God of Mercy, God of Love, God of Guilt.
The picture I chose is The Creation of Adam, where it traditionally is about God giving life to Adam. My twisted interpretation, though, is Adam is letting go of God’s hand, as we all should when we’re ready. Here’s my story of how I became ready to let go.
Is it Christian bashing? Well, yes. While I respect everyone’s beliefs, I’m sharing my story on how my religion, which just happens to be Catholic, didn’t sit well with me. Feel free to hate me, but if you have struggled with faith in Catholicism, or any other religion for that matter, you might learn a thing or two from my opinion and examples. Reading this might help you let go like I did, or it could help you strengthen your belief by disagreeing with every word I say. Either way, it’s your choice.
The Catholic Me
I was raised Roman Catholic. God’s existence was a fact.
I was baptized. Within months of my birth, my loving parents forced me into their beliefs before I could make my own. I realize now this is the reason being born into something is one of the worst possible things to do. I was not even close to being a moral agent before my mind was already settled into having a strict belief in something I didn’t — I couldn’t — understand.
I went to a Catholic elementary school. We would say the morning prayer at 9:15 AM, thanking God for the sunny days, and thanking God for the rainy days (even though our soccer tournament was cancelled on one of those rainy days — thank the Lord!). We would ask Him to give us the strength we need to continue this day. We would go to the school missals, being forced to sit on the hard gym floor for an hour until our legs were numb and our bottoms couldn’t stand sitting down anymore. I would even sometimes read the psalms. I whole heartedly believed in what I was doing, and I thought that anyone who was not my religion was going to hell. They scared me. They were bad people. It was “Us-against-Them” idea that I was raised on, and even though we were told to love all, we would always give a little bit more love to those who believed in the same things as me.
I went to Bible camp. We watched Veggie Tales and played games that usually consisted of pretending to be on Noah’s Ark, or pretending to be Hebrews while avoiding being caught by Ramses. We made crafts that said “Today I thank God for…” and we would decorate them and bring them home to give to our parents — cause Catholic parents eat that shit up. (Just kidding, they probably really wanted to throw it out) Our snacks at the camp would be things like goldfish because Jesus once turned one fish into many fish. I realize now that if I had to plan Bible Camp snacks I probably would have done the same cause that’s such an easy God-like snack idea.
I received my First Communion. I was so excited to finally be allowed to wolf down a nice piece of Jesus so that my sins would be forgiven. Now, if I were to be that age again and learn that other cultures are known to eat their God I would freak the fuck out, but somehow as a Catholic eating the body and blood of Christ was an honour.
I went to a Catholic High School. By then, I would say that I was one of the few students who actually still believed in God. My fake Catholic friends would often make blasphemous jokes, and I would secretly resent them for it. Nevertheless, my Catholic teachers liked me. (No, they weren’t nuns) They loved that I loved God. And yes, I understand that they also liked me because I was a kind and honest person, so in that respect yes, Catholicism helped me. Deep down though, I still thought I was a terrible human being. I felt guilty for every tiny thing I have ever done. By Grade 9 I still thought that me looking at a picture of a naked girl when I was in Grade 4 meant I was already in trouble with the Big Man upstairs. It was in the early years of high school (some of you might know it as middle school) when I, *ahem*, discovered more of my body that I knew existed. I felt terrible for doing that, too. Masturbation is one of the most natural things on earth. From an evolutionary perspective (I still believed in evolution, by the way, but I believed that God was behind it), we need food, water, and sex to survive (sex for the reproduction). With Catholicism preventing me from sex, or sex-related activites, I was stripped of one of our human’s most natural needs. Needless to say there was a little bit of sexual frustration. And trust me, it’s even harder (pun intended) when there are girls in their Catholic school uniform — some girls liked showing off their skirts that could have been mistaken for belts.
I went to Church every Sunday. When I was young, my dad would allow me to bring colouring books because I didn’t understand nor care, but as I became a little bit older, I would go to a Children’s Liturgy instead, where they would make me once again thank God for all of my accomplishments. You see, when you have a God that created you and everything around you, it only makes sense to thank God, not yourself, for your accomplishments. Praisal for yourself, not a higher being, is seen as blasphemy. On the other side of the double-edged sword though, if I ever did something wrong, it wasn’t God’s fault, it was my own. Now being human, I made a countless number of mistakes in my life. Instead of dealing with it, I would shame myself for it, and think that I was not worthy. Then again, there was the odd time where I would sin (of course my idea of sinning at the time was eating three cookies when I was only allowed two), and realize I would be okay if I just went to church that Sunday anyway, even though it was still boring as hell. Okay, poor choices of words, but you get the point.
