My road to Angnosticism

I was born on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1969. My name, Christopher, is Hebrew in origin and literally means, "Christ Bearer."
I was born into a "mixed" family. My father is from a long line of protestants that settled the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. He was Episcopalian (a.k.a. - the Church of England in America.) My mother is from a long line of Roman Catholic Hungarians. (In the eyes of the Catholic Church, my parents were told that their marriage was a mixed marriage.)
I was baptised at about the ripe old age of six weeks. This was an unthinkable tragedy among my mother's family members. It was (and still is in many places), believed among Catholics that if a baby died prior to baptism, his or her "soul" would never achieve Heaven nor Hell, but instead float around forever in a state of "Limbo." So, finally to give my relatives an unfettered solace of mind, I was baptised by a priest in St. Stephen's of Hungary Catholic Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania sometime in the late Spring of 1969.
Growing up, I have only vague recollections of my time in Church. My parents would occasionally take me to the local Catholic Church in my home town of Manassas, Virginia and I think that at one point, we went semi-religiously. Other than that, I went to Church only when I visited my grandmother in Allentown or at Holidays (Christmas and Easter.) Church was always a big production for my grandmother. There was always a great deal of stress involved in preparation for the event. My father always pushed to attend Easter Sunrise service at the National Cathedral in nearby Washington, D.C. but my mother shunned the idea of driving into the city all but one time I believe.
At any rate, that's about all I remember from childhood on the subject. Yes, I learned the Lord's Prayer. Yes I learned the robotic drone of the Catholic Mass. Yes, I said my prayers at night and said Grace before dinner. I was a typical, semi-practicing Christian American, much like most everyone else.
The first event I remember that labeled religion as suspect in my mind was the Jonestown Massacre of 1978. Nine-hundred and nine Jonestown parishioners died of cyanide poisoning in what leader Jim Jones referred to as "revolutionary suicide." It was the largest mass suicide event in over 1900 years of history. Until the events of September 11, 2001, it was the single largest, non-natural loss of civilian life in American history. It forever ingrained a hatred of "cult" religion in my mind. This was the beginning for me.
Into my teen years, I experienced a mix of religious viewpoints. I still considered myself Catholic and a believer in God and the Bible. I had little experience with protestant churches at the time, though I had attended an Episcopal and Methodist service or two. I was in my mid to late teens when I first attended an Assembly of God service of one of my friend's. It did not have the desired effect on me that Assembly members generally hope to inflict. I saw people for the first time with their arms raised up, vocalizing at random, speaking in tongues, loud and boisterous music - not at all what I was used to. It struck me as a cult. (And I still believe it is.) Over the years, I have had the misfortune to attend a few more services at fundamental churches and I still don't have an opinion that differs any more than my original evaluation.
At any rate, when I was around 20 years old, I decided to investigate Catholicism seriously. I had floundered around with my own religion my whole life, so I wanted to give the Catholic Church an honest evaluation. My friend Dan (a devout Catholic to this day), and I began going to church together - usually on Saturday evening as we both liked to sleep in on Sunday morning. I spent at least a year attending mass regularly. However what I came to realize about the Catholic Church was that it stood for so many things that I did not. And the omnipresent drone-like chanting of the service began to seem like a cult to me as well. I didn't get much out of the sermons - it was more like preaching to an enemy than instilling me with confidence. I found a great deal of hypocrisy within the Catholic Church and I, myself began to feel hypocritical attending as I no longer believed in their ways. So I stopped attending and broke my bond with Catholicism forever.
Though my Catholic bond was broken, I still considered myself to be a religious being. After I got married in 1996, my ex-wife and I spoke of how we thought it was important for our children to have a rudimentary understanding of Christianity. So before they were even born, we began looking for a local church in Ashtabula, Ohio. (By this time we had moved from Virginia.) We decide to become members of the Second Congregational United Church of Christ in Ashtabula. this was a church that my ex had attended as a child (she was also Catholic by baptism but her mother's second husband was the son of this church's minister.)
So we began attending and at first, thought we had found a home. The services were tame and more traditional. The people were older, but friendly and desperately sought younger members. The minister was fairly inspiring with some of his sermons. He actually had opened a session of Congress while we were attending that church. (Something that even then, I was totally against because of the mix of church and state thing.)
However, as time went by, we began to notice things. The friendly parishioners were actually fairly petty, full of gossip, and in some cases they were a little back-stabbing. All in all - they weren't bad people, but it makes one realize that a little smoke and mirrors goes a long way. Our minister was the CEO of a local company during the weekdays. In his travels, it turns out he would engage in a practice called "churning." This refers to booking two non-refundable tickets, back-to-back and only using the outbound portion of each in order to receive a bigger discount. This practice was and still is "illegal" in the travel industry and airlines were handing out debit memos left and right to travel agencies when they found this practice in use. The reverend's wife was bragging one day about the fact that he was engaging in this practice. My ex and I both explained that it's a bogus practice and was actually one of the contributing financial factors that got me laid-off from my corporate travel agency job in 1999. She of course realized she had put her foot in her mouth and immediately tried to back-pedal, but she never really warmed up to us after that.
So once again, I found hypocrisy in organized religion. Now, you could argue it's human nature, but for an organization that claims to be aspiring to "God's greatness", it's really just hypocritical. I lost interest in that church soon after and my ex followed my lead after awhile.
In the years that followed, I began really researching religion. Religion of all kinds - seeking some kind of spiritual truth. But all I have found is that just about every religion has a dark side. And the big three (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), have perhaps the darkest histories of all. People have been robbed, enslaved, prostituted, sacrificed, raped, murdered, tortured, imprisoned, ridiculed, and excommunicated all for simply questioning religion and in some cases, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
War almost always has religion at its roots. Even if it's a social or ethnic war, there is generally always a religious dogma driving it.
I have found that religion is guilty of thousands of years of scientific retardation. The very progress forward of mankind has been inexcusably altered by these ancient superstitions. The Bible or the Koran hold about as much validity as Greek Mythology or Egyptian Sun God worship. Yes, some common sense life lessons may be present, but only at the expense of swallowing some gigantic lies - fables with no scientific evidence whatsoever.
Faith is fine when it has something substantial behind it - faith in friends or family. But blind faith in things that cannot be proven to exist is just, plain irresponsible.
The reason I am Agnostic is because I can't prove nor disprove the existence of anything beyond this, four dimensional universe. I don't believe in God per se - at least not the God or Gods of any human-born tale.
Mathematics has defined eleven dimensions of existence. Is it possible that we might one day find answers to the question of some kind of intelligent force, greater than us, that controls this universe and every other? Sure. It's possible. But not definite.
In order to achieve Agnosticism, I've had to grasp hold of and accept the fact that my death may truly be just that - death. I can accept that possibility. Like everyone else, I don't like that possibility, but I accept it nonetheless. Is it possible that there are other planes of existence I might transcend? I suppose so. But I can't define it anymore that you or anyone else on this planet. It's a possibility - not a fact. So when I hear this religion or that religion claiming to KNOW the mysteries of the universe, I can't take them seriously. Because a book says so without any relevant proof is not proof.
Einstein theorized that energy (which we are all made up of), cannot die - it simply transforms. That may be, but there's no evidence to suggest that intelligence goes with it. However, there's no evidence to say it doesn't. We will simply have to die to find out. Or perhaps one day, science will figure it out - if religion doesn't continue to hamper it.
What's truly important to humanity right now is not dwelling on the afterlife. That will come - we all die. We need to focus on the here and now so that there is a tomorrow.
Cheers.