Yes the title is also the title of a song. No it has nothing to do with it.

While, officially, I was born and baptized as Orthodox Christian, I’m mostly an agnostic really, or maybe a pantheist if I’m feeling vaguely spiritual (I am not). Or a deist, or maybe just confused. Was I always like this? Yes and no. How did I get here? Boring story really, but hey why not tell it anyway.

The orthodox baptism, in case you were wondering, is a primitive ritual where a baby is striped in public and completely submerged in a cauldron of water, after being held for an hour in front of a priest reciting vague nonsense. Child abuse if you ask me. Some babies occasionally die during the proceeding. I always thought a baptism should be at an age where you are capable of committing to the faith… But that is not the local way, and we have no later age ceremony like a confirmation.

Some people who are not religious, especially certain strains of atheism, are very much anti-religion and militantly so. I am not and never was such a person. Some speak of the evils of religion, but those are just the evils of human kind. It takes lack of rational thought and commitment to ideology to declare religion as responsible for everything bad, as some do. So I did not become non-religious because religion is the debil [sic].

As a kid, I thought of myself as a Christian probably even had some faith in it, although it was never a very strong or an important part of my life. Just something in the background. Until some point when it wasn’t even that. I lost my religion, so to speak. It was nothing spectacular, no life changing event, no question of Life The Universe and Everything, certainly not some righteous anger at some God who allows bad thing to happen to good people.

That is not to say I am a fan of the Orthodox Church. One can debate orthodox theology at length, compare it to others and so forth, with good and bad. The church though it is but a collection of humans and the flesh is weak and corrupt and so are many priests. There is plenty to dislike, like the priest driving a USD100k Mercedes CLS telling poor pensioners who barely get by to donate money to the church. Or the priests who used every dirty trick in the book to get their hands on parishioners land to build real-estate projects. Or the ones who sexually abused orphans (quite fewer than the Catholics though.) I am certainly not a fan of the massive amount of tax money going to the church to build pointless cathedrals while high ranking people in the church cover themselves in gold. With this, off course, come many priests who are poor and use their life and resources to help those who cannot help themselves.  Those who offer solace to the old and ill, and peace of mind. The institution is rotten, not everyone in it. But it is rotten. This is the problem, I feel, with a highly centralized and hierarchical church. Why do you need 10 layers of hierarchy from the Patriarch (so unwoke) to the local priest? Especially since this does not rally gel with many elements of orthodox theology?

One of the rallying cries of a group of urban hipsters protesting government money for the cathedral was “you feel more faith in an old wooden church than in a gold plated cathedral” and it is, in  a way, true. I always felt closer to religion in the 350 year old wooden church in my grandma’s village than in many a cathedral. I have visited plenty and they do inspire some awe but not faith.

But I digress. To the Point! How did I lose it? I was, as I said, raised orthodox, like a majority of Romanians, but in a not to religious family. My parents did not attend church regularly, except Easter service and the usual weddings, baptisms, funerals and other such tragedies of life. They did take me twice a year, as a kid, for confession and communion, for whatever that was worth. My interaction with priests, church, religion came mostly from that.

I did have a period of time when you could say I was somewhat religious. In the sense that, after confession, a priest chastised me for not praying every night before bed. So after that, I started reciting a prayer each night. Next confession, I was happy to report yes, I do pray every night, thank you very much. But – there are always butts in church – then the priest asked me if I also say a morning prayer. I was thinking wait a goddamn minute. This guy is kind of pushing it. I mean seriously? Once a day should be enough. So I ignored that, and continued with my evening prayer. After some time I didn’t really believe in it, but was doing it mechanically, out of habit.

This went on for a while until one night when I went to bed and realized I hadn’t said my prayer. My reaction was goddamnit (I know no blaspheming), I have to do this now. And I didn’t feel like it. And that got me thinking. Why do I have to do this? Do I believe any of it? The answer was a resounding no. So I stopped. Funny enough, the first few night I fled vaguely uncomfortable, as I had broken a habit.

Prayer, at that point, was nothing but a daily activity. Like brushing my teeth before bed, but with less benefit. I am happy to say I still brush my teeth. And also floss, though maybe not as often. Then again flossing may or may not be bullshit, according to some studies.

After the prayer, I applied the same thing to confession, communion, and church. And other aspects of life. There was no introspection. No great realization of the follies of religion. No philosophical investigations. It just faded away. Day by day. Before, I was just going through the motions. A prayer, confession, communion. But it meant nothing to me. Not anymore. So I just stopped. So yeah that is it.

In a way, I feel that if I could believe, faith could bring some benefits. Some peace of mind, some sense of community maybe. Certainly ease my fear of the big nothing at the end of things. But I cannot. Certainly not in any organized religion. Maybe I am missing something, have a void unfilled due to this. But it is what it is, in the end. And if there is a God, hoping he just cares one was not a complete asshole in life more than the faith thing.