This subject has always been present throughout my life.
I was raised a catholic and have always been taught christian values and virtues.
My father, who was also raised in a very catholic household (as was my mother), made sure to raise us in that same framework.
Every sunday we would all go to church, we all went through the sacraments up to confirmation and all of those ritualistic and tradicional parts of religion. However, at some point, my father, who is a very rational man, started learning a lot about spirituality, as in spiritualism. Reincarnation, vibrational energy and a spirit world. He understands it as a science.
After he started learning about that, he would also teach us these things, and gradually he would come to understand himself as no longer a catholic but a christian. He is an avid worker in a group dedicated to helping lost and suffering people in the spiritual world, people who have died and are lost and in pain. Which is actually something rather uncommon. Usually most houses help the living, and 'purge' or 'exorcize' "evil spirits" or "demons" as some call them, which my father doesn't agree with at all, for those are the ones with the most need of help. He focuses on helping these people, people who have never known love and convinced themselves they are evil and harm others.
I admire what he does a lot.
But we (me and my siblings), as his children, have all reacted differently to this change.
I'll speak for myself.
Back in catholic days, I already had a strong rejection of religion. I found it awfully boring, it seemed somewhat senseless to me. I could appreciate the values we were taught, but all of the rituals, rites, and most of all the worship was very silly to me. The figure of Jesus is very inspiring indeed, he was a very cool guy, an important prophet. But people worship him like a God, and I learned to dislike that idea. He was a man, a great man, but a man nonetheless.
Also there is this sort of sick feature of catholicism, that people seem to think God and the saints are sadistic. I'll elaborate - people penance themselves through painful deeds in exchange for their wish. I understand it, when it's a very desperate measure to get something to happen. But other than that seems like the person is brainwashed or something. A true cult.
Another thing about the worshipping thing, the way people worship saints seems, to me, awfully similar to paganism. "How much of a hypocrite can the church be?" was the thought I would always come back to. But this critical thinking wasn't limited to the catholic church. Many others congregations seemed to have their own glaring issue - issues I couldn't accept. Belief is something very powerful, and when someone finds a way to channel that power through preaching and religion, I've seen that too many times that power is abused. And I believe protestant priests have that much worse than catholic priests (I don't wish to imply every priest does that). Extortion in these protestant churches and in poor communities seem like true evil doing, in my eyes. It's the kind of thing the church did back in medieval days. Taking advantage of people's beliefs, it's... well, bad.
When I became a teenager, I became very demanding of my parents' and the church's congruency, as do most teenagers, I believe.
And that led me to identify myself with Agnosticism and I still do, to a degree.
Much like Socrates - "One thing I know is that I know nothing." Which is a very humble statement, and humility is a very christian value.
While I was going through this philosophical dilemma, my father was experiencing many things. Things one has to search for to learn about. And every time my father offered to show me that world, I would deny it. Why? I guess I was afraid...
I'd had some exposure to mediums incorporating spirits and acting very oddly from a very young age. It was all very confusing to me. I am a very respectful person and I never challenged anyone or anything about what they believe in, except for my father, which was in an effort to understand that world better.
I respect everyone and let them live their life as they want. I know I'm not responsable for anyone's choices. How can I ever be in position to judge anyone if I don't know how they live and what they are going through? I am not.
All I know about spiritualism is what my father tells me. And he has told me quite a lot. But there is a limit to what you can learn by what someone tells you, you need the raw experience to fully understand. But, I'm still afraid? I guess it's understandable, I don't have the motivation to overcome that fear because these doubts don't bother me.
However, I've become more curious lately, after my sister showed me an image of Chico Xavier next to a Light Spirit and a man with ectoplasm coming out of his mouth. The phenomenom is called Materialization.
When she showed me that, I was startled. Until then, I had already accepted the existence of spirits and most ideas regarding vibrational energy and "the next plane" through my own experience and confidence in my father's teachings. But suddenly the idea of an actual photograph of one, seemed very crazy to me. It seemed like it was easier for me to believe it in not having seen anything, just having felt things and heard others testemony. But now that I had actually SEEN something...
I don't know, it's not like I stopped or started believing in anything differently, but it piked my interest. I never knew much about Chico Xavier, other than that he was influential figure in Brazillian Spiritism, that my father said he was Plato reincarnated, and about Data Limite.
I think I ought to look more into him.
But then I remembered all of the times I've challenged my father. Of the times he couldn't give me a proper answer and of the times he made very far out stretching of ideas.
Once he was convinced in the existence of mermaids. Based of a fake video on the internet.
And he often makes absurd statements with not much of a foundation to go off of. Just how much credit can I give him?