I am a practicing Roman Catholic, recently returning to the Church after a long absence of twelve years.
I went through the whole atheism thing, once. I used to insist that science and reason explained everything, I used to insist that everyone was "ramming their religion down my throat", I used to be anti-church and anti-believer. However, at long last I realized that I was being an intolerant jerk, and that the only one ramming beliefs down anyone's throat was me. And then, THEN I went through the worst time of my life, starting with a really horrible career move and culminating in my divorce. You do not know despair until you have experienced it without God -- a despair which is compounded because the only thing standing in the way is yourself and your stubborn pride. Just trust me on this one. And after twelve years of something very important missing from my life, I swallowed my pride, and went back to the Church, and discovered that it wasn't the hive of intolerance that I thought it was back in my prideful teenage years, and that it filled that hole that had been there for so long. Far from being a place where free will is stifled, free will is at the center of it all -- for what is faith without the free choice to have it? How sincere is a belief that you're forced to hold? Why, to paraphrase Charles Darwin, would God give you free will with one hand and forbid you to use it with the other? Answer: he wouldn't.
I'm now more confident in my faith than ever before, and I actually feel that my faith is well-grounded. It's more than just going to mass on Sunday and saying the right words.
And I agree with Cheantoa -- what should keep us believers together is looking for the common ground, the things we can agree on -- although around here there are a great many people who love to dwell on the differences and the details without remembering that us believers are on the same side.
Cheers,
The imploder.
