About Me and This Blog

My name is Nancy Abrams. I’m a twenty-something year old recovering Catholic and grown up former homeschooler. I discovered atheism during college, and realized it makes more sense than what I was raised to believe.

Growing up, religious education was a huge part of my day to day life. I learned to pray by praying with my parents. My father was the church youth minister, and my mom was a church cantor. The majority of my bedtime stories came from the Bible, and I learned the many teachings of my parents’ religion by memorizing excerpts from various catechisms, including the Baltimore catechism. I was homeschooled with the exception of 9th grade, (during which I attended Catholic school,) and I took many theology and apologetics classes throughout my childhood. Because of how much of my childhood was devoted to Catholic religious education, and how many experiences I have had growing up in the church, I feel confident saying that I understand Catholicism very well, even though I no longer practice it. When there are things I’m not sure about, I know what sources to use to check my facts. I may be an atheist today, but I have a strong familiarity with my subject matter, and that is why I feel confident writing about it so publicly.

While I don’ t think homeschooling is necessarily bad, nor do I harbor harsh feelings towards people who are religious, I want to share my experiences with Catholicism, and express my disappointment and disagreement with various aspects of the religion’s teachings. I plan to spend some time discussing the broader category of Christianity, and I may delve into some other religions as well. However, I do not claim to have a great deal of experience with any religion other than Catholicism, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about anything. I’d like to make sure that any information I share on this blog is accurate to the best of my ability.

I will also use this blog to share my thoughts on some aspects of American culture, and maybe even some political issues if I’m feeling particularly brave, so long as they relate to morality, which–believe it or not–is important to atheists too. My goal is to share my experiences and thoughts on actual religious teachings, not to trash talk Catholicism, or any religion. For that reason, I will do my best before any criticism to include articles written by people who actually follow the religion in question so that I allow them to explain themselves, rather than simply reporting their beliefs from my biased perspective.

Oh, and feel free to leave comments! I will moderate them for now because of the risk of trolls, but I will approve all comments as long as they are respectful of others (regardless of how much I may disagree with those others). Also, if you have questions, I’m all ears! Or rather, eyes.

-Nancy