I've been pondering recent threads detailing the great variety of faiths that exist just here on WC.

.BEGINNING IN AUGUST 2009, Here is my first post:

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Here's an interesting article from Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1891230,00.html

Like the subject header says, can someone really be "de-baptized"? It seems to me, like the bishop says in the article, it's really something between someone and God, or, if you don't believe in God, in a person's own heart and mind.

Why then the need for a certificate?

Reasons people leave the faith, according to [some] Christians:

The last time I wrote on this site I was concerned with the “meaning of life." The theme continues in this post, but only because the questions I have been asking myself and others has consistently led back to one answer, despite the variety of questions. I have been asking myself why I believe what I did when I was an evangelical Christian and why others continue to believe what they do - in relation to that which we cannot perceive by the five senses. Granted, there are many of those who simply do not engage in such self-reflection.

I applaud many Christians on something that self-proclaimed “freethinkers” often overlook about certain religionists: the quality of their skepticism. I laud the way that a Christian can systematically dismantle their religious rivals, yet at the same time I praise those same rivals in their endeavours to knock down the Christian religion. Christians, as well as other religious adherents, definitely have a healthy dose of skepticism, defined as someone “inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions” (OED).