Questions About my Religious Development

An old friend from high school and college just asked me some rather deep question about my religious experience and beliefs. I thought that they were interesting enough to share, both the questions and my answers. For reference, I was raised in an Evangelical Church (Presbyterian); became an atheist when I went to college; began practicing Buddhism later in college and developing it significantly in the Marine Corps, where I was stationed in Japan for three years; turned to Gnosticism later as a more symbolically-familiar system of mystagogy; and eventually returned to Christianity through the Episcopal Church, although with a strongly mystical/Gnostic outlook.
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I have a question, in your switch to Christianity. I was wondering did you just one day say I believe. Where before it was the absence of belief.

When I was a child, of course, I never thought to questions the teachings of the Presbyterian Church…