Trading Faith for Reason

Dear Internet,

   I cannot believe that I used to believe Genesis.  I honestly used to think that the creation story of Adam and Eve was true... but then when I was a teenager, I started questioning it.  It didn't sit right with me to believe that the human race had been a product of repeated incest, as the bible implied.  It was explained to me that there were other "first men and women" created all around the world, and that was the reason why every culture had its own creation story.  I was told that all the creation stories were very similar, and asked how that could be unless God did it.
   As a child, though, I loved dinosaurs.  I read book after book for them.  My appetite for scientific knowledge was insatiable.  Looking back, I think it was my love for dinosaurs that led me towards Darwinism.  I didn't realize it consciously as a child, but I had already accepted that dinosaurs evolved from one period to the next.  I had already accepted that animals had evolved.
   Why not, then, apply this to humans?
   Well, like many other fundamentalist Christians, I found the idea that we had come from monkeys appalling.  I asked the usual stupid questions, such as "why are there still monkeys?" and "where all all the transitional fossils?" without really looking into the problem.  This is a tactic many Christians use: they pose a question and then say "exactly" and stop there, as if the question, instead of threatening their belief system, merely serves as more proof that they are right.
   Unlike other Christians, I decided to investigate.
   This is a part of my personality: whenever I am faced with a problem, I will not stop until I know everything there is to know about it.  I question, I ponder, and I obsess.  This has both been a good thing and a bad thing for me throughout life.
   But I digress.
   What is important is that this investigation eventually led me to accepting that Darwinism is true.  Because it is.  Evolution happened.  It is a scientific fact.  And now, more than ever, I am amazed and fascinated by the world around me.  I do not feel as if I have lost anything-- my mind has been opened to the wonders of the universe, and I am turning to science to answer my questions.  Never has the world seemed more beautiful, and never have I felt more alive.