I used to be an incredibly religious person. My parents recently founded a college fellowship in Norfolk and back in the day I was a youth group leader. It wasn’t until around senior year in high school when I became disillusioned with organized religion. I simply refused to believe that all the gossiping, back-stabbing and self-righteous judging that I saw happening at church were a product of God. So I stopped going, and save for a couple of visits a year to support my parents, haven’t been back since.

Recently, the a decade-long scientific study commissioned to determine the healing power of prayer came to a close. The results indicated that patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered a significantly higher rate of health complications.

To all of my Christian comrades, I must ask: “How can you maintain your convictions in the face of evidence like this?”

I no longer buy the church’s bullshit. But I know what the church would say in response to this.

faith, n.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.