sent in by Caligula
I was born Roman Catholic. Now I know a lot of the fundies tend to think Catholics are evil…which I find to be much like the Ku Klux Klan calling the skinheads racists. Nevertheless, for those who don’t know, its extremely boring, mass is a like an hour long sleeping pill….and the communion crackers are like cardboard….if they gave out Oreos or something like that….maybe I would have stayed. My parents used to drag us to church every Sunday as well as on Christmas. So I grew up believing the usual God and Jesus stuff. One day, my parents decided to send me to Sunday school. The problem was, this Sunday school wasn’t even a catholic one, it was protestant. ( we still laugh about that to this day ) So I go...maybe twice and they literally had to drag me kicking and screaming. I didn’t pay much attention to what they said, the only thing I really remember, is they took a collection… ( yes…they took a collection of money from a bunch of 7 year olds) I noticed the teacher/preacher slip all the money into her purse. I told my parents…and I never went back. When I hit 13...my life was a mess…what 13 year olds isn’t? I wound up going thru the “I hate my life and want to die” stage and I prayed to God for help.
No help came.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
In retaliation for being forsaken, I dove full force into Satanism. I had a nice little personal library going, I grew my hair long, and became your scary headbanger/soldier of Satan type. My entire life turned around, I went from zero friends to literally hundreds. From suicidal to loving my life. Thanks to the devil, I was living good. Well, my parents were starting to get freaked out by the “evil” me and they suggested that I go and get my communion / conformation thing. I wasn’t to happy to do so, then someone tipped off the church about my new “faith” and the monsignor of the church requested to see me. So I figured that this would be cool as instead of sitting in church listening to some 90 year old priest drone on about Jesus and his friends, I could ask some questions. I went and had a long talk with the holy man and every question I asked, he had a reasonable (at the time) response to. So I bought into all the hell stuff and decided that I would give up the devil and come back to Catholicism. I had to go to these night classes and sit there learning about god. Boring…completely boring and these people that were in there, where strange. I felt like I was stuck in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. This one nun in particular, who I referred to as “Attila the Nun” Pulled me aside and informed me that she knew about what I was into. I asked her what the big deal is about reading the books? What if I read the books but don’t worship the devil? You know, treat them like fiction novels? Nope…no good, I had to get rid of them. Needless to say, I got rid of all my evil books which I really didn’t want to do but at the time I thought it was the right thing. I didn’t really buy too much of the rhetoric and just went through the motions to make the conformation or whatever it was called. I was only half sold on this at best. The ceremony at the church was the very last time I ever went back. If you asked me what religion I was, I would say Roman Catholic, but “not practicing”.
Some things happened in my later teens that caused me to get closer to god. Still not fanatical, still no church, but I started praying. I believed that if God was everywhere, then there is no need to go to church’s or run to a priest so I just prayed myself. This worked for me…for a while. Things got really good in my life and all was cool…for a while. But then the hammer dropped and things got bad fast. I began wondering what the hell was going on? Why is god doing this to me? I prayed and prayed and things never got better…in fact they got worse. So I was like fine…Fuck This… if god can turn his back on me…I can do the same. It was bad enough that my life as well as my family weren’t doing so great at this point but I was going thru a serious religious battle in my head.
The demons were fighting over my soul….wicked.
My parents didn’t raise stupid kids. In fact they raised us to never believe anything without proof. Think for yourself. Question everything! My parents were well known to the faculty at every school I was in thanks to that as I tended to like to play “devils advocate” and stand my ground. Nevertheless, I never thought to apply this to religion until this point in the story. My mother, my sister and both my brothers began to question too. I went back to Satanism and sold my soul. (It’s a long story)…Nevertheless, when it didn’t work… I began to dig for the truth, the real truth, on religion. I read everything I could get my hands on and spent hours and hours on the internet doing the research. Yes, research…no porn…I swear.
We all began to do our homework on religion and pursued many other paths. My mom and sister became Wiccans. My brothers became atheists. My father stayed a catholic and is not interested in hearing anyone else’s point of view. (Old school Italian...what can you do?) He doesn’t seem to mind our new religious beliefs and it does provide for some interesting conversation when we are all together. I think he stays for the free coffee and doughnuts that the church gives out because he doesn’t even agree with half the stuff the church has to say anyways.
As for me, I stayed free from any label since no one has any of the answers. I do not believe in religion but I like to learn about it, mainly due to the fact that I have made it a wonderful hobby of debating with fundies. That is in fact how I found this site. The hardest part in opening my mind was breaking that chain that still bound me. The chain that is put in place from birth that religion is truth. But I broke it…and I am happier for it. Things are going well now, I realize that I effect my life and if on the slightest chance there is a higher power, he sure as all hell is not concerned with this planet…let alone me. When I was younger, it wasn’t the devil that helped me out, it was me, I helped myself out. I broke away from the norm. I grew my hair long and wore black for an entire year straight. I became an individual and I did it on my own. Although at the time I credited this mythical being, I know better now.
Religion is a virus. It attaches itself to the host and changes the way the it operates. Peace on earth will only be achieved when religion is destroyed. I once posted a rant on religion on a forum with the following disclaimer: “The use of the word “Christian” in the following does not apply to those Christians who are tolerant, pro-choice, anti-war, sane people who could care less about us sinners” I then continued on with my post. After a few posts in favor of what I had to say, someone left a post where they copied my “disclaimer” and under it typed: “SORRY BUT THOSE ARENT CHRISTIANS”
My post followed under it stating:
“Thanks for proving my point…asshole”
As that was in fact the point of my article, apparently this person never got past my disclaimer. Again, it would be funny if it wasn’t so true. I have found that the only thing that can be proved about Christianity is that its followers are some of the biggest intolerant hypocritical bigots on the face of the earth.
And this is why the world is in the shape its in.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... I have others. -- Groucho Marx
Became a Christian: Born into it
Ceased being a Christian: 13
Labels before: Roman Catholic
Labels now: Self Styled Deist
Why I joined: No choice
Why I left: If heaven is full of christians...i dont wanna be there
These testimonials were published between January 2001 and February 2010. To view recent posts, go to The Main Blog at ExChristian.Net