Religion

First of all, the following are just my own personal thoughts and experiences, not intended to annoy anyone, not intended to be any semblance of a guide, not intended to do anything, except let me think.

I was raised by a Catholic dad and a Methodist mom. Although my mom just kind of fell into the Methodist church for lack of a church that was completely in line with her views. I had First Communion, Baptism, blah blah blah, the whole 9 yards growing up, and had to go to church every Sunday, and sometimes on Wednesdays. But it all seemed empty to me. Many (not all) of the church folks seemed hypocritical to me, there were all these rules that didn't really make sense, and it seemed to me a contradiction for the Bible to say we need to help our fellow man but folks build giant ornate, ridiculously expensive churches instead of helping to feed folks who are starving in other countries. And then there are all the monstrous things that people have done in the name of religion. Wars, witch hunts, Spanish Inquisition, corrupt church leaders, false relics, etc etc. Hard to come to terms with. I was always told to say my prayers, but when I prayed I just felt like I was talking to nothing, or just myself. The God described in the Bible didn't seem like the type of personality that I would or could love.
When I went to college I took some psychology classes, and one or two on Hinduism and other religions of the world. The psychology classes presented lots of theories about why humans have religion, and most of them seemed to say that we're just plain too afraid of death being a finality. They say we developed religions to keep ourselves sane and to stop us from being so depressed with our lives that we commit suicide. This made a lot of sense to me. The only reason I kept pursuing religion before this was fear of what it would mean if I didn't, ie either eternal damnation or just a ceasing of being, and never getting to see my loved ones again. Although, as a side point, I always had issues with one passage in the Bible that says something about old relationships on earth not being remembered in heaven, like if you get there you wouldn't remember your husband or your mom, and you'd just spend all your time worshiping God. What fun is that?!?!
And I've also asked myself billions of times how we know our religion is correct. I say we as in generally Christian America. The Greeks were sure their religion was right. The Egyptians were sure about theirs. Hindu, Jews, Muslims, Mormans, Buddhists, everybody is so SURE they're willing to die for their beliefs. So many people just believe whatever their parents believe and don't explore other options for themselves. Sometimes their churches teach them that even learning about other religions can invite the devil to corrupt their faith. How do you know you have the right one if you know nothing about the others?
And the things that religions ask you to swallow seem crazy to me. Water into wine, someone being swallowed by a whale, fish and loaves to feed a ton of people? I think it's Islam (could be wrong) that says their great prophet abandoned his wife and child (there's a great role model, btw, and I think Buddha abandoned his wife and kid too) left them in the middle of nowhere, and the woman set down her baby, walked back and forth in a straight line between 2 hills like 7 times looking for water, and finally God put water in her path & saved her and the baby. Really? First of all, how bright was that lady to keep looking in the same place for water over and over again? & another thing, why did God bother to create the rest of the planets and stars and moons and galaxies etc etc etc? If the whole point of creation was, basically, us, then why bother with all that other stuff? In the book Ishmael, it's suggested that religion is basically the result of our fear and our feelings of self importance. Of course all the world was created just for mankind. Of course everything in the world is for us to use as we choose. Nevermind if we destroy the planet and billions of other creatures, just as long as we're happy. The planet wasn't made for them, it was made for us.
Basically, I already had a hard time making peace with religion, it just didn't ring true for me, and college made me think, "Yeah, this can't be right." And it was a really really scary thing, that I struggled with for a long time, and still worry "what if I'm wrong" sometimes. I don't want to go to hell if there is one. I don't want to be reincarnated as a slug. I don't want to just die and that's it. I don't want to think that I will never see my grandparents again. This is all terrifying stuff. But I have yet to see, hear, or experience anything that has remotely convinced me that there really is some all-powerful being out there, be it the Christian God or someone else. In a way I wish that I could make myself believe. But for now at least, I'm not going to pretend to follow something that I don't really believe is there just because I'm scared of the opposite prospects.