It's very, very sad.. Catholicism/Christianity has always been such a big part of my life and general belief system, and even when I questioned Christianity, I always still believed in a "God." Now that my faith is slipping away, it feels like a part of me is gone, and it's quite sad. Sure, I have the new found freedom of not worrying about punishment from some old dude in the sky, but it's also very emotional for me considering how religion was how my mother and I always bonded and was what we shared/had in common. I have a lot of great memories of religious things done with her, and I have a very soft spot for good hearted religious people, but I don't know if I really believe it anymore. too many philosophical fallacies, and too much ignorance to deal with at the current point in time. Christmas was tough, with all the Jesus stuff, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't bring me to tears. life feels good, it's just religion is so intertwined with my childhood and emotions/family, that it's hard to break away. I deeply loved "God," Catholicism, the Virgin Mary, the rosary, the sacraments etc, and still do, even if it might all be a figment of my imagination. It's just I didn't like the "baggage" that went along with it all, the guilt, hell etc. I might add that I'm not sure of anything, and that I probably consider myself agnostic, and there is a possibility later in like that "God" will reveal himself to me, that is if he exists, but until then, it's an open question. So yeah I'm officially coming out as one of the eternally damned

/no one else to talk to about this sort of thing

i just realized this probably would have been better in the blog section, but whatever, too late now.

This post is me not giving a shit.

At least you can take comfort in the fact you are rational.

Welcome to our club. We're good people.

A very close friend of mine- who is an atheist, as is her husband, and I, and... etc. said the best way to ensure one's child will become an atheist is to raise them Catholic.

It's a humorous response, but not an invalid one given its encouraging, compared at least to evangelical Protestantism of questioning and inquiry and education.

If the God of monotheism's worth the paper He's printed on then he'd get that treating others decently (His son was on about something...), good stewardship of our world, knowledge and rational thought are virtuous things, of a much greater value than mere belief. Otherwise He'd rate with deities who refuse to grant me the ability to throw a 10d6 fireball or turn ethereal, which could prove useful.

On a slightly more serious note than the last flippant remark, my best friend was raised Catholic and goes to church every week. Her religion? "Quantum physics". Non-believer; 's a cultural thing for her.

And the best musical version of the Requiem Mass (IMO)- Verdi's, was written by an atheist. It's glorious.

Congratulations...

Man, I can't imagine what that must be like.

I was raised Catholic and after six years of Religion class in a Catholic School I was calling bullshit. But I can handle Catholics in the south. Now, Pentecostals and Evangelicals in the south are about as obnoxious/ignorant as they come. To a point where they don't just ignore science, they are hostile toward it. Kind of sad, as it has started a campaign against intellectualism that just breeds more ignorance.

Ah, the south.

The campaign against intellectualism never started, it's been going on since the dawn of religion itself. Those people are terrified that science will prove them wrong.

True enough.

So there's this book, right; a compilation, really. People are serious about it, big fans. But the last half I don't think they even bother to read, save for the very end which is some guy's political rant from forever ago that got tacked on. 'Cause there's this character in there who's sort of a big deal, a major player. Which is funny because he is ostensibly the one their whole fandom is based around and named after. He's supposed to be a teacher, right, an ex-contractor, and I'm fairly certain at no point does he say "hate everyone different than you", "ignore rational thought and empirical evidence" and "be a giant dick to everyone". They're on about the first half of the series, where his dad's a nasty old man, but that part's not supposed to matter anymore. And they have a strange attachment to bad fanfic that's just stuff some guy made up that isn't even in the series to begin with. And yet people who roll their eyes and groan at the whole thing can quote it more accurately than the fans.

You speak the truth, Snaxie.

It's only slightly worse than Twilight.























Just kidding it's a lot worse.

Very good stuff man. I'm sure the last part is referring to St. Paul? hell, if it weren't for his writings, and the old testament, the Bible wouldn't be that bad, what with the love your neighbor stuff.

Damnation. Every once in a while I lose something quality 'cause it took too long to type.

Specifically I was referencing American evangelical beliefs (the rapture, young-Earth creationism, etc.) and various other extra-Biblical whatnots. but I suppose Paul works too. (And Deuteronomy is an ugly enough thing that even they largely sweep it under the rug. And yes, I know its purpose in historical context to establish soci... dammit, I don't need to do that again!)

Ugh. Yeah, totally would have been a tl/dr free-associated sociology paper with lots of random tangents on the nature of belief structures and the way they shape our world. Which you're not grading and I can't provide the appropriate citations.

Dude, I love you. You're literally one of my favorite forumites here, because even with my bullshit, you always post a detailed, good natured, and educated response that really makes me think and answers whatever questions I have. Thanks man.

Thanks; I appreciate the compliments. I suppose it's my wanted-to-be-a-professor showing. Or my generally polite demeanor that allowed me to rack up like 12k on-topic posts at HC. Or somewhere on the progression from "angry young person" to "don't care anymore" to "set in my ways old bastard".

Somewhere on the web I recently saw them describe the religions like a movie series,,, the Jews only care for the first movie, the Christians believe you need to see both the first and second (like the Terminator series), the Muslims for some reason don't care for the first two but love the third one... then there's the Mormons who like the second one so much that they wrote horrible fanfic about it, etc etc

That is a fantastic description of monotheism.

My ex had a Koran; I never read it though. She had a nice collection of holy books; I would often read to her from the King James Version when she couldn't sleep, in British Narrator Voice. We found the language of it beautiful.

The only holy book I have is the old British Museum translation of the Egyptian Book Of The Dead. Which is fascinating even just for the fact of how ancient it is, or rather, the texts in it are. It is one of the oldest known written things.

One question that came up in my mind is the question of why a God, who gave us critically thinking minds, would expect us to have faith, the very definition of abandoning critical thinking, and even go as far as to judge us on it.