Since my deconversion from religion, when I am asked: “Why don’t you believe in god?”, my reply is always “Which god?”

I no longer hold the arrogant view that the Christian god is any more important, any more special or holds any more elevated status than any other deity.

The book I am writing did not come about as a result of this realisation, but rather, I came to this realisation as a product of the research that went into the writing of the book.

I was brought up in a Christian home and as a very young boy attended enough Methodist Church Sunday school classes to learn all the songs, all the books of the bible by heart, more verses than I care to remember and all the important bible stories.
Yet, even at that young age, I realised something was very wrong; I had many questions which I couldn’t reconcile with the teachings of the church, the bible and with god.

I needed answers... I believed I had the right to answers so I approached several of the youth leaders where I got the standard ‘you must just have faith’, ‘don’t question god’s way’ and the ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’;
this wasn’t good enough for me. Even as a young man I wanted answers that made sense, so I approached the minister who couldn’t find anything more intelligible than what his youth leaders had to offer.

The questions were simple and I figured anyone associated with the church would be able to answer them with ease. Turns out these questions were not so easy to explain away and the more I looked on my own for answers the more questions I found.

Among these questions were:

1. If god created light on the first day, and he created the sun and the moon and the stars on the fourth day, what produced the light on the first three days?
2. Adam was the first man ever created, Eve was created from Adam’s rib - so far the only two people on the whole planet. They had two sons – Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel and is chased out of the Garden of Eden, travels to the Land of Nod where he gets married. Where did this woman come from?
3. It took god six days to create the earth and then he rested. Even as a young boy, this didn’t sound like an all powerful god to me; surely he could snap his fingers and everything would be done in an instant like he did with all the other stars in the heavens.
   And then he rested! This one got me. Why would an all powerful god need a day’s rest?

It was these kinds of questions that led me to a life of searching, asking and debating, trying to find the truth - wanting to find the truth. I searched for answers outside of Christianity and became fascinated with other religions. I bought a copy of the Baghavad Gita, which I learnt is part of the Mahabarata, which in turn is part of the Vedas.
Although Hindus don’t have a specific holy book as the Christians do, the Vedas are as close as you’ll get to it.
I visited several Hindu temples, took part in their rituals and had discussions with some of the teachers.

I bought a Qur’an, was invited by a friend to a Mosque several times where I learnt about their rituals, their religion and got to speak with an Imam (the leader of the Mosque).

I visited a Buddhist Temple fairly regularly for a stretch of time where I learnt many meditation techniques as well as the Buddhist philosophies of life.

Each of these religions were interesting and informative in very unique ways helping to shape who I am today. For many years I honoured each of them annually by observing Ramadan (Islam), performing the Lakshmi Pooja and celebrating Diwali (Hinduism) and observing a special mediation on the birthday of the Buddha.

Religion has always been an important part of my life; second only to my need for knowledge and this is what started me along the journey that became inception of my book.
I didn’t start out to write a book, I began with a thirst for knowledge about religion. I wanted to find the origin of religion as a whole, where did it come from and why and how? How did it evolve and branch and grow to what it is now?

I decided the best way to tackle this research would be to follow the evolution of my religion – Christianity. I asked myself:
‘Where did Christianity come from?’ - It came from the Jews.
‘Where did the Jews come from?’ - They came from the Israelites.
‘Where did the Israelites come from?’ - They came from the Canaanites... simple enough.

Now I did the same for god.
‘Where did the Christian god come from?’ - He came from the Jewish god. ‘Where did the god of the Israelites come from?’ - He came from the god of the...
(For a sneak peek of the answer to this question)

And that was where my rapid deconversion from religion began.