Born-again christian with doubts

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@ The OP, there are two emotions that generally accompany newfound atheism: first, the feeling of a burden being lifted from your shoulders and a wide world of possibility opening up before you, partly due to a lessening of the limitations of whichever faith you gave up and partly because you no longer have to waste the time and energy trying to justify an illogical world view. Second, many people feel somewhat adrift in their freedom, having 'lost' a parent figure that they could take hope from, a cosmic purpose to believe in, and the false promise of life after death.

what fo you mean by unproven?

Hypotheses are provable ideas. Theories are proven hypotheses.

Science is merely an extremely powerful method of winnowing what's true from what feels good. That is, supporting evidence must be validated before a claim can be accepted as a fact. Therefor, and unproven claim can not be accepted as a fact, and the claim itself is in doubt.

a. Absence of proof, while not proof of absence, is sufficient cause for reasonable doubt.
b. Faith is the belief in unprovable claims.
: : It is reasonable to doubt any and all faith-based claims.

From what I've learned, science is observing nature and when we can't see some force, we can observe its interaction of influence on something else, thus, we know it's there. Gravity, black holes, time and dark matter are some examples. We might not be able to see these things but we can see their influence on other things that they encompass or is nearby.

No, we can't see gravity but we know it exists because we can feel its influence on us, when we drop something, when we leave the gravitational confines of earth, how much something weighs on a planetary body smaller or greater than that of earth. Today, I literally saw radiation. I thought it was some force that you couldn't see. You totally can with some special paper or film coated with a special oil or liquid. I don't really remember the details right now but the point is, you can't see it, yet it's there. We feel its effect on things.

Scientists use the scientific method to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Sometimes, it's my understanding they will actually be excited when an experiment fails and it's back to the drawing board. That sounds wonderful to me! Religion's beliefs are based upon what's been written, transcribed, translated, passed down, lost, found, retranslated, reinterpreted over and over again until the meaning is lost entirely. For all we know, the passages in the bible (see, I didn't capitalize that) were just parables to help guide - maybe as stories that if you read, you're supposed to think, "gee, I don't like how they're treating women. I'll treat women in my life better" or something along those lines.

Also, I should note that in Sunday school, some of the books of the bible weren't written in Christ's life but decades, sometimes centuries after he died. That always sat kind of wrong with me.

In Exodus, God sent the 7 plagues on everyone in Egypt. Everyone was afflicted with these burdens and curses except the king. What did the people of Egypt do to deserve this? It was the king who wouldn't free the Hebrews.

I think I may have figured out prayer: It's like talking out your problems aloud. If you hear them instead of thinking about them. It's like being able to help others while having the same problem yourself. I can talk someone through something but I might not be able to willing to do the thing myself. I'm trying to think of a hobby or something where this would be applicable. I'm drawing a blank. It's not that you're receiving instruction through some divine presence but you're doing the thinking, you're doing the work yourself. Could be too the more you think about something, the clearer will be the answer. That could be it, too.

I'm changing my major in school next week to biology or something in the sciences. I want to do something that matters, something with my brain where I can make a difference where God isn't involved.