Reply #35: Yes, I grew up Catholic,

[JNelson6563]

I have a very unusual experience to report: My experience with the Catholic church was positive. Church and, for a few years, Catholic school were actually a haven for me as home was a bit nightmarish. It probably helped that we had liberal nuns too, they taught us that hell was a place where god was not and that's what made it an unhappy place. No talk of burning, suffering or the like.

It was in my adulthood, when the nightmarish home-life was safely behind me, I followed an intellectual quest that landed me at atheism.

Julie