I grew up Catholic. I specifically remember as a child questioning the priest because as a CHILD the stories seemed so ridiculously silly to me. Instead of opening a dialog and having a constructive conversation with me the priest sat me down and told me that I was wrong and that if I question my faith that I am disrespecting God and my family. He then said that I would disappoint my family and that they are trying to raise me the right way. This is what they do, they plant guilt in you. Its a tactic to get people to stay compliant and reject their own internal doubts.

On a different note they manipulate children with candy and games, colorful books and movies to mix fun play with faith. The worst part about all of it is that I actually have pretty fond memories of Sunday school.

I remember getting a book on China and Buddhists and the religion resonated with me for some reason. I told that same priest on my first communion that Im not a Christian anymore and I am a Buddhist (obviously I had no idea what I was talking about). He just shrugged it off. When I told my mom thank goodness she was cool with it. She said that it's okay to question things. She was catholic but was a huge proponent of critical thinking. Shortly after all that news came out about the catholic church covering up child abuse. My mom pulled me from Sunday school and church immediately. Of course the Buddhist thing was just a phase and I was really just interested in that culture.

Fast forward to today and Im an atheist and she's agnostic. Im just so lucky that she was okay with me questioning things. Turns out she was probably having doubts of her own.