In response to Mariah Key's question, "Religion doesn't play a role in every life, how has the presence or lack of religion effected your nature?"

To start I was raised with a religious background but as the church changed (and not for the better) we ended up leaving the church and don't practice the religion anymore. What really set us off was all the double standards the church had and how blunt they were sometimes. Now getting really into my personal life...my parents are divorced and of course the church knew that. Well one Sunday morning during the sermon the priest started talking about divorced people in general. His comment was and I quote, "Anyone apart of a divorced environment, (including the children) will automatically go to hell; there is nothing they can do to save themselves from this sin." It was after this comment we stood up in the middle of the sermon and walked out of the church and we haven't been back even though this was almost eight years ago. To me and the rest of my family this comment is crazy why should the children automatically be condemmed to hell for something their parents did. To be it doesn't automatically put the parents in hell either because sometimes you would be in an even bigger hell staying together.

Anyways, back to the question....I think to some degree the lack of religion in my life has made my nature better and in other ways its made it worse. I think it has made it better because I no longer have these religious rules that I have to live by. For example...come Easter time and thus lent I no longer have the church telling me what I should and shouldn't eat. It has also given some more free time...we I practiced we use to have to go to a class that they called CCD, like a Sunday school (except it wasn't always on Sunday's) and we would also have to go to the sermon on Sunday morning. And then of course there were the special services for hoildays and what not. The lack of religion has also saved money because it use to cost to sign up for the CCD classes and the church was always asking for donations. Have a lack of religion has allowed me to more freely live my life and not have to worry about committing a sin. But maybe this is a bad thing too because now I am not afraid to do silly things like swear once and awhile and other such things.

Although I no longer practice a faith I don't believe that religion is out of my life 100%. The reason for this is I still have many friends who practice some type of religion and thus I feel when I am around them I need to be concious of their beliefs and respect them. Also I still say "Bless You" when someone sneezes. Another way that it is still in my life is because I didn't make what Catholics call Confermation I can't get married in a Catholic church. The only way around that is to take some kind of class and promise that if I have kids that I would raise them as Catholics. To me it's a lot of mombo jombo.

Question:

How do you feel about the concepts of heaven and hell???