topic, and without the challenge, there would be no interest. Which would lead a child to act out more as a teacher might call it? I found regular High School difficult without a one on one tutor there were simply too many stimuli at an early age for the freshmen school year. On the flip side of dealing with being a student I had struggled a bit with anger issues as a young teenager as a result of being abused, and a result was educational difficulties. Especially around male teachers, of which I would continue to have a hard time with until college in my late twenties. I was placed in Foster care to help with my outbursts, and then into a home for boys that could better address and manage these mental problems. By the time I returned to normal, whatever that was, at seventeen I still did not know who I was.

During the time I was within the Boys Home my grandparents got civilly divorced. This ended my interaction with them on a major scale. Grandma was a bit on the crazy side, and grandpa was heavily trying to deal with the financial burden. This meant I stopped going to church. The Boys Home had church on Sundays, but I wouldn’t go. It was even named St. Mary’s, had both Catholic and Non-Catholic services. I did not want to do either when I was there for the weekends. As this Boys Home had programs that let the boys go home for the weekends. This meant when I went home I did not go to church. After, all the reason I had been going was not out of any kind of self-identification with Christianity, not if the people who had raised me to take faith and Christian values importantly had chosen to separate. Especially after the reasons why the divorce happened in the first place, reasons that do not belong on my log but still did effect my walk in Faith.

After the boys school I did go home to graduate in the year 2000 from Sprague High School in Salem, Oregon. I walked, and received my diploma. It was hard work being able to graduate that year. Lots of times I could have been held back in school, but my mother had done her best to help advocate for my continued education. I am thankful for that, and I am certain now that God was watching out for me during those years that I had walked away, and refused to go to any place of worship. I fell into line with the philosophies of realism, rationalism, and Romanticism. I saw plenty of reasons to simply let the Christians, Muslims, Jews, and New-Agers have their beliefs and I would carry on with leaving them alone. After all, God was an indirect artificer in my life, therefore I did not need to be around the humans that could leave morality and sacrament behind. I lead myself into agnosticism because of the creature, not the Creator.