I haven’t been to church in about a year. I tried to go during my freshman year a few times, but Sundays were my only day to sleep in, and I was seldom willing to give up those extra precious hours of sleep. The beginning of this year began the same way: I would think about going, but then I’d just as soon talk myself out of it, thinking of my one morning of beautiful sleep. Skipping so much church made me feel guilty at first, but the guilt slowly died away, until I forgot about church altogether. It wasn’t until this semester that I decided to be honest with myself and wonder if I really believed in anything anymore.

Throughout my days at Catholic school, the existence of God was never a question in my mind. I went along with morning prayers, the crucifixes on the walls, and mandatory Masses because it had become such a norm from the time I was in kindergarten. I never even thought about whether or not God was real because I’d been taught that He was. At my school, abortion was wrong, unbaptized babies went to hell, and homosexuality was shamed. I don’t mean to bash my alma mater -- it’s a wonderful place to learn and grow, with wonderful people to help you. The point I’m trying to make is that I was only given one point of view, and that was that God is real, no matter what you thought. There was no room for doubt, because doubt is a sin. Until this year, I accepted that, but lately I’ve been asking questions.

In one of my classes this semester, I learned about social constructs. The overall gist of it is that from the moment of birth, we’re taught what’s acceptable and what’s not. We’re taught that monsters are scary, the U.S. is the best country on the planet, and God is real. These basic lessons are absorbed at such an early age that it feels unnatural to doubt them. Literally everything we know as children has been taught to us, and it’s not until we learn to think for ourselves that it’s too late -- we already believe what we’ve been told, and new things scare us. So when I applied that knowledge to the existence of God, my entire perspective was shaken up. I’d been taught my entire life that God was real. What if that, too, was a social construct, just like the institution of religion? I began to ask myself questions. If God was real, why was the Bible written centuries after the beginning of humanity? Why would God abandon every pagan civilization since the beginning of time, leaving them to worship multiple gods and go to hell? Why am I supposed to feel pulled to love a God who tells me to turn away from everything he made me to be -- a liar, a cheater, and a thinker of indecent thoughts? Why am I supposed to worship a man who died hundreds of years ago because people tell me he “died for me”? I don’t know that man. For all I know, he was just a regular man who was crucified for going against Roman authority.

I don’t know what I’m doing, and even writing about these feelings publicly is a big step for me. It’s something I’ve been dealing with for a while, and frankly, it’s been pretty unsettling. It’s a harsh change of mind to go from believing in God to not understanding why I don’t anymore. I don’t feel like I’ll think this way forever, but I do think it’ll be a long journey back to where I was before. I see people around me who seem to be so incredibly moved by the church, and I want to feel that happiness too. I don’t want to believe in nothing just because I can’t explain everything.

I think there’s an ignorance that comes with having to have everything proven to you, and I think there’s nobility in believing in something you feel, rather than see. At the same time, however, I’m not going to fake it. I can’t go to church just because I know it looks good to other people. I have to feel it and truly believe in it. Anything short of that is just disrespectful to myself, because it would be a lie. All I can do is keep my mind open to whatever happens or whatever feelings I get in the meantime. The spark is still there, but I just have to find it and make it grow.

One thing I do want to add to this is that nobody should ever admonish people they meet who feel differently about God than they do. Whether they’re a die-hard atheist or struggling with doubts for the first time, it’s never OK to make another person feel ashamed of how they feel. I’ve only told a few people, and because of their reactions, I’ve been ashamed to tell anyone else. But I feel like I need to get it off my chest because I don’t think I’m the only one. I think, whether or not they admit it, there are people who feel the same way or have felt the same way as I do at one point in time. The most important thing to remember in the midst of all of this is that your fellow human who believes in God is just as deserving of respect as your fellow human who doesn’t. Spreading love is never a bad thing, so do it always.