I’m not a Christian or an atheist, but I am a practicing Bahá’í. I’m not going to pretend my perspective is unbiased or definitely applicable to your situation; I offer it in the hope that you find it helpful, but I will not be offended in the least if you choose to disregard it 🙂

It’s a good sign that you’re troubled by the behavior of your fellow Catholics. You have a conscience and you know that they are disregarding Christ’s teachings for…what, really? A sense of fleeting satisfaction that comes from having an enemy they can try to feel superior to? True faith is not looking to other people for what to believe, but reading your scripture and learning the teachings of your religion for yourself. Jesus Christ preached love for all people, no matter what. You know this, and you know that the behavior of the other Catholics you know is in direct conflict with what they claim to believe, and that’s why you’re posting here.

Bahá’ís read their scriptures every day so that they can come to their own understanding of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings. I personally read scripture in the morning after I wake up, when my mind is still clear and I haven’t gone full tilt into the day yet; and at night before I go to bed, so that my subconscious can think about it while I’m asleep. Perhaps this is something you might want to do: read the Bible for yourself, critically and without preconceptions, and come to your own understanding of what Christianity means to you, so you may make your own informed decision on whether you want to stay a Catholic, or a Christian in general, based solely on your own conscience. You can stay Catholic and practice on your own, if that is what you want! What matters is that you find the way to practice your faith that feels right to you, and you find people that share your values.

Someone else in this thread mentioned Unitarian Universalism. Before I converted, I spent some time with my local UU congregation, and if you’re concerned about finding community, it might be good for you to meet your local congregation. Unitarian Universalism is not really an organized religion, but a community around a shared set of principles that include unity in diversity and the responsible search for truth and meaning. In my experience, though the services were quite…general, the sense of community and camaraderie that you would find in a church (or a mosque, or a temple…) was very much there. If you end up deciding to look for other places to go, a UU congregation is a good choice, at least from my experience.

When I started having issues with the behavior of the church, I started reading into the history of the church, and the history of the Abrahamic religions. I read books written by scholars, archeologists, and anthropologists, not by theologians.

I cannot fathom how anybody learns how Christianity came to be and still believes any of it is true.

I grew up Catholic, I’m baptised and I even did 2 out of 3 communions. I then became a somewhat staunch atheist and now I’m agnostic.

What made me turn my back was my aunt’s death, I was pretty young and it made me wonder how can this kind of suffering exists if there is an all loving God.
Then, growing up, I also realised that many people call themselves Catholic by default, just because they’re born in the right place or the right time, just like a person born in Asia will likely become Muslim or Buddhist.

Then, further down the road, I also realised that people were very selective of what to believe from their religion. That’s pretty much when I realised that the problem was not believing in something, but being part of an organised religion.

I don’t believe in any god, but I’m also not certain that there is no higher power, how can we be certain? We have no proof whatsoever for one side or the other. So I just started looking at philosophy and how to try and become a better person every day, and coincidentally, it fits pretty well with what’s written in many sacred books.
It’s hard and I’m far from perfect obviously, but it helps give me sense to the world around me.

We’re all great hairless apes on a floating rock, hurling through space, towards a certain doom. So, you’re free to do whatever, and personally I chose to try my best at being excellent towards my peer, without fear of never being good enough or eternal damnation. It’s been working okay for me so far.

Sounds like these are just bad people, no matter WHO they happen to worship.

Maybe just work on your Catholicism by yourself for a while, and see where that takes you.

The anglican church was pretty much a copy pasta of catholicism as the king just wanted control mostly to be able to divorce but also because its handy to control the religion of a country. As such the services and pagentry are almost the same but it is a bit more lgtb friendly. It had female clergy for awhile but like transgender ones are somewhat recent. The episcable church is the us arm but note some southern denominations tried to secede due to a bit of bigotry around that so you would want to check any you might join and make sure they are cool.

Welcome.

I would like to say you don’t have to stay were you don’t feel safe. I just stopped going to church during the start of lock down. I found that doing my own thing made me feel better then anything others told me. I still read and pray, I feel more connected. The fact that the people around you who are supposed to feel and believe the same are making you feel this way might be a way God or what every you subscribe to telling you something needs to change. I know it is easier said then done.

Others have posted similar topics, but when I was in college many years ago I remember writing a paper on language death and relating it to modern trends in religion.

It was undergrad work and like 10 years ago, so take with a grain of salt when it comes to causation, but the correlation I found at the time echoes some of the other posters: a lack of perceived utility.

