Reply #8: I Was Raised Catholic, but Chose Atheism, and here's why... [View All]

[Placebo]

I remember it just like it was yesterday...*que ripple screen effects* I was sitting in CCD class on a saturday morning. (for those who don't know, 'CCD' is sunday school...but on a saturday... :shrug: )

I had just completed my FIRST communion (aww) and was now working my way towards CONFIRMATION. *que dramatic music and thunder*

Teacher told us that if we wanted to make our confirmation, we would have to memorize a whoooooole LIST of prayers! Well, this list looked very long to me, and I asked teacher "Miss, why does jesus care if I memorize these prayers?" She looked at me funny and simply said, "You have to memorize the prayers of you CAN'T make your confirmation. That's just the way it is."

But this didn't sit well with me. Why, teacher dodged my question like a tricksy republican on Meet the Press. So I pressed on with my questions. I asked, "But Miss, I still don't understand why Jesus, who loves us no matter what, would CARE if I knew 100 prayers or zero prayers." Teacher didn't know what to say. For some reason, I just kept talkin', and somewhere along the line I somehow found a way to mention karma (which she aptly told me was NOT a catholic belief and that it COULDN'T exist) and how my father always told me I was one of the greatest people he's ever known, why should Jesus not think so just because I didn't know some 'thought up by man' prayers? I also asked her why there were posters in the halls asking us, the students to donate our precious little money that we had to help feed poor children in some other country, when the CHURCH was so rich it could feed everyone in the world if it wanted to. She didn't have an answer for that one.

Well teacher went silent, but that would surely not be the end of it.

Teacher called my father and asked him to come down and speak with her. She told him that it wouldn't be best for me to continue on there. Needless to say, that was the one thing she had said in the time I knew her that I actually agreed with her on.

And there we have it, The Nation's first and official break with the catholic church and religion in all its forms.

Now I laugh back at how, not only was I the better reader and speaker, and smartest of all the students there, but most of the kids who stayed in CCD and made their precious, holy, jesus-stamp-of-approval 'confirmation', are now high school drop outs, pregnant, or just plain 'ol FUCKED UP.

I don't need a man-made, control and power driven symbol of human depravity to be my moral compass, I will just trust myself for that.

And oh yeah, I'm gay. :hi: