The Night I Chose Ultra-Liberalism Over Religious Lies

 Content Warning: This post discusses domestic violence and may be triggering for some readers.

The smell of burning fabric still lingers in my memory, sharp and acrid, like a wound that never fully heals. I was just a child, huddled in the dim light of our home in North India, where my father, a priest in the Church of North India, was supposed to embody love and grace. But that night, his rage consumed everything—my brother’s clothes, my mother’s safety, and my trust in the religion he preached.
My elder brother had left that day to drop my two elder sisters at boarding school. He didn’t return, choosing to stay with my father’s relatives. The absence seemed to ignite something in my father, a possessive jealousy that had long festered. I watched, frozen, as he piled my brother’s clothes into a heap and set them ablaze. The flames danced wildly, mirroring the chaos in his eyes. My mother, desperate to stop him, doused the fire with water. That act of defiance unleashed his fury.
He turned on her, fists flying, as she crumpled under his blows. I can still hear my own screams, a child’s desperate cry for help, echoing into the night. I shouted for the neighbors, my voice raw with fear. My mother, bruised but unbroken, tried to help me climb the wall to escape the locked door of our prison-like home. I was almost over when my father grabbed her long hair, yanking her back so violently she crashed to the floor. My heart pounded, helpless, until a neighbor, hearing my cries, scaled the wall and rushed in to intervene, saving my mother from worse harm.
But the night didn’t end there. After the neighbor left, my father’s anger simmered into relentless arguing, refusing to let my mother sleep. Her body, swollen from the beating, was a silent testament to her endurance. I don’t know when she finally slept that night, or when I did, curled up in the shadow of fear.
That night wasn’t just a memory—it was the moment I saw through the hypocrisy of my father’s faith. As a priest, he preached love, forgiveness, and compassion from the pulpit, but at home, he wielded control and violence. The Church of North India, with its hymns and sermons, became a hollow facade to me, a mask for patriarchal abuse and unchecked power. How could a man who spoke of God’s love justify such cruelty? The contradiction tore apart any trust I had in organized religion.
That night planted the seeds of my ultra-liberalism, a worldview I now see as the only right way of life. Ultra-liberalism rejects the hypocrisy I witnessed, embracing secular ethics that demand authenticity over dogma. It champions gender equality, a value born from seeing my mother’s pain and resilience in the face of abuse. Her strength, despite the bruises, showed me the need to dismantle patriarchal systems that religion often upholds. Ultra-liberalism’s focus on personal freedom spoke to me as I remembered the locked door, the wall I couldn’t climb, and the control I vowed to escape.
The neighbor who climbed the wall that night embodied the collective compassion ultra-liberalism celebrates—people stepping in to protect the vulnerable, not because of religious duty, but because it’s right. My rejection of religion’s hypocrisy led me to a philosophy that prioritizes justice, equality, and liberation over tradition or authority. That night, in the ashes of my brother’s clothes and the weight of my mother’s suffering, I found my truth: ultra-liberalism is the only path to a world free from the hypocrisy and pain I witnessed.
I carry this memory not as a burden, but as a fire that fuels my resolve. It’s why I stand for a world where no one is trapped behind locked doors, where no one suffers under the guise of faith. What’s a moment that shaped your values? Share in the comments—I’d love to hear your story.