After heading to school the way most 15-year-old boys do - turning off my Mom’s Shania Twain CD and blaring the radio - I walked into St. Thomas Aquinas High School runway-style with an over-confident smile full of braces. There was nothing worse than a class clown and my class had at least 20 act-now-think-later young men.

These were the good old days, the days where drawing a penis on the board was not only hilarious, but worthy of admiration. Ah, memories. I can still hear the fake fart sounds and see the spit balls flying. High school was a blast.

While the voices cracked and the growing pains continued, these were also the days where I was formally introduced to the modern-day teachings of Catholicism. Unaware of its influences at the time, I found myself in a philosophical tug-of-war with these teachings when I entered college and then university.

In a lot of ways, schools are a child’s surrogate mother...well, without the whole breastfeeding thing. While they teach young people not only about history, arithmetic and science, they also teach social skills and the community’s shared values. But in a Catholic high school, they toss in one more subject - religion.

At St. Thomas Aquinas, grade 10 was the year I learned about the Catholic perspective on the big four - homosexuality, sex, euthanasia and abortion. The type of topics that can not only make or break an election, they can even make people hold up homemade signs in the rain.

My vision of God with a lightning bolt bazooka strapped to his back was not important anymore, and I eventually threw out the idea of loving “Thy neighbour as thyself.” I was 15 years old and I began to sharpen my religious fangs and crack my Catholic knuckles.

The reason was simple; it was the influential words of my religion teacher Mr. Hill. He was a good fellow, with his big moustache and a sense of humour. He was an excellent teacher in the sense that he was able to make the class talk. In case you’ve forgotten, most teachers stand in front of the class the way people wait in a checkout line at the supermarket - zombie-like with bags under their eyes that scream “I hate my life.”

Mr. Hill was different. He was full of energy and conviction, which is important when you’re trying to persuade a group of horny teenagers that masturbating is wrong. He was quite convincing in his studies of miracles around the world and had evidence, some of which appeared scientific, to prove the Catholic perspective on the big four. The purpose of sex, for example, was to make babies, of course - and since homosexual relations are incapable of procreation, it must be an unnatural action.

He taught me how to go directly for the throat.

By the end of grade 10, I was convinced homosexuality was evil because it was unnatural; euthanasia and abortion were murder; and, of course, having safe sex and sex before marriage was also wrong. Being a horny teenager, my sex drive had my hormones in a headlock and that last bit of information was horrifying, especially since masturbation was also a sin.

My hands were tied, literally.

After my brains were vacuumed out of my left ear, I looked down on homosexuals, believing they were suffering from some sort of mental disorder. After all, I was a straight 15-year-old boy. Sex was on a continual cycle in my mind and young ladies were making me dizzy.

How could some men not find women attractive? They have boobs! Boobs! Not only did I think homosexuals were crazy, but I began to judge them. I concluded they were sick, twisted individuals who deserved to be shunned, outcasted from society.

I knew if any of my friends or family “decided” to become gay, I would immediately disown them. If I met a girl and heard she had an abortion I would think she was a murderous whore. And I had come to the conclusion that any left wing thinking individual was completely stupid.

My mind was black and white in a world of grey.

Believe it or not, I ended up graduating high school and went to college, even university. Upon entering a philosophy class called Critical Thinking at Capilano College, I had an invisible Mr. Hill standing on my shoulder whispering lukewarm lullabies into my left ear. I was ready...well, at least I thought so.

After being introduced to Professor Susan Gardener, I suddenly felt like a water balloon - an object that discovers its purpose by exploding. The target: My brain. Splat!

“Homosexuality is wrong because it’s unnatural,” I remember saying, as I picture Professor Gardener today rolling on the floor with laughter.

Have you ever been hit in the head with a two-by-four? That’s what it’s like to enter a philosophy class when you come out of a Catholic high school. I will take this opportunity to buy a vowel for the four letter word that describes the proverbial confusion I was faced with at this time.

She explained to me the importance of what she called the “Hidden premises.” It was at this point where I could feel myself ducking into a mental bomb shelter, faced with a religious attack as if the devil was her, this graduate from Oxford University. I was officially faced with propaganda from this heretic. While my mind was charging her with treason, my pen began to take notes:

“All things that are unnatural are wrong. Homosexuality is unnatural. Therefore, homosexuality is wrong.”

