19.
“My mom’s Polish, so my brothers and I are Catholic, and she and her whole side of our family have always exemplified the purest and most loving form of Christianity. I went to church all my life until my mid-20s, listening to BS I didn’t quite always agree with, but just sort of tuned out the iffy parts of sermons. I got a job with a Catholic organization working under a very difficult priest, who believed that we should be working full time for free because we were doing God’s work. He would always berate us for not working hard enough or putting in more hours. He said we should be glad to be ‘filled with the light of God instead of being materialistic’ (which was expecting a living wage).”
“Someone once replied, ‘God doesn’t pay my bills or put food on the table,’ and he went into a flying rage. Then, on Sundays, he would preach about goodness and kindness. One particularly hard workweek just broke me, and I couldn’t go back to work or church. I’m more agnostic now, which works better for me.”
