It's time to come clean and air out some of my recent thoughts.
Over the past few months, I've been dealing with a lot of internal conflict concerning the question of what I believe. As I have mentioned a few times, I was an atheist for the past five or so years.
Around late last year, I started to become incredibly existential. I felt that my life had little purpose or meaning and I had become quite nihilistic in my overall outlook on things. Combined with little social life and a resurfacing of a childhood OCD, I was on my way to mental wreck-ville.
For wider context, I grew up in a fairly devout and practising Catholic family, so the faith was quite engrained into me during my developmental years. Nonetheless, during my late adolescence I began to question certain things; starting with Catholic morality, the justifications for faith in what can't be substantiated, to ultimately the very existence of God himself. The domino chain began to crumble. Which eventually lead me into materialism and I became yet another conceited online atheist.
However, perhaps motivated by my growing existentialism and disenchantment with the communities I was a part of, I did something unusual. I read the Gospels.
Of course, this did not make a believer out of me immediately. But it set the course for further exploration of my childhood religion. And I found a lot of things to admire, from breathtaking art to Old Roman chants, it was something to be a part of.
However, as the months of my new found faith have gone by, the old doubts have begun to re-emerge. The biggest one that I just can't seem to put aside is the arbitrary nature of my belief.
Am I interested in Catholicism because I legitimately believe it to represent the true religion? The Church of Christ himself? Or did I just succumb to the strain of indoctrination and guilt that had built up over the years? Have I actually explored other religions? What if the Muslims are correct? Then am I going to hell anyway for professing the wrong religion? How am I supposed to know what happened in Jerusalem two-thousand years ago? Or whether Muḥammad and his revelations are what they claim to be? Is avoiding eternal hellfire really contingent on being fortunate enough to happen on the right religion? How is that even remotely fair?
Not to mention the constant guilt of sin I have to live with. Get a girlfriend? Lol, you may as well sign me over to hell as doing so would make it virtually impossible to avoid mortal sin. (not that I'm free of that anyway) But neither are most Catholics for that matter. The moral hypocrisy of many of my co-religionists (even in my own family) is an open secret. My sister is off to hell for co-habitation, and my parents for my father's vasectomy after my sister's birth. But they all go to church on Sunday!
Of course, my wider family is much the same. Hell, as is most of the western Catholic world. But I'm the one who seems bothered by this disconnect.
So here I am back again at a crossroad with no idea where to go. Do I just give up on it as not worth the headache? But then again, if I'm wrong going to have a very bad eternity.
Over the past few months, I've been dealing with a lot of internal conflict concerning the question of what I believe. As I have mentioned a few times, I was an atheist for the past five or so years.
Around late last year, I started to become incredibly existential. I felt that my life had little purpose or meaning and I had become quite nihilistic in my overall outlook on things. Combined with little social life and a resurfacing of a childhood OCD, I was on my way to mental wreck-ville.
For wider context, I grew up in a fairly devout and practising Catholic family, so the faith was quite engrained into me during my developmental years. Nonetheless, during my late adolescence I began to question certain things; starting with Catholic morality, the justifications for faith in what can't be substantiated, to ultimately the very existence of God himself. The domino chain began to crumble. Which eventually lead me into materialism and I became yet another conceited online atheist.
However, perhaps motivated by my growing existentialism and disenchantment with the communities I was a part of, I did something unusual. I read the Gospels.
Of course, this did not make a believer out of me immediately. But it set the course for further exploration of my childhood religion. And I found a lot of things to admire, from breathtaking art to Old Roman chants, it was something to be a part of.
However, as the months of my new found faith have gone by, the old doubts have begun to re-emerge. The biggest one that I just can't seem to put aside is the arbitrary nature of my belief.
Am I interested in Catholicism because I legitimately believe it to represent the true religion? The Church of Christ himself? Or did I just succumb to the strain of indoctrination and guilt that had built up over the years? Have I actually explored other religions? What if the Muslims are correct? Then am I going to hell anyway for professing the wrong religion? How am I supposed to know what happened in Jerusalem two-thousand years ago? Or whether Muḥammad and his revelations are what they claim to be? Is avoiding eternal hellfire really contingent on being fortunate enough to happen on the right religion? How is that even remotely fair?
Not to mention the constant guilt of sin I have to live with. Get a girlfriend? Lol, you may as well sign me over to hell as doing so would make it virtually impossible to avoid mortal sin. (not that I'm free of that anyway) But neither are most Catholics for that matter. The moral hypocrisy of many of my co-religionists (even in my own family) is an open secret. My sister is off to hell for co-habitation, and my parents for my father's vasectomy after my sister's birth. But they all go to church on Sunday!
Of course, my wider family is much the same. Hell, as is most of the western Catholic world. But I'm the one who seems bothered by this disconnect. So here I am back again at a crossroad with no idea where to go. Do I just give up on it as not worth the headache? But then again, if I'm wrong going to have a very bad eternity.
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