I did my Catholic confirmation later than most people at the insistence of my mother who was a late convert to Catholicism (father was Jewish, mother was Catholic and they simply agreed to not bring religion into the lives of their kids, save for my uncle's faux bar mitzvah). I was 16 heading on 17 in a room filled with 13 and 14 year old kids. They sent us away to Jesus camp for a weekend and I sorta bought into it. At the same time I was weary because some of the kids just straight up belonged in juvy and we had to do a face to face confession, my first and last. They gave us a paper saying what we should confess and it including "holding hands with the opposite sex." I should have crumpled up the paper and called a cab home at that point.
Then at another retreat we had some deacon (read: retard) take questions from kids. One in particular got me so ruffled, I still get angry thinking about it.
"Why is Harry Potter bad?"
Asshole: Because that book tells you that magic is good. How is it good if you make someone fall in love with you with a potion? You are taking away their free will. That is not God's way. You cannot read Harry Potter.
Again, I should have called a cab or walked home. I'm sure he shit a brick when he heard the pope declare Harry Potter was a good series that encouraged Christian values.
Anyway, those were the catalysts. I went through with my confirmation to make my mom happy and continued going to church, mostly because the priest there was friendly and funny during the homilies. He retired and we got a new priest who all of a sudden made abortion and Terri Schiavo an issue, saying that if you didn't follow the church's stance, you really shouldn't be there. So I took his advice and left.
Slowly but surely I've made my way onto the cusp of atheism, but something about being outdoors and seeing what the sunsets look like and what evolution has done for a frog or whatever brings me back to that there is something guiding all of this. It doesn't have a direct hand in our lives, and you really can't pray to it, but whatever this benevolent force is makes me admire it greatly. I won't ever flat out say God doesn't exist, but I can challenge you on what 'God' is, if that's a conversation one wants to have.
I had a discussion about whether or not there is such a thing as a "free lunch" with a friend recently, just a quirky dialogue about economics, and we somehow got to the point where she said "things were free in Moses times."
I really don't know what "Moses times" means, but things were not free then either, despite there probably not being "currency."
She also said, "well Adam and Eve were free. Do you believe in Adam and Eve?"
"Absolutely not."
"Well, you see I do."
I promptly ended the conversation and
internally.
The funny part is that she's probably not been inside a church since she was a child, doesn't own a Bible (I likely have about 4 or 5 at home) and still buys into this annotated nonsense about talking snakes, gathering every animal into pairs, burning bushes and four horsemen who will bring up the apocalypse. Well maybe not the last one because it hasn't been made into a movie yet.