Atheists & Agnostics

and the priest was going on about how we are all born in sin, and that we need baptism to wash away our natural evil. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew for a fact that I was not inherently evil. I knew myself to be a good person. That's when I realized that if this priest was wrong about that, he might be wrong about other things too. I started asking questions in catechism class (I went to a Catholic school), and became very unpopular with the nuns and priests. And one day I came home from school and told my parents I wasn't going to go to the Catholic school any more. I was so insistent that they finally gave in and enrolled me in public school the following week. (Besides that I was getting sick and tired of those nuns bashing my knuckles with a ruler and locking me in the coat closet for hours at a time for the "blasphemy" of asking tough questions.)

For quite a few years it scared me to be "in a state of sin" by not going to church on Sunday, but I got over it. I have since met other recovering Catholics who went through similar fear and guilt trying to break free of the Catholic brain washing. The evil that is organized religion definitely leaves a mark on your "soul", but it heals with time. I think it took me 15 or 20 years to really be free of church indoctrination.