I was indoctrinated into religion against my will as a child. Were you? [View All]

Let me start by saying that this is not an anti-Catholic or anti-religion thread.

I was a precocious young thing, and rebelled against my Catholic upbringing very early on. I never believed the teachings of the church, even when I was in grade school - it just never made sense to me. I always felt like church was punishment for something that I hadn't done, like I was repenting for sins that I hadn't committed.

When a Catholic child reaches the teen years, they are eventually asked to go through confirmation. Confirmation is basically a ceremony where all the kids of a certain age, I was 14, make a pledge to Catholicism and become an adult in the church.

As I said, I never wanted to be Catholic, and told my parents this repeatedly. When it came time for me to be confirmed, I told them that I did not want to pledge to be a Catholic adult. I told them that I would be lying by going through the process, and wouldn't that be a sin to lie in front of God and everyone? Wouldn't that be incredibly hypocritical to be lying during one of the most holy ceremonies in the Catholic church?

My parents basically told me that I could choose to do whatever I wanted as an adult, but that I was required to do this for them - a family obligation. To this day, we have never fought over something a viciously as we did my confirmation.

I finally relented, and I don't feel like I was damaged by the process, but don't think I will ever get over the hypocrisy of being told to lie in a holy ceremony. I never wanted to be an adult Catholic, and yet I stood there and bullshitted all of the vows, mainly so that my parents wouldn't have to face the humiliation of having their child reject their religious values in a public way.

I'm interested to know if other people went through this sort of thing, Catholic or otherwise.
Do you still practice the religion of your upbringing?
Do you practice any religion at all?
Are you still bitter about it, or have you come to terms with it?

-eeyore

--edit for poor spelling-- :spank: