I was once a devout Catholic. I said my prayers, read the bible, joyfully attended church and unquestioningly supported the Church's position in any issue. One day, I attended mandatory classes before I received the sacrament of confirmation. In the class, I have heard many questions from the kids about the faith like "Why can't women be priests?" or "Why do other religions have other rituals?" Sadly, the people in charge of the class didn't give any satisfactory answers. Enraged, I read the bible to come up with some answers to help my fellow confirmation classmates to understand. In the middle of reading the bible, I began to question myself on why am I a catholic. Priests, nuns, the zealous catholics and books by people like St. Agustine didn't satisfy me on why should I remain with the Catholic Church and be faithful to Christianity itself.I knew that I would break my Mom's heart that I'm leaving the Church. However, I felt that it's time to make a stand.

It was a long struggle to make my family accept that I'm no longer affiliated with the Church. From there, I declared myself a theist- a believer of a god without ritual or supernatural minions. To make the long story short, I ended up being an agnostic. I debated to myself whether a god exists or doesn't. I've read essays from both extremes, yet they don't make sense. I decided on taking the middle ground. I've never felt so free in my life. However, there's a cost to that freedom and even now I continue to be firm with my convictions and fight anyone who dares to convert me for their purposes.

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