A Testimony Of Disbelief

As a child my favorite verse was John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, so that anyone who believes in him will not perish but may have eternal life.” This is from memory believe it or not I did check and it doesn’t seem to match exactly with any translation. I was baptized somewhere in my first year of life in a local Catholic Church before my adoption. After I was adopted my parents re-baptized me and I was rededicated in my new name.

I grew up religious but in a compassionate loving home. Since I was a young child I was told all the stories. I can almost quote many of the scriptures by line and verse and terribly sing the hymns. My family was deeply religious and as a child I attended the local parochial school. I was taught that I was one with the Body of the one true holy apostolic Catholic Church the lineage of Peter the very“rock” on which Christ built his Church.

You could say at least at that age I was a naive believer. I have memories of having a favorite crucifix, being quite sure I was feeling great power coming from holy relics and trinkets and imagined myself as future saint dying for a righteous purpose. Looking back it sounds like a horror movie my youth was filled with a veneration of Saints those who’s dedication earned them a seat by throne of God chiefly the undecaying Incorruptible Saints preserved by god until Judgment Day and true believers struck with Stigmata for their unwavering belief inflicted with the wounds of Christ by Holy Spirit.

Don’t get me wrong the very idea of an hour long Sunday mass has always bored me endlessly I would often calculate how long I had left before we would be able to go home to my toys. On Sunday mornings I used to wait until we would be very late to mass before “waking up” in the morning in hopes that my parents would sleep in as well.

As a child I prepared to receive my first communion the doctrine of transubstantiation was drilled into me. I was taught that during the Eucharist the bread and wine were transformed into the literal flesh and blood of our lord Jesus Christ and any minute sin that separated me from God rendered me wholly unworthy of receiving him. I was told stories in doctrine where tests had been taken and it had come back as flesh from a human heart.

At that young age we were told to cross our arms when approaching in that state of separation to receive a blessing instead least we taint the sacrament with a mortal sin. I remember having so many days like that maybe I said “oh my god”, argued with my parents, looked at nudity in a National Geographic, or questioned dogma in a curious way. Unworthy of his grace until my monthly confession and did my prescribed my ritual prayers consisting of several “Hail Marys” and “Our Fathers” I would run a very real risk of damnation of my eternal soul for disrespecting a gift of the Trinity.

One of the ways of atonement that I can remember being given was the sacred duty to hold vigil in the Tabernacle a room off to the side where a blessed Eucharist was held and displayed in the center of its large ornate gilded sunburst Monstrance.

Looking back now I probably would call myself traumatized. I remember being very afraid of going to hell or committing grave mortal sins most of early youth. Getting nervous to the point of a near panic attack before going into the weekly confessional afraid that the lust I felt growing for a classmate or the porn I found as I got older would render me to Hell or worse place me in an eternity in Limbo, the permanent separation for eternity seeing his Kingdom but never entering it.

The beginning of my deconstruction is hard to pin point. It started near 7th grade when my compassion, personal discovery, and the culture I was being exposed to clashed.  Homosexuality and abortion were becoming big issue in the early 2000s. The homilies were becoming more and more a condemnation of those issues, the morality and less about the words, works and grace found in Jesus Christ.

I was having bisexual feelings and couldn’t understand that if love was love what kind of God would damn me for it. Simultaneously I couldn’t understand how a loving God would make a woman carry a child full term if it would grow up unwanted or when it had been conceived in deeply traumatic or worse forced circumstances. Those two beliefs drove me one day into a one on one conversation with priest at my parish. It got heated he responded with scripture and I would respond with my own point meeting counterpoint.

Over the next year I had behavioral problems at school due to responding to bullying that always fell back on me. I cumulated with me being given a suspension a meeting with the priest and ordered to do counseling my crime I told a girl that was bullying me to “go to hell.” That crossed with an instance where my mother caught a teacher belittling and mocking me in the hallway my parents finally decided to let me transfer to public school. Where those questions I had had for a while met the reality of secular walks of life and a variety of beliefs.

I remember when finally dragged me back in on an Easter Sunday. We had kind of lapsed and hadn’t been in for a while. When the homily started it was loaded and hateful homophobic talking about hellfire. A family got up and left and the priest turned his sermon to condemnation of them and their “refusal” to hear the truth. My family left as well after trying another local Catholic Church watch for their part was a lot more accepting I finally told my mother that I wasn’t Catholic.

I think during this time I was going through my confirmation and that was a huge deal for my mother because she wanted my soul to be “sealed to God. I’ll begrudgingly completed my classes and was confirmed in a local cathedral.

After that I think the indoctrination ran too deep although I didn’t believe I thought I just missing something. So I attended christian after school programs twice a week went to camps immersed myself in nondenominational services then into Evangelical churches like Life Church. Swearing to myself I felt His spirit all the while I also was reading the works of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism. I think the  schism finally happened while attending a local youth revivalist camp and I heard the tone of familiar condemnation, moral superiority and authority come out mouth of the man who was jumping around and telling us that everything outside the doors was evil, and that we had to give our lives to Christ and be rebaptized by him. Out of all the times I had rededicated myself in moments of spiritual fervor I knew in my heart and in my conscience that I couldn’t do it again. I knew in that moment, I didn’t believe.

I kind of gave into New Atheism for a while. Became very dedicated to humanist beliefs and social justice causes I even joined the Satanic Temple. But lately I’ve even fallen out with I’m better than you and believers are dumb mentality. I think there’s a compassionate form of disbelief that allows for us to lead by example. Speaking and living our own truth and allowing others to do the same. In a way kind of like what believers say they do while sometimes doing the opposite. Seeking to education and common ground.

I look forward to a journey of speaking to those of other faiths, face-to-face  embarking on a path of demystification and compassion. I want to unwrite the prejudices that the Church put in me towards the other.