Fear Based Religion

The Catholic Church,

my holy mother,

really did a number on my head.

Although I was raised

with strict morals

and boundaries,

I was held to those restraints,
to those conditions,

by fear,

and by fear alone.

Fear of Hell.

Eternal torment.

Everlasting misery.

A crispy critter,

would I be,

for deviating from the path;

not from the moral boundaries

mind you,

but from Holy Mother church.

You see,

all I had to do

relative to a sin of

moral tirputude,

or to be released from

any other sin,

was go to confession,

confess the sin to a priest,

recite the assigned penance,

and my marred slate was wiped clean.

The bottom line is

the Catholic Religion,

no matter the angle you look at it,

is a fear based,

mind control, institution.

I knew not love

from my experience with

the Catholic faith,

Only fear.

It took me years to overcome

my fear of exploring beyond

the boundaries of the religion,

for fear

of going to hell;

afraid that I might learn something

I wasn’t supposed to know!

Even now I see it—

the fear

remnant, dormant,

in the back of my mind.

It says to me, even know!

What if I am wrong?!

Because I purposefully

wandered from

the Catholic faith,

every deliberate step I took

there was fear again,

always my companion,

always confronting me,

always in my way,

rearing its ugly head.

In my youth,

I determined not only to

confront this wicked fear

but to overcome it,

to defeat it.

and so I continued to wander

farther and farther away.

And so here I am today,

Still searching

For the truth that eludes me,

because of the fear that

enslaves me.

I find that my love for truth

is a far more powerful

motivator

than is my fear of hell.

“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work:

only he who now letteth will let,

until he taken out of the way.

And then shall that Wicked be revealed,

whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth,

and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:  

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan

with all power and signs and lying wonders,

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness

in them that perish;

because they received not the love of the truth,

that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,

that they should believe a lie:

That they all might be damned who believed not the truth,

but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

 2 Thessalonians 2.7-12