Belonging to a Religious philosophy

When I went for my neck operation I had to fill in a variety of forms and answer a lot of questions which were personal. I was asked what religion I was and I answered (for the first time ever) NONE. Now this may not be significant to most people but for me it was totally significant because I am the typical Irish Roman Catholic of the 1950's where the Church ruled with a mighty hand and no one questioned its authority. I was born out of wedlock as they say and although I missed certain things growing up like how to put a tie on correctly and how to effectively shave I don't think I missed out on much. My mother and Grandmother both matriarchs in their own way saw to that and I had a good upbringing with not much money. However I was invested into the church, I was an Alter-boy, I went on retreat to the priesthood (thankfully they saw sense), and I was until college devout. When I was married ( in a Lutheran church by a female priest) and had a family I wanted my children brought up as Catholics and that was what happened. I attended church I taught in a Catholic school and I was involved very much in the activities of the church including festivals and certain rites within the church. 

Over the years though my disillusionment  grew and I began to really question what religion (any religion) was about and came to the conclusion that it was all about power over the masses and that no religious doctrine was true. I suppose I am an Atheist as I do not believe any religion has the truth only dogma but I do not resent people who believe and are devout in their religious practices. What I do resent is the "holier than thou" attitude of fundamentalists who would have you change your views to fit with theirs and here I just think of the early Christians working in missions to change the ancestral religions of indigenous  people. I ask how could they if not to maintain power over the people and subjugate them to terror until they changed their belief systems. If that is what a god wants then I am not a follower. Now there are those who say that god is good and that they have been helped by him/her/it well if they belief that then so be it but it would be nice to be able to hold beliefs contrary to the populous and thereby be out of the power struggle. This brings me to my point, there is a movement which started as a joke but has turned into a tidal wave of support of the idea of "de-baptism"  What I can't understand is that for those who do not want to be baptized why they have to have an official note saying they are not baptised. If they don't believe then their non believing should be proof enough, it is like they want permission to not belong. For me it is enough that I have questioned the validity of religion and decided that it is not for me. I am not a different person as far as my relationships with others are concerned but I am a totally different person within myself as I do not have to adhere to petty dogma designed to control the way I think. This is surely a good thing. My family are as dear to me as they have always been and I have not thrown off the shackles of confinement and behaved in a totally non rational way I have just carried on doing what I do in the way I have always done it minus the influence of religion or as much as I can possibly do this having been influenced for a life time by its conventions. I do not adhere to hypocrisy I merely try to do the best I can for those who need it and hope that they will do the same for me.

The following link started all this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7941817.stm