Why I'm No Longer a Catholic
This is the type of post that might perhaps spark a debate among the religious community and I don't give a fart's ass (sorry for my foul language). People are entitled to their respective opinions.
Being raised in a Catholic family and having attended Catholic school, you would have thought that I embody the image of a perfect Catholic girl. Praying the rosary, attending novenas and Sunday masses, reading the bible and acing my Religion classes have all played a huge part as I grew up. I was always fascinated about the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments and the fact that David had managed to defeat a giant like Goliath.
But as I grew older and perhaps wiser in my years as I get to know more about the world I live in, I started to question the Catholic religion and the tradition that I had been so accustomed to doing. The Catholic religion was the religion I was born into and I never had a choice. I never realized then that religion is not mandatory to becoming a good person and that religion, disguised as a form of brotherhood, is just like any form of organization designed to control people. And what is that control? To make people believe that religion is essential for salvation.
It was a gradual awakening for me. I remember in my 20's how I would go into arguments because I keep defending my so-called "faith". But that "faith" was actually just blindly following a theist god which may or may not exist. And all along I have been blindly following a tradition which doesn't have any impact to my value as a human being. Do I feel any comfort in going to the church, in praying the rosary or even reading the bible? It came to a point that I am just doing them for the sake of practicing my religion that it doesn't bear any meaning to me at all.
When I came upon books from Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, it was like the gates have opened and my mind had started flooding in with all these information that I never knew and wish I had known when I was younger. I also came across the Atheist Experience, a televised radio broadcast based in Austin, Texas where viewers get to ask questions and challenge atheism and I can honestly say that the hosts are bloody good and knowledgeable at their rebuttals.
I have proclaimed myself an atheist in my late 20's and there was never a shred of doubt with my decision. What is so great about being an atheist? As an atheist, I have freed myself from the constraints that religion usually imposes about premarital sex, same-sex relationships, divorce, abortion, euthanasia, birth control, etc. Being an atheist is also allowing my reasoning skills to be my guiding principle instead of just blatantly professing that I have faith in the unknown. Being an atheist has also given my intellectual faculties to look at the evidence rather than believe in mere hearsay because of what's stated in the bible.
People may find it shocking that I do not believe at a theist being. But do we really need to believe in a god just to give our lives purpose and to be a good person? Being born into this world has already given us a purpose to make the most of our lives and become virtuous individuals. We don't need a god to dictate our morals, of what's right and wrong, because man itself is gifted with intellect to determine such.
So tell me, why do we need religion?
Being raised in a Catholic family and having attended Catholic school, you would have thought that I embody the image of a perfect Catholic girl. Praying the rosary, attending novenas and Sunday masses, reading the bible and acing my Religion classes have all played a huge part as I grew up. I was always fascinated about the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments and the fact that David had managed to defeat a giant like Goliath.
But as I grew older and perhaps wiser in my years as I get to know more about the world I live in, I started to question the Catholic religion and the tradition that I had been so accustomed to doing. The Catholic religion was the religion I was born into and I never had a choice. I never realized then that religion is not mandatory to becoming a good person and that religion, disguised as a form of brotherhood, is just like any form of organization designed to control people. And what is that control? To make people believe that religion is essential for salvation.
It was a gradual awakening for me. I remember in my 20's how I would go into arguments because I keep defending my so-called "faith". But that "faith" was actually just blindly following a theist god which may or may not exist. And all along I have been blindly following a tradition which doesn't have any impact to my value as a human being. Do I feel any comfort in going to the church, in praying the rosary or even reading the bible? It came to a point that I am just doing them for the sake of practicing my religion that it doesn't bear any meaning to me at all.
When I came upon books from Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, it was like the gates have opened and my mind had started flooding in with all these information that I never knew and wish I had known when I was younger. I also came across the Atheist Experience, a televised radio broadcast based in Austin, Texas where viewers get to ask questions and challenge atheism and I can honestly say that the hosts are bloody good and knowledgeable at their rebuttals.
I have proclaimed myself an atheist in my late 20's and there was never a shred of doubt with my decision. What is so great about being an atheist? As an atheist, I have freed myself from the constraints that religion usually imposes about premarital sex, same-sex relationships, divorce, abortion, euthanasia, birth control, etc. Being an atheist is also allowing my reasoning skills to be my guiding principle instead of just blatantly professing that I have faith in the unknown. Being an atheist has also given my intellectual faculties to look at the evidence rather than believe in mere hearsay because of what's stated in the bible.
People may find it shocking that I do not believe at a theist being. But do we really need to believe in a god just to give our lives purpose and to be a good person? Being born into this world has already given us a purpose to make the most of our lives and become virtuous individuals. We don't need a god to dictate our morals, of what's right and wrong, because man itself is gifted with intellect to determine such.
So tell me, why do we need religion?
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