Epiphany Experience?

Has anyone ever had an epiphany-like experience? I was reading this book called U-turns: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living The Wrong Life
and it kind of got me to think about one that I had. I kinda realized all of the sudden that the whole religous conservatism that I grew up around and followed was all totally stupid. The Jerry-Falwell-like mindset that my parents and church are so ingrianed in. Being around that all the time now is kind of disturbing to say the least (It is one of the reasons I have'nt come out at all). This epiphany resulted in me loosing my stong religous beliefs to become an agnostic leaning more towards atheism (Maybe there is a God, maybe not). The epiphany had a lot to do with being gay and always being made to feel guilty about it. But in had to do with a lot of other things also that just seemed totally illogical. Being around people who have such different belief (meaning my parents, thier friends, and our church) makes it seem as if they've been brianwashed and that I was once brianwashed and snaped out of it. That's why I hate going to church and listening to the:***: they try to put in your head, but I do it just so that no questions will be asked. I know that there are a lot of churches that are more liberal, but now the whole Christian minset almost totally turns me off. I don't feel like it was that gradual (happened in August 2005 over a couple of weeks) so I'd consider it an epiphany. I'm not completely sure what triggered it had a lot to do with the drama of what was going on in the church. There was a long tangent during one of the sermons regarding "forgiving the gays." They even had an "ex-gay"(what a bunch of crock) visit the church preaching agianst homosexuality (Another reason I don't want to come out is that I may be forced into some sort of reparitive therapy that will screw up my mind). Maybe it was just a combination of a lot of different things that happened in the same small strech of time that set it off. I'm so happy that it happened because when it did I was finally able to accept being gay without having to feel guilty about it as well as being more open-minded about a lot of other things, but one downside is that I'm not completely sure of the afterlife (if there is one) and I miss the feeling of being able to call on God (if he exists) for help. Sorry this is so long but there it is.:eusa_doh:

Have any of you had an experience like mine or another epiphany-like experience or know of anyone who has? It doesn't have to revolve around religon or being gay it can be about anything (There are other examples in the book reviews).


About U-turns

From the Publisher:
Every day, in almost every field, someone perceives themselves to be on the wrong side of a psychic divide. The “second brain” in their gut tells them their life must change. Bruce Grierson draws on over 300 hundred stories of u-turners, including famous cases like Gandhi and Gauguin as well as a host of other gripping tales of people who have risked everything to answer life’s wake-up call: people who change political parties and careers, people give up their jobs as doctors to become poets, men who become women, professional athletes who quit to spend more time with their families, mothers who quit their families to pursue careers, people who suddenly become revolutionaries for a cause they didn’t care about the day before.

Grierson examines the u-turn from all angles—philosophical, scientific, literary and psychological—beginning with premise that the wake-up call is the secular equivalent of the religious epiphany, the moment when a person is “born again.” When does the wake-up call happen? Often in mid-life, but not always. Is it a good thing? Yes and no. Who does it happen to? Potentially any of us, under the right circumstance. Is America ready for a mass u-turn? Maybe. In chapters that address everything from the neuroscience behind epiphanies (the eureka moment) to the possibility of “forcing” a u-turn, Grierson brilliantly describes and elucidates this powerful, mysterious phenomenon, and in doing so illuminates all or our continual struggles with life choices and identity.

Publishers Weekly:
A Canadian journalist (Culture Jam) takes an informed look at people who suddenly, dramatically transform their lives. Grierson offers scores of examples, such as Virgil Butler, who had earned his living slaughtering chickens at a Tyson plant. After he started dating an animal lover, he quit his job, became a vegetarian and now runs an animal rights Web site. Many of the epiphanies were of a religious nature, either toward or away from spirituality. Anwah Shaikh, a Pakistani fundamentalist Muslim, killed several Sikhs after seeing the mutilated bodies of Muslims around the time Pakistan gained independence. Reading the Qur'an one day, he suddenly found one passage troubling and began reading the text more critically; he turned away from Islam and wrote a critique of the Qur'an. Several tales recount political shifts, such as Michael Lind's abandonment of conservatism after being disgusted by Pat Buchanan's speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. This is a nuanced and informative investigation that speculates but does not reach final conclusions about why some make U-turns in life and others do not. Grierson suggests that most changers are middle-class white males (who have the greatest freedom to make such changes) with a degree of sensitivity and idealism. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

 

It's so awsome that you were able to get past that, accept your sexuality, and still have faith in God. For me it was different because I almost had to drop everything that I was taught in order to see past it and start over from the beginning. In starting over it was kind of hard for me to accept the whole idea of there being a God and at the same time it's hard for me to accept the whole idea that there is no God. Just the lack of evidence on both sides kind of confuses me but i've found that I may lean more towards atheism. One of the reasons is that in the world today so many problems could be eliminated if there were no religon. It kind of reminds me of that John Lennon song, "Imagine"