I believed that English-speaking people had a divine mission to civilize the world by making it western, democratic and Christian.

I learned from my Adventist upbringing that the biggest sins were sexual.

I loved history, particularly of the British, American and Old Testament kind.

I decided to take God and organized religion seriously, and to reject the secular life which in my teens had looked attractive because it allowed me to act in any way that I wanted.

At times during high school and college I wished to be a sportswriter.

I have decided to follow in my sinful ways, and have largely abandoned the increasingly religious life I was leading over the previous months, including several hours of Talmudic study a day.

Looking back, I wince at the careless way I tossed out my opinions.

I believed that English-speaking people had a divine mission to civilize the world by making it western, democratic and Christian.

I teethed on books of heroes such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and King David.

I’ve often thought that my lack of intimacy with those around me is the fault of those around me.

In my right-wing politics of the time, I held that unemployment was usually the fault of the unemployed.

I now attend non-orthodox synagogues, and study little during the secular week.

My habit of glorifying things far away in space and time, also contributed to my social isolation.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church believes that it was specially chosen by God to prepare the world for the Second Coming of His Son Jesus.

Acting in anger and hatred throughout my life, I frequently precipitated what I feared most, the loss of friendships and the need to rely upon the very people I’d abused.

Everything we do affects other people.

At the time I perceived most religious men, particularly the pastors with all their talk about love, faith and relationship, as effeminate.

I did not want to reject religion as nonsense because life seemed to have no ultimate purpose without it, and most of the good people I knew were Christians.

Judaism is much more communal, and partly as a consequence of my religious switch, I am increasingly more suspicous of my previous view that what people do in the privacy of their own home is their business alone.

I knew in my gut that there was something wrong with a system that couldn’t fire its incompetents, and I had my share of incompetent college teachers.