Between A Scholarship and A Hard Place

[mediamogul]

After a long period of skepticism, I became a solid atheist around the same time I became a high school senior. I'm in a Catholic household and cannot bring myself to announce my conversion to my parents (That means I still have to go to church, participate in Lent, and all that jazz…). As a senior, my caring mother has me filling out many scholarships. Our small church's altar society offers a relatively hefty one to applicants who write an essay over "How Catholic Faith Has Affected Your Life". My mom knows that few people will apply, so she expects me to do it.

I've sucked up to several organizations in the scholarship essays I write, but this is a whole new ordeal- How am I supposed to write positively about an institution that I have lost respect for? I want to tell people that I'm an atheist, not propagate that idea that I'm Catholic! If I write this essay of lies or if I come clean to my family, I think I'll regret my choice.

What uncomfortable situations have you been in? Any advice?

My thought is that whether I succeed or fail I will at least do so by being myself. Not on the grounds that I lied or misrepresented who I was. If people don't like me so be it but at least they will be disliking the real version of me.

When I was 17 I had some, uhhhh, behavioral problems and was sent to live with my fundamentalist aunt who promised my parents she would straighten me out. I mean this was a person who believed the earth was 6000 years old to put it in perspective. So my cousin was very aggressive with the conversion tactics and constantly told me the devil was in my life and nightmares I was having were all related to that. When it was Christmas time they asked me to put up the angel on the tree and I said no thank you. Then, when the whole family was sitting down to the table they asked me to say grace and I said, in front of everyone, that i did not believe in god. I think they must have been under the impression I was effectively "saved" by that point because they freaked and started yelling at me and I felt horrible at first but better afterwards as I had stood my ground and hadn't rolled over to appease them. After that they mostly layed off. It hasn't been easy but I'm glad I have been able to express to them what I really believe. I at least feel that whatever they think of me at least they know the truth about how I feel. I don't regret it.