(June 1, 2021 at 10:21 am)arewethereyet Wrote: I was raised Catholic by a Catholic father and Methodist mother. Neither one put much stock in religion though I was put through the paces of a Catholic upbringing to include Catechism classes on Saturday mornings till I ended up in Catholic schools in the 6th grade and on through high school.
There was never a time that I really believed any of it. I just went along with the rituals because that's what we did. I saw the Bible as not really different from any other fairy tale and was actually surprised to find out that some people believe it's an historical account.
Various things happened along the way and I prayed fervently for god to help. He didn't. I keep trying to believe but it just didn't take with me. In my early 20s I finally realized that I really didn't believe I had just been told that I believe. Some time spent searching for a new faith practice led me to figure out that I didn't have to pretend to believe. Not really any anger or hatred, just nothing. Whatever it is that others claim to feel didn't happen to me. And that's okay.
I wasted my pre teens and teens pining after a girl growing up. The first time I saw her, I think I was 9 or 10. I first saw her in the Catholic Church just down the road from my street. I was so insecure, I couldn't talk to her for years. When I switch from private school, my first year of public Highschool, I was at a football game, and looked across the field to see her, as the rival team cheerleader. But I still went to that Catholic Church, not to find God, but just to be near her. Eventually, I transferred to her High School, again, for the same stupid reason, just to be near her. Of course looking back at it now, it was all bullshit.
I think my childish pining after her, is akin to why people join religions. The desire for love, conformation and inclusion.
But even outside that pining for that girl, I went through the paces of the rituals of going to church for the same stupid reason. I wanted to fit in.
Eventually though, I stopped going to Church in my late teens. But even then, I didn't give up on a God, I simply stopped buying into organized religion. And not because of that girl's rejection of me. But I simply couldn't place my bullshit detector of the Priest's claims, but by that time being fresh out of Highschool, his words were not passing the smell test, even though I wasn't sure why.
One of the earliest memories of thinking to myself "that doesn't make sense" was after one Sunday the Priest was doing a sermon about "Your body is a Temple" and literally after the "service", (as an aside, I hate that word, it isn't a service, it is a comic book club) anyway, after that sermon, I walk outside only to se the Priest smoking. That was one of my earliest memories of skepticism. I couldn't put it adult language like I understand now, because I was young.
Point is in both the cases of pining after that girl, and wanting to fit in, in both cases, the girl and religion, my insecurities lead me to do and believe stupid shit.
