My Journey Of Faith

For 18 years of my life I have been a Catholic. Born and raised in a middle-class Catholic family, as a kid I took pride in my religion. Let’s be honest, compared to the options I had here in India, birth in a western religion saved me from far greater embarrassing things others were doing and following. Plus, it was “cool” being a Christian, until I realized that it’s not. If other religions were a sham and people their worshiped false gods, mine wasn’t following any truer or believable god. My family and the church raised me by comparing our god to the other less believable gods, strengthening my faith in process. My 10-year-old brain was convinced about existence of the god, and was too afraid to think that there isn’t one. And most importantly, my god didn’t mind me eating a steak or a pork chop, which obviously made my Christian god the true god.

 

But apart from few phases of either extensive brain washing or a tough heart break, my religion even with all the liberties of food preferences, never actually managed to make me a complete believer. I always questioned certain aspects of the church’s functioning. Though the fear of getting punished was carved so deep in me by my family, church and the society, that even the thought of questioning certain practices would bring out a prompt apology. I hated listening to any mass, rosary or any prayer in general, but was forced to do so. But even at this stage I would at the most question the church or it practices, but never dared to question the existence of the god.

 

Until I re-established contact with a school friend of mine. We were 17 then. She was born in a Hindu family; I admired her a lot right from the school days. We never had a chance to have a conversation on religion in school, but by this point I was changed, I had joined twitter, and as a result the only conversation starter I could think of was bashing one’s religious beliefs. So once while texting, I who was dying to start a conversation on religion, texted my Hindu friend that I had beef for dinner. Me who was expecting an offended reaction which would lead into a debate on religion I was carving got a reply, “Oh wow, Me too!”. Confused I asked, “Aren’t you a Hindu?”. She replied “Yeah, a Brahman”. Stunned, “And you still eat beef?”. She said she was just born in a Hindu family but she and her parents never followed Hinduism. My immediate question was, “So which church do you go to?”. Her reply gave me the push I needed. She said, “I don’t believe in any god, I’m an atheist.”

 

That did it, finding an atheist so close to me finally gave me balls to question the existence of god. Thinking with a possibility that god doesn’t exists, helped me to understand and see the damage religion has caused to our society. Now I didn’t just see following other religions and gods as foolishness, but following mine was no different. Thus, starting my journey towards atheism. I haven’t yet confessed atheism to my religious family or friends, as it would be a taboo to speak out about it. But I won’t lie to them when get asked about it. My “conversion” didn’t happen in a day or a week. It took me years to finally accept how I feel, and gather the courage to take the final step. My family had imposed religion so hard on me that it took to me days to stop reciting the night time prayer even after abandoning religion, as I don’t remember a night before when I didn’t pray and sleep.

 

Now, to me religion is no less than an infantile disease mankind has been purposefully infected with for centuries.