This year I decided to finally stop participating in other people's illusions. I was raised Catholic but stopped believing about 15 years ago. Still, each year I went through the motions. This year I thought: I don't believe, I don't care, so why bother? This feels quite liberating and I'm proud of myself
Good for you! It’s so liberating to realize you don’t have to be pressured into pretending to be somebody you’re not, and there’s nothing wrong with being you.
Of course, you can still enjoy Christmas without being into any of the religious stuff, if you wish. I’ve been an atheist since I realized religion wasn’t for me at about the age of six, and Christmas is actually fun for me because there’s no pressure. It’s just a bullshit holiday like any of the others and an excuse to celebrate, or not. If you don’t like it, you can just ignore parts or all of it.
What made you stop believing?
Any special event that you would like to share?
I believe that it all comes down to "Love". That's the key. All other "rules" are mostly human-made. Your relationship with God is just that: a relationship between you and God. And that's YOUR business and God's!
I too was raised a Catholic, but there are many places where priests are not as good as they should be.
I think I'm lucky on that, that I had a good priest for the biggest part of my life.
I developed interest in finding out more and, for the most part, most lay people's common knowledge is wrong.
God does not want you locked up in a bunch of rules. God (even being apparently very absent) wants you to be happy thru Love. And that's all! (and, funny enough, the catholic church does defend that! It's just very sad they miss by a lot to put that into practice - but, then again, they are humans as well...).
The "bunch of rules" are guidelines laid out by the supposed creator of reality, who loves you and wishes for you to live in congruence with your true nature.
You can ignore the guidelines, but that will come at a cost (mostly to yourself). That is how I understand Catholic virtues. The desire to rebel against this is the same instinct every child has when their parent tells them to brush their teeth and not binge-eat Halloween candy.
But to each his own, rebellion is a compelling source of identity for the young. Not so much later in life.