Religion offers some nice perks as a social support system. Can you get those some place else? Different church? Something outside of religion? Mix of both?

Some of the support systems may be irreplaceable. That is okay. We are adaptive creatures. Its scary, but maybe you will find some supports hindered personal growth or were not worth the trade off of being passive in the face of bigotry.

You don’t need to decide everything all at once. Maybe there is a place to practice your faith with other like-minded individuals. Maybe you discover practicing a moral life doesn’t need to be coupled to faith. To believe or not believe doesn’t need to be decided at the same time as distancing yourself from hateful individuals.

Wherever you land, there’s some great online communities where you may find support.

A few points to hang on to:

• Your awareness of injustice is commendable.
• You don’t have to change everything about your life all at once.
• You’re allowed to say “I don’t know.”
• You have a right to change your mind.
• You can still talk to God. If they’re not up there listening (and they’re probably not) - well, no harm done.
• You don’t have to give up most of the great things your faith brought you. Charity, service, kindness, and community still feel fantastic, as an agnostic.
• Take your time to process what you’re learning, and be kind and forgiving to your past self. You were raised the way you were raised. It’s still part of your story, and that has value.
• Some of what you learned in your religion may not make any sense anymore. Be patient with yourself while you learn about alternatives.
• A lot of stuff that used to make sense to you still probably does. That’s okay, too.

Edit: And some useful definitions:

• Atheist - Non-religious.
• Non-practicing Christian - may still believe the same things, or still partake of the same traditions, but have decided to no longer take part in the harmful structures of the church.
• Agnostic - Unsure, or confidently sure that it doesn’t matter to you, personally. Or a staunch defender of everyone’s (maybe God-given) right to be unsure.

There’s a lot of non-practicing Christian’s out there today, thanks to shitty state of the modern church. (Which is rooted in the shitty state of the ancient church.) You don’t have to stop using the term Christian just because some assholes co-opted it (several centuries ago…)

But you might want to stop using the term, that’s okay, too.

Myself, I figure God can clean up their church if they want me to ever claim membership again. So far they don’t seem to be treating it like a priority, if they even exist…

have you tried confession? there are wonderful minds filled with excellent advice in any religion or sect- it comes from their being caring and sympathetic social animals and that’s not limited to any one group. my advice would be to find the ones within your community who will engage you in this dialogue and work from there. if you are coming from a good place of earnest inquiry, you can effect positive change from within or without.

Perhaps it is time to reconstruct what faith means to you. Such as writing out what about Catholism you don’t want to lose/leave, and what parts deserve change.

Re-invent what it means to be a believer. You don’t have to change faith/denomination or become atheistic for it.

And perhaps, see how other christans (or other faiths) handle sensitive religio-politically charged issues, how they approach and treat people. Each community has it’s own version of common sense after all.

My wife is a lapsed Catholic, for many of the same reasons. The one thing that held her back from quitting entirely for a while was “mom would be sad”. But thankfully even my mother in law sees the problem with Catholicism these days and doesn’t begrudge anyone leaving.

If might help you to process this stuff to review the history of Catholicism in light of your journey. That probably won’t help with the social issues of leaving the church, but as John Green said, all of life is a history test.

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You can have your faith and still denounce bigotry and intolerance. Leaving Catholicism doesn’t mean you’ve lost faith in your God, it just means you’ve lost faith in a group of people and their ideals.

Obviously this group is about atheism so you’ll not get many comments here encouraging you to stay Catholic. You sound like you have a moral compass. Don’t concern yourself with what the ignorant Catholics around you say and do, just be a good human and spread love and acceptance not hate and intolerance. What would Jesus do?

Why don’t you want to leave Catholicism?

I grew up Catholic, left when I was young (teenager, in late 30s now) and became a somewhat militant atheist for a long time: militant in the sense that I was looking to logically spar with believers.

About a year ago, I went through a reverse crisis of faith: I started to believe again due to very weird circumstances. I found myself at a Unitarian Universalist church, and it’s been life changing in the best way.

UU has Christian roots, but there’s no forced dogma. Everyone is welcome, including atheists and humanists. The core beliefs are around the inherent dignity and value of all human lives. It’s more like a faith or values community.

UUs have service on Sundays. Many are super welcoming.

I’m sorry you’re going through a rough spot. Like many others have said, this is about your relationship with certain people moreso than God. I think you’ll find your tribe eventually.

Peace be with you, homie.