W hen I was a Christian I was taught to bring my pain, confusion, and doubt to the foot of the cross. “You can be healed,” I was told. “ If you have faith, God will make a way .” But the promised healing never came. When my faith-filled prayers were answered with silence, the reassuring comments of “It’s all part of God’s plan” started to sound like empty rhetoric. For that reason and many others I eventually left Christianity, carrying a burden of spiritual scaring. Now what? Seek psychological help? Eliminate my magical thinking by actually studying science? I tried those paths, and they did help. However, somewhere along the way, I quietly, curiously—stumbled onto the writings of modern and ancient philosophers. I mostly skipped the dry texts presented by academia, more drawn to  contemporary writers who are bringing philosophy alive. When I think of medicine, I often picture pills, prescriptions, or white-coated professionals poking at problems with stethoscopes. But...

F or over half my life, I was a Christian. My beliefs shaped how I understood the world, how I related to others, and how I measured meaning and morality. But over time, I began to question — not out of rebellion, but out of a deep and unsettling sense that the framework I once leaned on no longer made sense to me. What followed wasn’t a collapse, but a transition. Eventually, after many years identifying as a skeptical ex-Christian, I found myself drawn to Stoicism, an ancient philosophy of which up until then I had been ignorant. Now I identify as a Stoic Prokopton — a term that means “one who is making progress.” Not a sage, not a master, just someone walking the path with intention. This blog post is a short reflection on why I made the shift, a taste of what I’ve learned, and what I continue to discover as I walk this philosophical road. Why I Moved Away from Christianity Leaving Christianity wasn’t an easy decision. My faith had been a source of community, identity, and pur...