So I came up with the plan to do a religious study. I 'grew up' Catholic, as in I went to Catholic school from aged six to eighteen. Never went to Church. I use to want to when I was little, because that's what the teachers told me I should do. Even when I had my 'confirmation' in grade eight I did it because I thought I had to.
I didn't care much about anything religion wise until high school, when my religion teacher scared me into thinking not only were we all going to hell unless we prayed everyday, went to Church and obeyed every Church law. I was very innocent at the time (seriously) and I was easily convinced and manipulated (that's changed) by those who I thought had my best interest at heart. Well, for a year after that initial class I ended up praying the complete rosary every single day. Every day. Missed zero days.
A year passed and I had his 'religion' class again. This time it was World Religions. RIGHT. Catholic stance of World Religion is that there are three, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That's what I learnt about in that class. Now, also take learnt about very loosely. He basically used Judaism as a way to teach the origins of Christianity, not as an actual function religion itself. I honestly remember little to nothing about what he taught about Islam. The only actual time we talked about religions outside of those three, were for our independent studies. For which I was really interested in the new religion called 'Scientology'. Honestly, I'm a celebrity lover and I was hearing about some crazy new religion some of them were joining and wanted to know more about it than, they believe in aliens.
So, I did my study and got an A or B. It's been a long time, but I'm sure I did well. Now it's story time. So during a little down time between when we received our ISU's (independent study units) and our due date, teachers would usually lay off other homework so we could focus on doing our major project. During this time our teacher has taken to telling us stories. Special stories, allow me to give you the short version of a few:
1. When I was a basketball star at the *American University* I would have been a slut if Jesus wasn't in my life.
2. I had a copper rosary. I continued to pray with that rosary and one day I asked for a sign. Not long after my copper rosary turned SILVER. SILVER KIDS!
3. So this past weekend I had a couple of guests. Two Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door. Well I welcomed them in for a discussion (I vividly recall this and how hard I rolled my eyes at it), I sat them down and I had them watch the Mother Mary video. They left agreeing to disagree.
Now please turn your attention to the Mother Mary video. Now he has showed us this video on the Apocalypse. This is where I went of the proverbial deep end. This video scared me to DEATH. I was 100% believing life was over, we were all gonna die and ain't no way around it, either heaven or hell time, baby hold on. This wasn't a historic video on theories, no it was IT IS COMING NOW. WE ARE ALL DYING NOW. It would scare you too.
The week prior to this I had purchased a OLP shirt at their concert with a pentagram on the back saying 'kneel down and obey'. It's a lyric from one of their songs. Well, the night after I saw that video which freaked me out, saying anything with any sort of devil sign allows the devil to get in (I swear), so I thought SHIT this shirt. Must get rid of it. Instead of throwing it out, I cut the sign out. So my parents, lovely parents, were like WTF are you doing? Not yelling at me, but like wtf? It was at that point I snapped my shit together and started the pathway to this wonderful woman you see today.
It took me a year and half to get this crazed and a second to figure out I was fucking nuts. That night I thought, what am I doing? This is ridiculous. That night I gave up on Christianity and religion. If anything could make me go that crazy I was done with it. By the time, he had told us the story of the two Jehovah's Witnesses coming to his house, I knew he was a douchebag. He had no real information. He was all speculation and spewed out fear based religious words to scare the kids into believing. Which works until you think for yourself.
At this time I found out one of my friends grew up with no religion. Her parents let her choose when she was ready. Brilliant. It's not like I was forced to be Catholic, it was more of a tradition, less a religious practice for my family. I liked how that sounded, but I wasn't really ready for any sort of religious anything at that point.
I don't know if I'll start practicing any of these religions, but I think an actual study and personally attempting to practice the faiths would be interesting for me. Onto Baha'i!
