I grew up in a devoutly Lutheran (back door of the RC Church) family. While many of the values, morals and ideals of the church made lots of sense, the theology never really worked for me. The circumstances surrounding my father’s death in 2001 and my own life experiences moved me away from the Lutheran church, and religion in general. After separating from the church I went on a spiritual search and found the path of Morality and Values that I have now embraced.
well, everyone has to at some point ask themselves: What do I really believe in? But in your life, the church had an influence. I am 99% sure of that because, again, I know from experience that, left w/o any Church guidance (even though we disagree on which is the right Church...) we are... uh.. not going to turn out well. In this, I understand the point of liberals who want to focus on a criminal's upbringing, even to the point of not holding him/her accountable for their crimes (I don't agree with that latter point, though).
I had a good childhood but a terrible adolescence and throughout the years since, I have had many evil thoughts.. and when I examined those thoughts (with the paltry knowledge of psychology I had/have), I realized that... well, basically, what led me to have evil thoughts, much less think about --momentarily thinking about--doing some.. unkosher things.. was the evil I had experienced in my early years. In other words, when you have a certain level of evil in your life, you are going to act and react in anger against that evil... which anger/rage may be mostly in your subconcious (most of the time), but sometimes... well, I don't know if I am being clear with my words here?
I am sure everyone has thought about.. you know, such things as getting back at people for the evil they have done to you? And sometimes the anger wins out over your more civilized self.. Sometimes you do not exactly want to wait for God to make things right... You know "Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord" and all...
But in any case, I would not be so civilized if not for my Catholic faith, which while weak at one point in my maturing process... led to me being more mature later on
I'm sure millions of others can say the same...