Just so you know where I'm coming from, I'm a Catholic. However, I only recently converted to Catholicism as part of my marriage, so I have a slightly different take on the religion than most Catholics. There are some things about Catholicism that I still don't "get," while in other areas I sound more like a Protestant, since that's my background. I also fancy myself a scientist, or at least someone who thinks logically and rationally and believes in scientific method. So, I'm sort of a religious mongrel, which I hope makes my writings interesting.
I grew up going to one of those touchy-feely, democratic, everyone-goes-to-Heaven-if-they're-nice Protestant churches that are spread across Canada. I became disenchanted with church hypocrisy in my youth (as do most people) and decided that the feminists, left-wingers, and ecology crusaders were more honest and upstanding than the two-faced biddies going to my church. It took me 20 years to discover that the feminists, ecologists, and left-wingers were as much a bunch of cheats, liars, and fakes as anyone else. That left me with hypocrisy as being an unavoidable human condition. The only people I found who weren't hypocrites were people who claimed not to believe in anything, in other words nihilists and anarchists. This strikes me as the easy way out. True, they're brutally honest, but they give up every other virtue for honesty. In other words, they're honest, but only by dint of the fact that they don't put out an effort to better themselves. In other words, at least the hypocrites are trying to be better people, even if they're failing.
So, after twenty years I find myself back in a Christian church, and the Catholic Church at that. I'll leave my reasons for liking the Catholic Church (and my reasons for disliking it, for that matter) for other writings. If you're interested, click away!
