I was brought up in Catholic school, but most of the nuns turned me off, big time. There wasn't much preaching, but tons of praying and rituals, with masses and prayers all the time, all in keeping with the Catholic Church's teaching that we should just listen and do as we're told, and we're good to go. With the rebel in me, I grew away from Catholicism as I get older and away from the elementary/high school. It's not a place I relish anyways, what with all the very strict rules and no room for interpretation or questions. Deep down though, I do know that I've had some part in me that takes in the faith of a creator, some high-being that is the wise one, watching over us.
None of my siblings nor myself who went to the same school was baptized, yet one by one, each of them turns to Christianity. In the end, even my parents have become the true faithfuls. My parents, in particular, enjoy the loving community built around their Christian church, and I'm happy that they find serenity in that.
I was the only hold-out of the family, the last one awaiting baptism. As they get older, my parents' urging (for me to go to church, to bring my kids to church too, and to baptize) becomes more earnest. They want us all to reunite in heaven. As the preaching goes, if we don't get baptized, if we don't repent, we are condemned to hell, and would say goodbye to everyone in the family forever. Such are horrible thoughts for my parents. One of my dad's dying wishes was to see me baptized, for that same reason.
The death of my dad has left a big impact on me emotionally. It was the first true passing of someone I love since my grandma's death, but I was too young then to comprehend. Everyone in the church has been wonderful in helping (with the funeral and everything), and most of them feel like genuinely good people. So this is thus a rather strange feeling to me that I've since lost patience in all the preaching, hence the soul-searching.
In a way, I don't concern as much about the eternal hell. Maybe over the years, I've come to embrace secularism without even fully aware of it. I've come to dislike all forms of organized religions, never mind what the religion actually is, all of which does nothing more than imposing the wills on the people, and should you disobey, well you know where you'll go when you die (voila, eternal burning hell). It's all the same with Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, to name a few of the biggest mainstream culprits.
Is this such a God that is so vengeful that anyone, however good and decent in heart, will be condemned to hell, just because they would not say "I love you" to this God? Where had my dad gone after his death? Does anyone really know he's in heaven now? Yes, it's an act of faith for those who firmly believe that he is. For me who is still mourning for his death, I can't feel it, I don't feel it. I just know he's gone. For what's worth, he's gone with his last breath of life.
I heard it somewhere that "whatever helps you sleep better at night", you'll buy it. Right about this moment, that's how I feel about organized religion and all the preaching and urging from my family, that I need to repent, that I need to baptize ASAP before some true hell strikes me, that when there's good fortune it's God's blessing, that when there's hardship it's God's tests on our faith.
But is it really? Or, is it just some good luck, bad luck? And that when we die, we die, and there's that.
All these, is not to say that having loving and caring community and familial support is not a nice thing, because it is. But I simply can't take it or feel it anymore. Right about now, I feel drifting away from the increasing piety of my family. I'm supposed to feel bad about it, but somehow I don't feel it.
Maybe tomorrow I'll die of some unknown cause, and the world will not miss a beat, whatever good (or bad) I'm done. It'll just move on, the earth will continue to revolve around the Sun until maybe some million years later when the Sun implodes, taking with it the earth and all the planets around it. That is, if humans won't self-implode and destroy the planet earth sooner than that. Along the way, people would continue to preach apocalypse, and the end of the world, and Jesus will come again.
Right about now, my family tells me I should be running scared, but I don't feel it. Maybe I'm not blessed that way, but I don't really care. Or, is it another way to say, to hell with it? You tell me.
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