Is there anything wrong with having a faith?

I've been on this forum long enough, that I should know better than putting up a topic like this. Its actually been a topic that's been on my mind for a long time. I just want to put forward my apologies because this post is probably going to be a little long. I tend to stay away from issues concerning politics, social ethics, and theology because I don't have a lot of knowledge regarding this subject, but I guess wanted to get people's input, impressions, insults and what have you about this.

I might as well provide a little back-story. I was baptized as a child, and I pretty much grew up as a Roman Catholic my entire life. My parents especially my mom is very religious. I grew up throughout life going to a roman catholic elementary school, getting my first communion, first confession, and my first confirmation. Our parents made us go to church every Saturday evening even though my siblings never wanted to, but I never had any problems going to church right up until my college years.

After my siblings became teenagers, it was only my mom and I that use to go to church. For a while my mom didn't go, and I use to always bring my nan to church and that lasted until I finished university.

I grew up in life always having this strong sense of faith. I use to say my prayers every night before I went to bed as a child. I went to church with little to no complaint because I believed that it was the right thing to do.

I don't consider myself a hardcore Roman Catholic, but to be honest with the belief system I have right now I don't even think I should even refer to myself as a roman catholic. I'll tell you why in a little bit.

One thing I noticed especially growing up, in my teenage years, is that as religious as I thought I was, I never took religion too seriously. To be honest I've never read the bible from start to finish, and I never took the stories of the bible as factual events. To me they were just stories. When I was a teenager I use to go to these weekend catholic camps, but going to these events made me incredibly uncomfortable with a lot of other people that believed that they were special and God loved them because somebody told them so.

The things they made us do, and the little social events they set up were pretty stupid from my opinion. Even though I started to reject my own religion little by little, I still had a faith, I still had this belief that god existed, or not necessarily god but some kind of spiritual entity.

Pretty much going through university, I distanced myself more and more away from religion but I still had a faith. I still believed that something existed that could never be explained because I used my faith and my belief that there was a greater power at work as a way of getting me through the tough times I had in life.

Even finishing up university, I had always told myself that I will always accept scientific fact over religion. That in itself makes me a hypocrite, because how can I accept scientific fact over religion, when I have in faith in something that can't be scientifically proven.

Lets fast forward to right now. When I finished university I started working, the majority of my friends were atheist, agnostic, or pagans. To be honest, I actually enjoyed hanging out with these people more than some of my other friends who were really religious and telling me that god loves me, and all that other bullshit. I didn't want to hear it, I didn't need god's love to get through life, my life was in my own hands.

Then I eventually met the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Initially she was a pagan, but now she is an Apatheist. The concept of religion is something we've always debated ever since we've been together. I wasn't going to let religion ever get in the way of me loving somebody, when we got married she was still a pagan at the time, and a priest wouldn't marry to her, so fuck it, I got married by a justice of the peace.

My wife all the time is always showing documentaries, websites, atheist podcasts, and things along those lines to get me (from my own opinion) to reject religion all together. From everything about the inaccuracies of the bible, to how better off the world would be without religion.

Despite the fact that I agree with her, with how horrible religion has influenced society I can't help it that I still have a faith in something that probably doesn't exist. It pretty much sounds like that I'm using my own faith as a crutch to get me through the tough times in life when I have nobody to turn to.

I believe in the separation of church and state. I don't think religion should play such an important role in society in such its telling people how to think and what to believe in. Every individual person should made their own choice of what they want or don't want to believe in.

Despite various religions have caused more wars and death and destruction. I don't believe that every aspect of religion is bad. I recall going through life and never ever hearing my priest or school promote hatred or persecution.

Despite I grew up as a roman catholic, I am pro-choice, and I support gay-marriage, I support equality, and freedom of speech because I believe its morally right. The biggest thing that I learned through religion as a child, is to always respect the other person, regardless of skin color, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or belief system.

Going back to how I can't really call myself a Roman Catholic. My wife made a very good argument. If I believe in a god, or higher power, but I don't believe in any of the stories of the bible I can't really call myself a roman catholic now can I. To be honest I don't even know what I should be, in terms of what I believe in.

To be honest, I believe that religion and especially Christianity deserves to be challenged. Despite me, having a faith, I don't tell anybody what they should believe in. I keep my faith and belief system to myself. There is no right or wrong way especially when it comes to your spirituality if you have one or not.

I'm getting sick and tired, of my atheist friends and my wife giving me grief because I have a faith. I believe in something that probably doesn't exist. Regardless, I got a 50/50 shot of whether or not some spiritual entity exists. I got a better chance of knowing that something exists after death than what I do winning the lottery.

I'm getting sick and tired of hearing that everybody who worships religion is automatically a bigot and an uneducated person and that they can't think for themselves. My parents are hardcore Roman Catholics, but I think they did a good job of raising me.

I don't even know on this forum how many people believe in a religion. To be honest I think there are a lot of atheists out of this entire group. I remember reading Encephalon's story about how he gave up believing in his religion. With the hell that he went through, he was well within his right to stop believing.

I'm would like to think that I'm not trying to defend religion, because I'm not. To be honest being a roman catholic in my province comes with a great shame especially because of these incidents:

Mount Cashel Incident

Bishop Lahey
- This was the bishop that confirmed me when I was 16.

In conclusion, I'm not Lordsword, I'm nowhere close to as delusional as what that person is. Can any good come out of having a religious faith. I keep my beliefs to myself and never tell anybody how they should live their life. When I die, I'll be cremated and have a religious ceremony, but I'm struggling with what I believe in and the repercussions that come with it. I have a faith because I feel comfortable with that choice, and my morality and my belief system does not make me any better or any worse than anybody else.

Thanks for reading a really long entry, and I hope Crash answers because I've had good talks with him about this before.

Take Care Everybody.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Sorry Deni, she use to be pagan, it should of been something I should of mentioned before hand. She is actually an APATHIEST.

I just don't understand why people can't just keep their beliefs to themselves. Deni, is right religion has no right to run a country. Sure I have a faith, but I also believe in ghosts which are not scientifically proven anyway. Old values have no right to influence civil rights. We should all be allowed to live in this world without persecution and believing what we want to believe. I just don't understand why especially Christianity feels the need to tell us that we adopt their doctrine in order to live a successful life.

It bothers me, how much people will abandon common sense just to believe in a religion in order to live a prosperous life before and after death. Are people really that scared to die?

I never want to see people pushed into a direction they don't want to believe in.

Also Shorty, I kind of misconstrued my words; I don't think my wife is trying to get me to reject my faith, because watching all these Atheist podcasts are actually pretty funny especially to see how gullible some people are. I don't believe that all Christians are bad people, I'm sure there are people that want to keep their religious beliefs to themselves, and I truly wish it was like that, but its not.

There's nowhere I can't reach.