Dear Bella:
Hope you do not mind me quoting you here, because you express exactly what I wanted, and want, to say about myself.
""Being agnostic after being raised catholic has brought me a few gifts. One of them is the gift of a strong sense of responsibility for my life, and for my decisions. I used to feel that someone else else would carry me forth, and I could leave all the hard decisions to something else. It made a victim out of me, and it made me hold back from really thinking things through, and accepting the full capacity of my power over my life. The transition was scary, and took too much time. But I am grateful to have this sense, now. My life is better for it too.
Oddly, I have better relationship with faith than when i was religious. I believe in the power of faith. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it just does. For whatever the reason, life looks out for itself. Butfaith seems to only work when I take charge, visualize, stay positve and focussed.
Being agnostic empowered me, i feel, but I would much rather have the answers. i know i am not alone in this, and so the human race will keep searching. I am glad they will, that brings me comfort too."
I really do not like much talking about the topic, because my opinion is my own, and people seem to be unable to respect it.
Like you Bella, I was brought up Catholic, and educated in a convent boarding school, where all I/we heard morning noon and night was fundamentalist religion, imposed whether you liked it or not. The god we heard about was a punitive individual. The day was as follows: (the religious schedule I mean): up at 6.30 to Mass (I learnt how to sleep while kneeling, yes!), prayers then before breakfast, more of same after breakfast, more of same before each class, back into the church around 5 p.m. and then at 9 at night more prayers (half an hour or more). We also had three day silent retreats, with lots of preaching.
Then there were the religious study classes, most of which was learnt off by heart. After all, by hook or by crook, you had to pass the Diocesan exams.
I swore after I got out of there that never again would anyone preach to me or tell me what to believe. If they had only known that they were producing quite the contrary of their intended purpose: it was a school for future agnostics.
Anyhow, that is just a slice of my life I tend not to think too much about, the voicelessness of it all. Aside from the religious barracking, you were never allowed to have an opinion on anything, or to speak up for yourself if wrongly accused, or even to laugh. Luckily I was made of fairly stern stuff, even then, but I wonder about other pupils whose lives would have been blighted by that kind of "education".
All the best
Hermes
