It Took Some Discipline

Religion and I, we tend to rub each other the wrong way. It hasn't always been as such. In fact, I refrained from any serious personal decisions about religion up until high school. When I was in tenth grade I immersed myself in a number of influential sources presenting persuasive arguments against organized religion and, in fact, the dangers of it. Still, these were not directly focused on beliefs in any higher power, or God in general, and thus in my mind the possibility of a God as presently imagined was preserved.
Finally I reached college - a Jesuit institution at that - and my religious and spiritual affiliations were shaken to their cores. I immediately formed a stark opposition towards all organized religions. I found myself overzealously arguing with others about their religious beliefs and shunning away anything that was remotely related to religion, God, or a higher power.
What I slowly came to accept was something very important for my own reasonableness and fair-mindedness: religion, faith, spirituality, and belief are all fantastically complex and multi-layered subjects that should not and cannot be simplified, reduced, or hastily understood.
Only with time, careful analyzation and discipline, and after acknowledging my irrational discontent and hostility towards religion - and its distant cousin unreflective spirituality - have I managed a more modest and respectful attitude towards them. This is not to say that I have assumed a manner of indifference or disinterest in the matter but rather that I am now striving for a universal level of religious fairness and objectivity.
A wonderful change came from my self-improvement. I no longer wastefully crusade against religion, the religious, and the spiritual. Instead I learn, grow, and seek to harmonize amongst them, living in the same wondrous yet mysterious world that is just as bleak and beautiful for me as it is for all others.