The Breakup (It’s not you, it’s me)
I continued going to church until I was 17 or so. It was at about that age when I slowly started to disengage from fundamental Catholicism. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I always had some doubts of God’s existence, but until my teen years I would always suppress them - It was the devil talking, after all. Eventually, I made a few compromises when the doubts became more evident.
It started out with, “Well, the Big Bang happened, but God made it happen”.
That led to “Well, I believe in God, but I don’t take the Bible literally anyway”.
Which progressed into “Well, the world is like this but it wasn’t God’s plan”.
And then “Well, all religions are true, it’s the same God”.
And then I spent a good 8 months or so praying to God telling him “If ever I stray from you, know that it is society making me do so. I will always love and believe in you, God.”
It was during this phase when deep down I realized my religion is not what is best for me. Of course, I had a very hard time admitting this to myself, since I was scared of God too. Part of me feared God now that I was doubting Him. (I know it’s a little harsh, but it’s like how North Korea threatens to kill or imprison anyone who goes against the belief in Kim Jong Un. Similarly, Catholicism threatens to send anyone to eternal life in hell if they go against belief in God) Another part of me was ashamed that I was going against everything my parents believe in. I never wanted to hurt them, and although it hurts them now that I’m not Catholic, it was time for me to leave the Church. Finally, a large part was I was scared of going to hell. So, again, I compromised.
My compromise went something like “Well, I still believe in a Supreme Being, but I’m not affiliated with a religion”. Essentially, it was a variation of Pascal’s Wager (Who, in a nutshell, showed it’s a good idea to believe in God just in case there is a God)
Basically, it’s now, “Let’s not think about it, it’s time to spend time on me, on my self-compassion — not with Big Brother watching over me”. (Seriously, our church has a song that goes God is watching us from a distance.)
It’s that not I’m agnostic, it’s that I choose not to think about it.
Where am I now?
I believe religion is important if I were to blindly follow it my whole life — ignorance is bliss, after all. I think religion helped to raise me and many others in such a way that benefits humanity. The problem, though, is it didn’t benefit me. Instead, it made me depressed, but that’s another story. Sometimes, you have to be selfish.
Shortly after my “breakup”, I went away to university. It’s known for its parties. And yes, I joined in, mainly through peer pressure. But it warped me. I did every sinful thing in my first year — one night stands, drugs, alcohol…well maybe not the drugs, but that’s irrelevant, I would have if I wanted to. In a way, it was me being rebellious to the faith I once had, but on the other hand, it wasn’t me. I’m not like that, yet I am.
Are there downsides to my lack of faith? Yes.
For one thing, in high school, I was respected by everyone — the saints and the sinners. Now, I have a reputation of my school’s typical college kid. I work hard, and I play hard. Only at first, I gave everyone the false impression that I worked hard, but played harder. They thought I was only out for sex, and some thought I was an alcoholic. (which to be fair, almost everyone at this) I made drunken mistakes, some that cost me friendships. If I were to still believe in God, I have a feeling I would not have been so stupid. So, belief in God protected me from all this crap, only it was under false pretences, in my opinion. Now, I have to fend for myself. I’m responsible for my actions — good or bad. I won’t pray for forgiveness to rid my conscious, but on the flip side I have self-compassion for myself if I do something good, I’m not giving the praise to God.
Secondly, I feel some sort of emptiness. Not necessarily a fear, but just that I’m missing something. I’ve tried exploring this emptiness through meditation, and it has helped, but I quickly lose the feeling of relief if I don’t continue meditation.
Finally, there’s still the everlasting feeling of guilt. I have an extremely guilty conscious for things that have nothing to do with me. If someone is unhappy in my presence, I believe it must be my fault. God might have left my life, but the guilt hasn’t.
Overall though, I feel like I’m free now. At first it can be scary. Sometimes I still think it’s scary, since there’s nothing to hang on to. Then, gradually, I realize the fact that there is nothing to hang on to is the beauty of it. I’m free. I’m in charge. I can take the reins and be a terrible human being, or I can take the reins and change humanity overall for the better.
For the record, I choose the latter.
