Losing My Religion

Recently my Dad passed away, after fighting cancer for a couple years. He gave it a hell of a fight, but in the end Death won the battle. My father was raised Catholic, and my Mom Protestant, but she converted to Dad's religion when they married, as is often customary. He was given Last Rites in the Hospital, and my Mom is sure he's in Heaven now. If I still held those religious beliefs, I'd agree with her. My Dad was a good father and husband, worked hard to provide for us, and didn't have any moral shortcomings. He was an upstanding family guy.

Towards the end of Dad's life, on one of those nights when I couldn't sleep, I started delving into my own spiritual beliefs, or lack of them at the time. (Yeah, knowledge of impending Death, even if it isn't your own, can do that to you.)

I was raised Catholic, but by the time I was twelve or thirteen I realized I didn't believe in many of the church's teachings anymore. I continued going to church because it was expected, but I felt like a total imposter being there. Talking with my friends in church, some of them agreed with me, they weren't true believers anymore either. But they continued to go to church for the social aspect. (You could meet girls at the church dances, etc.) And there was the old logic of "I don't really believe in Heaven and Hell, but what if they're right? Maybe if I at least put in an appearance at church once a week, God won't know the difference and I'll get to sneak into Heaven after I die anyway."

Eventually, that wasn't good enough for me, so I stopped going to church. Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of what they say, it's just some of their basic concepts that need to be taken "on Faith" that I have a problem with. (see my "Apostles Creed" essay)

I did some serious reading on other religions when in my teens, seeing if there was something else I could believe in: other Christian religions, Eastern (Zen Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist) and although many of them had good basic ideas, I couldn't agree with all of the principals of any single one of them.

I never considered myself an Atheist, but came to accept that maybe I was just an Agnostic. But I always felt there was something more, "More to reality than meets the eye", so to speak. Recently I've discovered Deism, and I think I've finally found something that better encompasses my spiritual beliefs.

If none of the more common traditional religions seems to fit you, you may want to look into Deism. www.deism.org and www.deism.com both have good basic info to explore. Many of the "Founding Fathers" of our country were Deists. (And they would probably be disgusted with what out current "God Bless America" Administration has done with it.)