I was actually raised Catholic, and used to hold to subjectivity - the idea that truth is relative, which is actually self-defeating; I would get into debates with loved ones about how can we be sure we perceive reality the same way, and other discussions of the sort. But, it wasn't until a few years ago that I become a non-denominational Christian, and left Catholicism. I engaged a friend of mine online in a debate, regarding a post he had made about the Pope and papal infallibility. He mentioned concepts of logic and fallacious reasoning, which was completely new to me at the time. Once I found out that there was such a thing as absolute truth, and that truth had a structure to it bound by logic, I developed a love for it and wanted to pursue it wherever it led; it was like that saying: something just "clicked."
Around that time I also started getting into Bible prophecy, and would read commentaries by other Christians on various forums regarding prophecy and current events, and I eventually experienced what it was like to be born-again, and was re-baptized later on. Salvation was no longer the idea that you are a good person who needs to try harder and burden yourself to please God, and that God waits for you to mess up and then brings down the hammer of judgment. Rather, God loved me exactly as I was, and continued to love me even though I was living in rebellion to him. He is just and had to punish me for sin, but He sent His son Yeshua to die in my place because He instead desired to restore me to Himself in spite of my rebellion, not to condemn. Repentance, faith and good works are no longer a "got to" but a "get to", because nothing I could ever do will make Him love me any more or any less.
Ever since, I gained new passions for learning about science, logic & philosophy, history, music, psychology, physics, astronomy, mathematics (such as the noise algorithms I'm working with now), and in general everything I didn't really care about before - it was no longer about doing or learning things for selfish reasons, but rather I had a new motivation to glorify God because He created these things for His glory, and I could use that knowledge as a service to others. I came across a child prodigy called
Jacob Barnett, who claims that he was able learn complex topics simply be finding a way of learning that works for Him. For instance, we learn through frames of reference, and we can learn difficult concepts by relating them to other frames of reference we already understand - everything to a certain extent is interconnected in some way. I was able to apply this for the Item Storage mod, by understanding client-server communication as a relationship between two friends, who have to work together to complete a task.
So that's basically what I believe and my testimony. Over the years, I've matured in my walk with Yeshua, and learned to be patient, long-suffering and unconditionally loving towards others - not perfectly of course lol =) but still growing. I've also been paying a lot of attention lately to Bible prophecy, and how it relates to the current events going on today. Events taking place now as mentioned in prophecy include God frustrating the plans of the Egyptians for a free democracy (
Isaiah 19) (not because He hates the Egyptians, but because He is eventually going to save the Egyptian people, as mentioned towards the end of that chapter in Isaiah); the destruction of Damascus and possibly all of Syria, which is already taking place as Damascus is becoming a heap of ruins (
Isaiah 17); all nations of the world turning against Israel (
Psalm 83,
Zechariah 12, etc.), but God will use these events to eventually save the Jews and all of Israel, and will give them the entire land back that He gave them in the Old Testament; the 7-year peace agreement that initiates 7 years of great tribulation and judgments upon the entire earth (
Daniel 9 and the entire book of
Revelation - which is chronological in order); and so on.
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