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
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.
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