Problems and Contradictions

I've been thinking long and hard about my concept of religion and my involvement with it. I have come up with some problems and contradictions that will need to be resolved if I am to continue....
- Being a cradle Catholic (or cradle anything for that matter) tends to do a few harmful things to spirituality, at least in my experience. It teaches you not to ask the hard questions and to accept textbook answers. It puts God and your own spirituality in a box, and doesn't breed non-conformity and experimentation. It tells you how to pray, and what to pray, and to whom to pray... essentially some people's teaching of religion prevents you from searching on a path other than a prescribed one.
- It asks you to believe in something simply because other people have said it is so. I feel sometimes like we are to believe in things without question, without exploration, simply because we are asked to believe that it is "truth"
- It lays out a set of rules and a way of living and classifies it as "Catholic Living." Perhaps this is a clash between conservative values and my own. But I still have conflict with being told I am not living "Christian" because my interpretation of values and worldview does not match up with the "rules" or a certain person or organization's interpretation of what it means.

all for right now.