My Religious - Knowledge Dichotomy

This blog post is heavily influenced by a great many factors. Soul Searching. Religion. Knowledge. Philosophy. People. Stories.

To pin one thing would be a misnomer. I'll name a few influences.

Christianity
Deism
The Story of Cassie Bernall (brought about by the Band Flyleaf, who Janell turned me on to.)
The recent human influences in my life - Janell and Jonathan.
The lasting human influences in my life - Dad, My Brother.
Stories - Dragon Age: Origins (So far fetched that a video game would have an impacting story?) Les Miserables.

I'll have to start by identifying some conceptual elements that define the current question.

In the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and became like God, knowing both good, and evil. They were then cast out of the Garden of Eden as punishment. I'll unwrap the implication for the sake of explanation - Adam and Eve were punished for abandoning ignorance. Perhaps I miss the intent of the parable, which is indicating that they were cast out of Eden for falling prey to the Serpent's deceit? - The way I saw this, however, they were punished for knowledge.

Deism - A part religious and part philosophical answer to the question "Why are we here?" Deists hold that a supreme being created the universe as we know it, and that religious truth can be found through reason and knowledge (which includes Science, but understand that Deism is not Scientology). "Christian Deism" ultimately calls the Christian God that supreme being. Deism generally rejects the notion of any sort of divine intervention, as well as the notion that the Bible is the word of God.

The Story of Cassie Bernall - The commonly accepted notion is that Eric Harris asked Cassie Bernall; "Do you believe in God?" To which she supposedly said Yes before he killed her. The exchange never took place, both according to police reports and an interview with Emily Wyant, who was in the Library with Bernall when she was killed. The person who was asked "Do you believe in God?" was a girl named Valeen Schnurr. - She survived the assault.
So, why do I trounce upon such a story? - For the sake of Truth, and my going back to the first point - Knowledge.

So, with all this, I ask - Is the pursuit of knowledge evil? Is it wrong to want to know the truth? In so many ways religion tells us that it is, though in Christianity, it's not often explicit - In other religious, it definitely is. So many find such emotion and significance in the story of Cassie Bernall... which isn't even true, and we can prove it. I suppose the opportunity to mock any sort of religious text is laid open with that idea in mind (finding significance in fiction is the essence of parable) yet that's not my intent. My question is my own uncertainty.

I bring up this story to ask a question - Is the faith we're to have in a (or any) God, or in the description of God provided to us by the Bible/Church? I've largely become an apostate to the Church, mostly because I find it difficult to imagine that God would not want me to pursue an answer to my question, and would expect me to simply accept the words of a book on faith alone. Faith in the purely Christian sense of the idea supposes I should stop searching for God, and just accept everything in the book as correct. Look at the story of Cassie Bernall with that in mind - The situation is no less tragic, though certainly less significant. While it doesn't change what happened, it does provide fuel to a fire. The purpose of religion is to find truth in the meaning of our existence. If truth is a value, even according to the bible, why do we run from it for the sake of finding meaning in a story?

This is most of the reason why I stopped attending Church, and why I'm so reluctant to go back.

I've been inspired by someone recently, and I'm realizing that what I left so many years ago, may not be what I thought it was. While I will never stop my pursuit of knowledge, my desire for an answer, or constant introspection, I think I may go back to church, inspired by this person that personified the fact that my unrest may be unfounded.

Ironically, as I look toward going back, I think of the story of the Prodigal Son. (Luke 15:11-32) I'm not quite there yet, though.