My mom baptised me herself, she’s uh, not a priest, but she did a little ritual, “come forth into the world” rite, because she believes rites like that are important, even though she doesn’t believe in organized religion too much. My dad is pretty much anti-religious, but he’s really tolerant, which is cool. He just has this strong urge to believe the truth, which I’ve definitely inherited. He doesn’t delve much into spiritual things (though recently he has been, and been getting a certain amount of truth from them, I think my leaving home affected him deeply). When my parents divorced, the woman my dad married was a devout Catholic, and I think they probably had some arguments as to how I should be brought up, but in the end my dad won. My half-sister on that side, though, goes to CCD and church and was baptised by a priest, etc. This kind of made my dad’s household half religious and half not (my sister and stepmom went to church every sunday, my dad and I didn’t), while at my mom’s house, there was just more of a general, spiritual feeling. A belief in powers greater than ourselves, but that the relationship to them must be personal, not communal. This is pretty much how I feel in regards to religion right now. I never had organized religion forced on me, so my views toward it are sort of a mixture of my dad’s “let it be” attitude and my mom’s, “there are powers greater than us,” attitude, so there are aspects that I agree with, and aspects I don’t. Some parts of organized religion are blinding, they put walls between us and God; but other parts really do bring a person closer to spirituality.
Religion is just this really cool thing - mythologies, stories, faith in general…they have a lot to teach us, and I guess I feel like it would be a crime not to pay attention. If the idea of God (or gods) is a metaphor for some eternal part(s) of ourselves (rather than some sort of outward agency, far far away), which I’ve come to believe, then religion is just another way of knowing ourselves, which is something that we should really do a lot more of.
No, I don’t feel like I have a choice in wanting to believe these things. I say it’s because I’ve had so many experiences which prove to me that there are powers (whether self-sprung or other-driven) which are not readily observable or quantifiable, and forces which cannot be scientifically understood (yet!). It would just be turning my back on the truth. But it could be the result of my childhood - I’m not sure.