Are only ignorant people theists?

Well, a lot of people are raised thinking this way.

Writer Anne Lamott apparently grew up like this.

Without a creator, I think a lot of the why can start to fall apart though.

Evil itself can be a question that I can’t answer.

We can only be one of two things, if you want to know the truth.

None of the adults in our circle believed. Believing meant that you were stupid. Ignorant people believed, uncouth people believed, and we were heavily couth. My dad was a writer, and my parents were intellectuals who went to the Newport Jazz festival every year for their vacation and listened to Monk and Mozart and the Modern Jazz Quartet. Everyone read all the time.

-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

Faith can start in a million different ways, I suppose.

My theism started at such a young age, pointing squarely to its beginning is lost somewhere in my memory.

I love that all of our stories are so different.

And that, usually, we are only allowed one step at a time.

Thank goodness for the safe places, and the safe relationships, we come across.

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.

-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies