Now who is my homeboy?

It is the weirdest thing in the world for me to finally admit that I am not Catholic.

I finally let myself realize that you can't call yourself Catholic if you don't believe in well..

any of it.

It is in these moments that I see just how strongly tradition can scare you into never changing. The thought of not baptizing a child still freaks me out.

I feel like I have opened one eye in surprise that I'm not in hell yet. And I don't even believe in hell.

But the more and more that I learn and think about religion, and society, and history, the more I am assured that most of what I used to believe will end up in some text book one day, just like those crazy Greek gods that everyone knows don't exist.

I wouldn't quite say that I am agnostic. I would like to look for a religion, but that makes me look like a frantic housewife trying to find a parking spot in time to get to the big half-off sale. If I don't follow anyone's rules, am I going to miss out? And on what?

I think that I would have come to this decision later in life, but a few things have kind of fast forwarded it for me.

One is the conservative Christian affliction going on in politics. It makes me madder beyond belief to see beliefs governing a mass body. Especially when the majority doesn't believe in it. And I really feel like there is a major

ends justify the means crisis going on right now. It's okay to take over, God says it's the right thing to do.

Mr. President. Please explain how your God says it's okay to kill over 10,000 Iraqi civilians.

Did he day that it was okay to spend all that wonderful money on the war instead of on the old men and women who can't afford medicine? On the kids who have no future?


Did he say that we needed 300 million that you cut from the federal program that gave subsidies to families who could not heat their homes to make bombs instead?

Did Jesus say that it was okay to incarcerate over 700 people at Guantanamo Bay?

I know! Maybe you could pray for those 43.6 million people who didn't have health insurance in 2002.

Fucker.

And this new pope, he has already pushed me over the edge. The former protector of the orthodoxy, He has already condemned Spain, who has been trying to push out from under the Church's iron governmental influence since FRANCO.

When religion and politics mix, I tend to see the major flaw in politics, and the ridiculousness of religion.

And I look at my beliefs, and I realize that I can't believe in a religion that has elections. And committees. And a guard. No.

NO.

So here I sit. Looking at my old religion books from middle school. Remembering what it felt like to believe. I am already doing something that I shouldn't. I am making myself hate religion in order to not feel guilty about rejecting it.

Uncertainly certain might just be a better way.