Dr. Gardener explained how irrational this statement was based on the hidden premises, and if the hidden premises were illogical, then so was the entire sentence. If all things that are unnatural are wrong, then it is wrong to wear glasses or die your hair, she explained.

“This must be blasphemy,” I thought, peering up from my mental bomb shelter. My mind pondered more and I was miles away from the classroom. I soon realized that humankind is constantly engaging in unnatural activities.

Attention passengers, please fasten your seatbelts, put your tray and seat in their upright positions, and prepare for take off.

I had just crashed into the moon and was in complete disarray. On one hand, I had looked down on homosexuals for years, and on the other, I realized I had just lost my one reason for vilifying these people in a matter of seconds. It was at this moment when the injection began to wear off and I was starting to come to my senses.

Click. Click. Boom.

My mind began evolving, or reloading as if it had been shooting blanks for the past four years. I began questioning everything I had ever learned and began learning things about my religion, which shocked me. Most importantly, I began to realize religion is the root of many problems in the world, where religious fanatics use the good book to justify evil actions.

In grade 10, we never discussed the fact that monotheists (Muslims, Christians and Jews etc.) have been raging war on one and another for 1500 years. Mr. Hill never mentioned how, at one time, Catholics spoke out against vaccinations, open heart surgery, pacemakers and other important advancements that have prolonged and enriched human life.

There was more to the pro-life and pro-choice debate than the fact that a fetus becomes a human baby. Even further, for the first time in my life I began to question the Bible - a book that gives billions of people a sense of guidance in their journey through life to eternity.

The dust had been blown off my brain and I allowed myself to take a look into the rabbit hole, the unknown, across a new found clearing in the forest where I used to think only atheists, sinners and fools resided. I decided to take the third bite of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge and I am better off because of it, just as Adam and Eve were. Let me explain:

First off - humankind’s survival is dependent on knowledge and reason, and this sets us apart from animals. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were blissful and happy, wondering around naked (hell yeah!) before discovering the Tree of Knowledge.

God told them not to eat from the tree and the serpent (the devil) came along and convinced them to do otherwise, and they gained knowledge and later ran to cover their embarassed genitals with makeshift underwear. Knowledge allowed them to realize they were naked.

Eating the apple was an evil action because God was disobeyed and this is known as our Original Sin, which is removed through Baptism. The story shows what makes us human and allows us to survive - our knowledge and reason - is also what makes us sinners. This means we are evil at the core - and I seriously disagree. If anything, Original Sin was a virtue and a blessing, not something we should be ashamed of or even consider a sin.

Even further, I would be considered a crazy person if I told someone they should go to jail because their Great Grandfather raped a woman. In our society, the idea of paying for the sins of our forefathers is ridiculous. It does not make sense to treat Original Sin any differently.

After Capilano College, I found myself in university studying journalism with a philosophy elective every semester. In the summer of 2005, I ended up living with two homosexual men in Glasgow, Scotland where I had acquired an internship at a newspaper. By the time I left, I had made friends with the same people I would have despised a few years earlier. It is through becoming agnostic that I actually began to love “Thy neighbour as thyself.”

Even today, as I write this piece, I still feel the same mental illness I was given in high school: Neurotic guilt. Even though I consider myself to be removed from the church, I wonder if writing such a statement like this will condemn me. And if I were to have children, I may even baptize them out of the fear that I am wrong. Catholicism, after all, taught me to fear the future, to live a sin-free life, so that I will one day be rewarded in death.

But I’m not waiting anymore.

I no longer accept Catholicism’s system of ethics, which most of the time, seems to be in opposition to the requirements of my happiness here on Earth. I found my life was more enjoyable in Scotland since I allowed myself to have homosexual friends. I imagine most people would agree having sex for pleasure, not just for baby making, also creates happiness.

While my final opinion is still hatching, I have discovered I have become a more open and forgiving person through my philosophical perseverance and my willingness to let go of my former Church’s illogical perspectives.

Instead, I have many questions that people, including religious leaders, cannot answer correctly, who say, “Just have faith in the Lord.” I refuse to follow any religion blindly, and until I find one that lives up to my reason, which does not contradict itself, I will continue to be agnostic.

Today I need more than a God nobody can see and a Bible that only the powerful were allowed to edit, and I cower at the idea that millions have died at the command of the Roman Church, from Muslims to Jews, to even so-called witches.

I finally live in a world of grey.