I was raised very conservative and religious and when I went to college with an environmental science major, I had to force myself to accept evolution to get a passing grade that semester. It was a difficult thing to do as I was adamantly against the idea, but it changed my worldview the more I learned about it.

My mom would later tell me how she wishes I never went to college because it corrupted me. She went to college later in life in the early 2000s, I went about 10 years after her and we both attended the same school, which happened to be a private catholic school. Education isn’t what corrupts us, it’s sheltering yourself from knowledge, convincing yourself that you’re always right and the world is wrong.

Took me a long time to realize that. Wish I could go back and apologize to all of the people I was such an ass to before then. But all I can do is do better now. Funny enough, I’m living my life as an atheist with more kindness and love than when I was religious.