My academic background is Classics, ancient history, and most recently theology. I was an agnostic myself a while back. Because I like getting myself into trouble, I decided to investigate the claims of each religion. I did a study of the ones which rested their veracity on a historical claim, excluding the ones which were based primarily on personal betterment and mysticism, under the assumption that the ones based around subjective or internal factors are neither provable nor disprovable. Other religions, like Christianity, have a single point on which the entire religion stands or falls. For Christianity (as this is the direction I went), this point is the Resurrectionof Jesus. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity is utterly and irrevocably disproven. If he did, then Christianity is at least plausible. In fact, Christianity is the only religion I am familiar with that can be so conclusively proven false.
However, after studying the evidence surrounding the issue, I came to the conclusion that, if I am to be consistent in my claims to knowledge about the ancient world, I must also accept the Resurrection, and thus the attendant belief in God. The next question was a matter of which communion I would ultimately join. I almost went Orthodox, but ended up throwing in my hat with the Germans, as (1) I am more familiar with the Western Rite, much of my family being Roman Catholic, (2) because the Lutherans’ arguments, when properly understood, made the most sense to me of the available data, and (3) you try and get a non-practicing Baptist girl who isn’t a history or ritual nerd to go Orthodox with you and see how far you get (she helps keep me honest).
