crisis of faith.

a crisis of faith: I was born and raised as a christian back in the Philippines. as a child I was always told to pray before I go to sleep to thank 'God' of all the blessings he gave my family on that day. I never really questioned why we had to pray, or who this 'God' was. I just accepted the fact that I had to do it or this 'God' would be mad at me. at least that's what my parents said. They always took me to church and again, I never really understood why. I just went with what they told me to do. As a kid, you can't really do much, right?

When I was about four, I immigrated to the united states with my family. Things were pretty much the same from back home, my parents would always tell me to pray right before I sleep to please this god. But one thing changed, and I think it was the vital part in which I changed faiths. That one thing was the fact that i stopped going to church. I don't know for sure if that was the real reason, but it sure could be a contributing factor.

Another reason could plainly and simply be, that I was growing up and forming my own opinions and views regarding the world. That was my point in life where I actually started questioning everything. Who is this god? Why is he here? At around the same time, I was hearing other people's voices and opinions about the same topics. To me, their opinions were much more logical than the ones I've heard. My belief was on the basis of logic, and of course I started to agree with other people's opinions because they were logical. The enforcement in going to church stopped as well at around the same time. All of these things weakened my Christian faith and eventually made me become apathetic and carefree about religion in general.

The things that made me lose my faith were overpowering. The questions I asked myself along with what I was reading helped me decide what I truly believed in. Of course it didn't happen just like that, but after much thinking and reading I finally set beliefs in new ground.

As of now, and a end result, I believe religion to be a collection of stories that people believe in so they can find a higher strength to depend on. See, when people are in trouble, they have religion to turn to so it could save them. All religions are basically the same thing. They all tell the same story, just worded differently. Religion is basically a guideline people believe in and follow to better their lives. There is no god, and all the stories in bible are in there to teach us a lesson about life. God only 'exists' as a tool to strike fear into a person. And as well as fear, it also gives a person a sense of relief.

But I can't really say what religion I follow now. Obviously I can't be in a religion that requires me to believe in a higher being. And I'm not sure whether or not I could say that I'm atheist either because I don't really push my belief that there is no god. To be honest, I could care less about religion. People can believe what they want to believe in, I won't stop them. I just know what my position is on this matter and I'll stick to it unless I get an epiphany or something.

I guess it's a bad thing that I haven't told my parents yet either, but I'm afraid of what they'll say or what their reaction would be. It's definitely something I'd be deathly afraid of because my mom is pretty religious. My dad is not very religious but he still wants me to pray each night. I don't know if I will ever tell them, so they could be worry free and not have to freak out despite the fact that I'm not Christian anymore. I think they could live without knowing that I lost my faith. Because I'm pretty sure they would question me a lot and look at my differently. They'd blame it on my friends and would freak out. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I won't ever tell them.

And that is the story of how the change of my faith came to be.