Wednesday, Jun. 05, 2013 3:58 p.m.

Catholicism

I lately have been considering catholicism. Sounds weird, I know. I still don't really know if I believe much in "Jesus" per se. I definitely believe in a God, and I definitely want some kind of religion in my life. I want to belong to a community of people that have similar beliefs to my own (if only I could really figure out exactly what I believe, or find my beliefs articulated somewhere. But that's a totally different issue, and I'm just going to have to work with whatever I can find...). Catholicism is at least still Christianity and I don't feel like family back at home would disown me if I became a Catholic. They might look at me funny and think it was strange, but I can handle funny looks.

I'm over Protestantism, I think. It's too choose-your-own-beliefs-and-alter-Bible-verses-to-your-desired-meaning. It feel directionless to me. It's why I hate churches and gave up on them a decade ago. People go to feel good and "love" things. It's ugh. It just grosses me out and makes me uncomfortable.

I know that those kinds of churches are the popular, modern kinds of churches nowadays. But they just aren't for me.

I need a religion with some structure. Some backbone. A religion that at least claims to believe in something, have reasons for their belief (even if not everyone in the agrees with those beliefs), and stand up for those core values over time.

A don't want a church that changes with the times. I want a church that stands the test of time.

So I'm drawn to Catholicism.

At least there's tradition in their worship. And I kind of like they they believe in being saved by faith and deed, rather than faith alone.

Faith alone is crap. I've always thought so and have never felt totally comfortable with this though, but I was raised Protestant, so I didn't know how not to believe this. What is faith? "Oh, I have faith the world will end tomorrow." Ok, great. What does faith mean? Nothing really. I'm not going to hell because I have "faith" that a man lived a long time ago and somehow died and it made me able to go to heaven? What? And I just say I believe. Um, ok, I believe, I guess. Only I don't. I never ever really did. I tried to play the game and I made people think I believed, but I didn't know any better and it's what I thought I was supposed to do.

I personally like the idea of being able to be a 'practicing' Catholic, even if I don't totally believe everything. That actually means something. But what's a 'practicing' Protestant? Someone who goes to church and sits through a service? That's it. It means nothing. A practicing Catholic at least does something still and lives their life a certain way.

I don't know. Maybe this is just my latest try at finding a place to belong. Judaism is probably the only other religion that I've considered as of late, but it feels too "L.A." to convert to Judaism. Plus, I don't think it'd sit very well with my family. And family opinion is important to me (especially when I don't have a particular convection to one religion or another)...so I'd rather go the path of least resistance.

I ave no clue what K thinks of any of this by the way. But part of me does not care. While it'd be great for both of us to believe the same thing, ultimately we have to decide our own beliefs. If I do continue down this path and decide to become Catholic, then he can make the decision to become one on his own if he wants.

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