Here's a little assignment we had for my philosophy class. It was pretty interesting to dig deep down and talk about religion for about 4 pages.
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My family moved to the United States in the 1970’s from Mexico. My grandmother wanted us (her grandchildren) to be raised just as my father and his siblings were raised. They were raised Catholic, so there was no choice for my siblings and my cousins. We were raised extremely Catholic. We went to church every Sunday and on Holy Days of Obligation. We prayed before every meal and before going to sleep. I even attended Catholic school through high school. I spent 18 years of my life this way. I never really questioned my beliefs until I started going to college.
I started my college career at a liberal arts school in Wisconsin. It was in a small little town that had a church/or place of worship for every bar in the area. When I was a freshman, I would still go to church every Sunday morning like I did back home. Except when the temperature was 30 below; then there was no way I was leaving my dorm room. Some of my friends who lived in my dorm would also go with me on occasion. After mass, I would call my grandmother and we would talk about what I had learned. This was something we had done since I was very young. I even went as far as being involved in the parish and had a “Prayer Buddy” - usually someone who lived in town, they served as your spiritual mentor and they would invite you over to their house for a dinner and they would make you a care package for finals week. It was either one of two things that made me part ways with my Catholic life. It was either declaring my major as Geology, or going to Easter mass my freshman year extremely hung over.
The official story, meaning, what I told my parents, was that my Geology classes had opened up a can of worms and were conflicting with my beliefs. Although I had really strong beliefs, they just didn’t make sense with what I was learning, and decided that it wasn’t something I wanted to continue associating with. What I think really happened, was that I got so drunk on Holy Saturday and God got upset over this. He made me wake up late for church the next morning, and reserved me a seat right in front of the organ pipes and had no real concern that I had a massive hang over. This was something that I would never be able to forget or forgive God for, therefore parting ways with him. The 19 year old me would never admit this to her parents, much less her grandmother.
To say that the Easter Sunday mass fiasco was what made me lose interest in Catholicism, although comical, would be a lie. The truth is, I always had a problem with some of the beliefs that the Catholic church has and with they way that they handle scandals. Though my family has always been Catholic, they have also been very liberal. Many people in my family never married through the Church and some have even divorced. Two things that many Catholics would not be too happy with. My personal beliefs never matched up with Catholic teachings.
My senior year in high school, we took an ethics class where we were taught about “controversial topics”. One week, our topic was abortions. I think I was one of the three people who were pro-choice in a room of 85 people. When we admitted this, we got looks of disgust from our classmates and we were not even allowed to explain ourselves or explain why we were pro-choice. Another week, we discussed homosexuality. Though this was more accepted within our class, I decided not to speak up and say that my aunt was gay, for fear that my comment would be taken as offensively as my pro-choice one. Then there were other things like “sex = procreation” and “sex = babies so don’t use a condom”. Things I think are ridiculous.
Then there were the other things like all the accusations of child molestation, that I just couldn’t bring myself to go to church and pretend like the things that were going on in this organization were okay. I began to have a love/hate relationship with religion. I slowly started letting go of beliefs and habits I had. I stopped praying before meals (plus this was something that was really weird to do in the dining halls), stopped praying before bed, etc. I did not even feel guilty that I was not doing what I had been doing for my entire life. I felt liberated. I felt that I could believe what ever I wanted now. I decided to be an atheist.
This decision made me feel empty inside. I felt that things were not going as I planned in life. A part of me believed that may be there was a God and this God was not happy that I decided to oust him out of my life (or maybe she was mad that I kept referring to her as a HE). There were days that I just thought about the possibility of a God, and the possibility that this was it. No God, just people who invented a being to feel better about where they would end up when they died. It was just a teeter-totter of emotions and beliefs. I knew that there was no possible way that this was it. Even if it isn’t God at the top of the totem pole, there has to be something. I came to the conclusion that I was an agnostic.
Ever since I became agnostic, nothing really has persuaded me to be religious again. I like the idea of wondering what else is out there. It also makes me feel better knowing that I do not have to follow rules of a certain organization and that I don’t have restrictions on my life. Even still, I feel a connection to my former Catholic self. When I get married, I know I will get married through the Church, because that is what my family would want. I can settle for that if they are willing to provide an open bar at the reception. As well as if I have children, I will probably baptize them as Catholics, as my brother likes to say, “just in case” Catholicism was the “right way”.
I would like to say that the philosophers we have read in this class have changed my views on God. The truth is, they have not really done anything to change my mind on the subject. Though I do think that they make good arguments towards the existence of God, they still did not manage to convince me that they are correct. I feel that if anything, they philosophers we have discussed in class have made me feel more spiritual. Recently, I read a statistic that our generation is the most spiritual generation. I do not know if it’s entirely true, but I can see how there is some truth behind it.
