seriously, step off

I've been a card-carrying Catholic since I was born.  I went through the phase where church meant an hour of monotone chanting which I would have preferred to spend watching Nickelodeon.  I hit Confirmation swore to resist my hateful 13-year-old urges or else chance burning in hell.  My parents spoke in hushed tones with other parents about a boy in my Sunday school class who had decided he was a *insert gasp of horror* atheist of all things.

Well anyway, I grew up for years without anyone openly questioning my beliefs.  Most of the people I went to school with didn't go to church, but they were vaguely some sort of Christian.  I was left alone.  But when I got to high school, suddenly saying I was Catholic was like saying I believed that the world was flat.  It was simply so unprogressive, so passe to believe in God.  People begrudged me my religious beliefs.  Someone I considered a friend asked me, "Well, you don't think that pro-choice is wrong do you?" as though it would make me some kind of monster.  For the record, I am pro-choice in principle, but probably pro-life in personal practice; it's none of my business what other people do with their bodies.

I wish people would leave me alone about my being Catholic.  Most people aren't even atheists, just agnostic or not thinking about it; atheism requires more force of will than many are willing to invest.  I like faith, and I like believing in something, and it's something better shared.  At best (or perhaps worst, depending on your view), God really exists.  At worst it's a powerful extension of collective imagination.  It's not the sort of thing that you should use as justification to kill others; it's inherently against the agreement you make with the Nonsecular Hand of Power.  And despite the Catholic church's bad track record, it does a lot of good things and has some good principles.  There's a lot of promotion of the spirit of giving, for instance. 

Here's the deal: when you have something better than blanket disdain for all things religious (or belief in a higher power, etc.), like, say, an actual opinion, come back and we'll talk.