la fille sceptique

Good day to you. No prose today, just a thought or few.

I am leaving for Rome in a mere 8 hours. Fittingly, I have just finished watching a documentary called "The God Who Wasn't There" by Brian Flemming. A very interesting watch. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins was similarily a very provocative read. These, as well as Infidel by Ayann Hirsi Ali, Water by Deepa Mehta, Scared Sacred by Velcrow Ripper, etc. etc. have led me to write this...

I was raised Catholic by a well-meaning but nevertheless semi-fanatical Jesus-loving, tele-evangelist-watching mom. As I grew, I staunchly and blindly believed, too. The first crack came when a close friend became pregnant at the age of 15 or so. Well abortion is wrong. Period. End of story. Praise God. But I couldn't actually look in my friend's eye or my own heart and believe that she should have this child. So how did I reconcile my new, conflicting and confusing point of view?

I concluded that the Bible is a set of rules for each Bible-following person to interpret for each his or her own life. So abortion was wrong for me (easy to say, never been pregnant!) but might not be wrong for someone else. Phew.

Life goes on.

I even remember as late in life as a couple of years after I graduated from university (around 2000, age 26) saying that I could never be with someone who didn't believe in God because how could that person ever truly understand me? Wow. Realizing that I said that truly amazes me now.

My departure from Catholicism was gradual, as my world became larger, my mind became stronger, and I allowed myself to be critical, logical and autonomical. My new larger world contained a lot of great and loving people, and some of those people were God-damned gays. Literally, they are God-damned. It says so right in the Bible. You know, that book written by infallible men back in the first century when they thought that the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. That book that teaches hatred of gays and the justified killing of anyone who does not name Jesus as the son of God. That book that teaches a lot of things that I just don't agree with, ethically nor logically.

So yeah. I was tired of feeling guilty allllllllllllllllllllllll the time. For innocent and fun sexual explorations...for birth control...wait...the Bible says sex is only for the purpose of procreation, but then the Pope changed that at some point, it's okay now, so birth control is okay now...phew...for lying (I never felt guilty about birth control!)...etc.

Good-bye, Cahtolicism, Hello Atheism. But still I often wonder why we have conscious thought and emotions...what biological / physiological purpose? And if none, then why do we have these at all? Some answers have been rejected, but soooooo many more questions remain!
(le 26 juillet 2010)