My mother was a Catholic, so right from my time in the womb I became involved with Catholicism. I was born a hard Catholic. The first thing I did upon entering this world was turned to my mother and asked if my birth was immaculate. She said that it wasn't, so I then asked if she was married to my father and to show me the ring. I don't mean to grill you ma, but I have a whole life of sin ahead of me and don't need to be carrying one of yours too.

I remember when I was a baby, mom was explaining baptism to me. She said, "we're going to go to the church, then the priest will put water on your head after the service."
My first words were, "what the fuck for?"
I was a practical baby.
We need to go there? Like, drive?
Ma, listen. We can do this in the bathtub, me and you, and after I can watch cartoons while I shit in my diaper. Whadda ya say? Look, I know I'm just a baby, but give it a chance. I can save us alot of time here.

I remember when I started to smarten up and started to steer clear from the Catholic church. It was in 2nd grade. Yeah, didn't take long to catch on to the fact that something was off.
We had a priest who had come to the school, which was a Catholic school. I went to Catholic school, Catholic church, some of my great aunts were nuns. This stuff was drilled into me. I was drafted to team Catholic from birth and I was already looking into becoming a free agent. Anyway, while we were gathered around listening to the nonsense that this grown man actually believed, my friend raised her hand and asked if her parents, as well as herself, would go to heaven even though they didn't go to church. The priest said no. I'm not making this up. He told a child that her and her parents were not going to go to heaven. Now, props to him because I could see that he really did believe in his no, but, he also preached the other side of things and as impressionable kids, we knew that if people do not go to heaven, well, there was only one alternative here. He basically told a child that she and her family were going to hell, and as I heard this, even being a child myself, I thought, "wow. That's fucked."

I asked the priest about sinning and the forgiveness aspect of it. If she and her family were going to hell, that means they're sinners because we were taught that sinners go to hell. I then asked, "doesn't God forgive sinners?"
He said he does if you confess the sins. So, I went to tell my friend all was well, just talk to God and this'll all work out, and the priest added, "but you need to do that at church."
What the fuck kind of blasphemous catch22 is this!? You stumped a 2nd grader. You happy now? You proud of yourself, father?
Short story long, I raised the eyebrow of doubt and it all began that day.

Now, prior to this, I had made 2 of the 4 steps you need to make to be sworn into the cult of greed, homophobia, cannibalism, hypocrisy, magic, a bunch of needless singing, and downright...