I was a devout Catholic. I believed. I believed in literal transubstantiation, I belived in Hell, I believed in the Virgin Mary, I believed in Adam and Bloody Eve and the damned Deluge! I was, I suppose, a victim of the phenomenon put forward by Dawkins in which adults tell you, in a serious voice, that something is literally true and you have a tendency to believe them.
When the priest said “let us pray” I really did, and a friend of mine in the pew next to me used to pray with an incredible intensity that made me envious. So what happened? Very basically I left my childhood.

The questioning that is customary in one’s teenage years led to me to realise the absurdity of some of the propositions. For instance the creation story was completely incompatible with evolution which living in England was considered science and not some infernal little secret. But the one thing that really led me to seriously question my pre-pubescent faith was the utter ridiculousness of the notion of an all loving, all forgiving father who would let you burn forever if you didn’t believe. I began to be exposed to the mental gymnastics of Catholic theologians who attempted to explain away quandaries like “what about people who never heard of Jesus?” and “what about babies who die before they get baptised?”. It was also revealing to me that the age of your confirmation at which you declare, before the Church, that you as an adult of sound mind accept the teachings of the Catholic faith and are baptised again as a permanent member of the Church began to diminish from fourteen (!) to eight (!!). What sort of eight year old could possibly be ready to declare their eternity? The cynic in me might suggest that this rewinding age of responsibility might go some way to explain the disgusting scandals that have plagued the church in recent years.

For years I struggled with faith (the imagery of eternal damnation is horrible enough to resonate with a young adult and I’m not ashamed to admit that the main motivation of my flirtation with Catholicism in my older years was fear) eventually settling on what I thought was a reasonable position of agnosticism. Then I read The God Delusion. Dawkins’ description of himself on his scale of belief seemed to gel perfectly with what I was. I didn’t believe and hadn’t for decades! I was a de-facto atheist, and because of stupid religious apologism I never realised it.

To put this in perspective the bulk of my catholic teaching came from my public Catholic school. My family were fairly liberal. My dad is a nominal Anglican protestent to whom Sundays were an excellent opportunity to sleep in. My mother describes herself as Catholic but her statement on belief is “I think that there’s something….”. Her mother was the daughter of Irish catholics and while being very devout she indicated she did believe in reincarnation. I think the liberal nature of my family’s beliefs can be summed up in the female members’ reaction to one of my cousin’s neighbours, a gay couple:

“It’s such a shame that those to are gay isn’t it? They’re both GORGEOUS!”

Imagine then the struggles facing an atheist brought up in a truly devout or dare I say fanatical household. I had it easy.

Tony Moss
United Kingdom