I spent 14 years in Catholic school. From Preschool until I threw my cap in the air my senior year. My parents sent me there because they felt it was a better education than public school, and maybe they were right, maybe they weren't. My entire high school was maybe reaching 300 or so students, and the public high school on the side of town I lived on had nearly 2000 or so.
Growing up it was one thing. You don't know much other than what the faculty tells you. Once a week there was school mass (mandatory), and there obviously was a religion class being taught every year. You learned about saints, you learned the catechism, you learned about all of the history about how the religion itself changed over the years, like Vatican II and such. You made arts and crafts and had 'fun' with God and learning about him.
Then high school came. It was 1999, I had just started using the internet around 7th or 8th grade, and was going into freshman year. I can't say I was pushing myself through figuring out what Christ meant to me or what kind of bullshit they are trying to feed me, but as time went on, it was just feeling more and more oppressive. You were being fixed into a mold to become a Catholic adult. And I was not the happiest camper when it came to that. I started searching more and more or answers, and never had an answer form inside religion.
I've talked to many people, I've watched Religulous (not that I'm taking my ideas from said movie), and had many years of contemplation about the entire thing.
I don't know. There is no way to know. Do I consider myself a religious person? Not in the slightest. Could I perhaps consider myself a spiritual person? Maybe. I watched both of my parents die a year apart to cancer when I was in my early 20s, and maybe their souls still are out there. Maybe that makes me feel better to think they are "watching over me". In the end, I can't say I'll ever know. Perhaps Pascals Wager isn't that crazy of a concept. But can someone who has never felt the grace of God in their life ever really consciously agree that God exists? I guess I'll find out, eventually.
Go ahead and have your belief system. I'm not going to rat you out and go after you for being a gullible person. That isn't my place. But the power of religion is a real thing. The evangelists, the religious protesters, and those who are hell bent on making you feel like a piece of garbage for not believing aren't the reason I don't believe, its the fact that its hard to believe in something that isn't there for me.
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