Why are People Stuck on Enforcing Religious “Morale” on Others

When I was a young girl, learning about the religion we were taught, I was under the impression, the rest of the world had the same beliefs.

We all believed in Jesus. We all believed he died on the cross for our sins. We all believed we are born sinners and remained sinners, regardless of any kind acts we may perform in our lifetime because we were not worthy.

We were not allowed to touch ourselves in any erotic manner and no one was allowed to touch us unless they were going to be our future spouse. It was forbidden to have any interests in the same sex, being this was the ultimate of all sins (probably worse than murder, depending on the family values you were raised in) as we would experience the ramifications of hell.

Considering I was told I had one life and fucking it up meant I would be stuck in a purgatory concept; it was either believe in Jesus or you don’t go to heaven.

Of course, when I grew up, I found these concepts were a bunch of lies to bring about control over my choices in life.

Again, these are my own personal thoughts and opinions.

I have family members who hold their Catholicism in high regard, and I respect them, simply because they don’t push me to practice in something that doesn’t work for me anymore.

I was about 16 years old when the God concept stopped making sense. There wasn’t a priest I knew who had real answers, instead, they absolved me of my “sins, told me to say a bunch of “Hail Mary’s” and go in peace. It certainly didn’t make any complexities or questions I had go away.

Granted, a lot was going on in my life at that time, however, it was because of these experiences, gave me my own awakening to see the real world.

It wasn’t just a matter of making discoveries about the variety of religious faiths and their practices, it was about discoveries of social dilemmas, talking with different people, listening to inspirational messages, tangible experiences so that I can learn.

When I got clean and sober, I would hear time and time again, religion is for those who want to be saved and spirituality was for people who wanted to build better relationships with self and their higher power.