Yeah, I am double posting, but it's my room.
To begin, as I said, this is not the entire, 21 year experience that brought me from faithful to faithless. This is my story in massive microcosm. I do plan to expand upon it later, but only for those interested. The longer version will be a bit more polished as this is my first telling, ever, of this story. Ignore any spelling errors or random tangents if possible. Without further ado:
"From Theist to Atheist: My Journey of Damnation"
I can pretty much remember when my faith was first questioned. Fifth grade, we were in science class, and for the first time in my life, someone explained the biblical stories were not literal accounts, but metaphorical stories. This was a devastating day for me. This is what I learned in Catholic School.
Having attended Catholic school from Kindergarten to 12th grade, I was bombarded by religious rants, dogmas, scripture, and the like. I was raised Catholic in a town of 15,000 people where the domination is Catholic, probably 95% of the town is baptized Catholic. I went to church every Sunday, and in 4th or 5th grade, when I was allowed to Altar Serve, I was ecstatic. Altar Serving led to my second faltering in faith, but I am getting a head of myself. In fourth grade, I had a close friend die. At the funeral, I wasn't sad. I knew in my heart that what I was taught all along was correct and that since he was a good person, he'd be in Heaven where there is no pain. I felt comfortable in this. A year later, when the Adam and Eve story was explained to be a metaphor, I began to doubt if there was even a Heaven. For fifth and sixth grade, I didn't know whether I was lied to by my parents and church or that teacher. In sixth grade, I decided it was the teacher, and I had my first, but certainly not last, night of insomnia. I begged God to help me sleep. He cured people with cancer, parted a sea, and flooded the Earth but couldn't help me sleep? Then, that night, I began to question whether or not he flooded the Earth and parted the sea and whether or not he could cure people. I asked my parents with these doubts, and they never really gave me an answer, which I am more thankful for because had they revealed they didn't know or didn't believe, it'd have been detrimental. Around this time, I started taking allergy pills and sleep aids to fight my insomnia. Because when you cannot sleep for a week, at the age of 11, something is very wrong. I told no one about it, because I took as a punishment from God for doubting my faith. After this period, I returned to religion much more fervent. I saw science as the ultimate evil and enemy. Then, I met a priest who changed my views on everything.
In 7th grade, I became the "Altar Server" captain, which meant for school masses, I picked who would be an altar server. The job was great because whomever served, the hour in church would fly by. The school/church which I attended, could never hold a priest very long. My last year at the school, it only ran from Kindergarten to 7th with the High school running from 8th - 12th, had two new priests, one who was old and antiquated and one who was progressive. The older priest, whom I will call Father Ryan, was a staunch Catholic who would spend the hour before Mass talking about scripture, which I was becoming interested in. I served a lot of mass with Father Ryan, something like 4 masses in 48 hours, so I held a lot of respect for him. Sadly, he was an aging man and let his power and status as pastor go to his head, but I will get into that a bit later. The younger, progressive priest, named here as Father Mike, was a guitar playing, all-around fun guy. I loved serving with him because he actually, at least to me, seemed to care about whatever I had to talk about. He was also the first priest to suggestion the priesthood to me. I responded that I wanted to have kids some day and have a job, and he responded, "that's your will, but is it God's?" Boom... shaking of faith number two.
I became quite confused from talking with him about the Priesthood. The vocation basically seemed like a death sentence to anyone I even mentioned it to, and personally, I wasn't interested, but then I started to pray as Father Mike suggested. To show my level of devoutness at the time, I'd fast for three days before Easter from 5th - 7th grade and when I'd get hungry, I'd pray. I did all this in private, and I think no one really knew how into religion I really was. I remained altar serving always thinking of the priesthood. The thought stayed with me when I finally finished elementary school and went to high school, at this time, Father Ryan was going completely crazy, going as far as telling a person with a crying baby to take it outside in the middle of his sermon while it was raining. We left that church and started attending another church. Now, to note, at every mass I attended with my parents, my mom would make my dad and I sit as close as possible. Because of this, the priests would recognize us. At the new church, I chose not to altar serve, so I never got very close to the priest, but we talked occasionally. In Catholic High School, I met my first atheist. He was a logical and cool enough guy who was never brought up in religion, and thus, despised it's constricting nature. I hated him on the spot. I tried to argue with him, but he kept raising the same questions I had. On top of this, I had a very inept, though extremely attractive religion teacher. He blindness in faith made me even more unsure what was and what wasn't the right way to think. Eventually, growing tired of her ignorance, I wanted to disassociate with her completely, and turned towards non-denominational Christianity. My reasoning at the time was if a person vested to educate me on Catholic idiocy, how could I be expected to accept it. Around this time, I started to really follow anti-state websites and eventually turned anarchist, which attracted a fellowship of about three or four students who actually were borderline militant with my views. They even bought into my religious beliefs, which I dubbed "Ericist Christianity." I realized I was rather influential with them and quickly relinquished my power from them. They were upset for a while. I remained with my views until 9/11/2001, which I completely turned brutally Patriotic, sickenly Xenophobic, and horribly Catholic. In church, I loved the hate filled rants against Islam, all of Islam, and the vow that Christ would destroy it. I ate it up. After the fervor for 9/11 wore down, I began to have doubts once again. They stayed with me until I graduated from High School. No longer having the religious daily force feed, I went to church by myself and prayed. I could not focus. I realized it had been a while since I actually prayed at meant it. Then, I took this as a sign that I shouldn't pray. After a while of that, I went to church as my final time there. I begged God to give me some type of sign that I was wanted. Father Ryan walked up to the altar, beginning another one of his pre-mass rants, and stated "If you feel nothing from this gospel, then you do not belong here." Huh, a prayer was actually answered.
I was ready. I had the missilette in hand to follow along, but being in the back of the church, I had to listen via speaker. Before the gospel even started, I hear this ear splitting whistle from the speaker, then it eventually cut out completely, no one around me really reacted, but I took this as my sign - I wasn't to hear the gospel. I left Church for the last time. After that, I practiced deism for a while because I considered the bible just a collection of fallacies, anecdotal evidence, and untruths used to control people for political purposes. As I was now free to question, I learned how Christianity assimilated many other popular religions into itself to make it even more popular.
In the end, I was left completely and totally unbelieving in a God that I almost committed my life to serving. In Catholic school, when someone would die, we'd be lectured on why bad things happen to good people. "It's God's will." But we were never lectured on why good things happen to bad people. We were never explained why a child is given a long grueling death by cancer, but a pedophile can go to Thailand for 12 years and have a smorgasborg of children. We were taught about why a man who loved everyone kindly will get hit by car, but not explained why the drunk driver who did it will get out on a technicality. When I contemplated this, it was crystal clear - because we do it to ourselves. Every pain, hardship, triumph, victory, anything we have achieved on our own. With that line of thought, I could not commit myself to a god. Now, I live to make myself and my friends happy. So far it works pretty well.
