My parents were Catholic, as was their parents, and their parents, etc. as far back as anyone in the family can remember. When I was about 4 or 5, it didn’t understand mass or any of the other rituals and ceremonies that make up Catholicism. I know that I hated going to church, catechism, confession, communion, and all that stuff. But I was sometimes terrified that I might die in my sleep and go to Hell because I wasn’t in a “state of grace.” When I was about 5, my mother told me that Catholics had to suffer in life and that only Catholics went to Heaven. Wow, what a horrible thing to tell a 5 year old! I went to church and catechism every Sunday, and I mean EVERY Sunday. There was no “go or else”, there wasn’t any “or else”. At about 12, I began to doubt all the teachings of the church, but didn’t really know if I believed or not in a god. When I left home, I also quit going to church and told my parents I didn’t believe in any of “that stuff”. My parents practically disowned me for a time. Thereafter, for most of my adult life, religion wasn’t a part of my life and didn’t think about it. I didn’t know or associate with anyone that went to church. I probably did know people who went to church, but they didn’t talk about it. I went to my father’s funeral mass only to please my mother and swore I would never go to a mass again and I haven’t.
When I was 44, I married a woman who was about as Catholic as the Pope. Probably more Catholic because she really believes on all that bullshit. I doubt the Pope does. He’s just another ambitious politician who used religion to gain power and status. My wife and I argue religion all the time, but this hasn’t had a really bad effect on our relationship. At least she finally stopped nagging be to go to church.
But then we moved to northwest Arkansas, part of the Backward, Baptist, Bible, Belt. Here, there’s church on every block, people talk about their church, their religion, their Bible, their Bible study class, their choir practice, etc. etc. constantly. I got so tired of being told in person and on the TV, that the Bible says this and that, that I read the Bible, the ENTIRE Bible, to see what it said. Makes me sick. The best source I know of for turning a believer into a non-believer, is the Bible. The people who are always quoting the Bible and how it is the basis for morality, obviously haven’t read the Bible. If I were god and someone said that I wrote it, I would be insulted. I also read much of the Koran. By the way, Arkansas is one of seven states that has an unconstitutional state law requiring a belief in god to serve in a public office or on a jury. I know this is the law and from personal experience. I was excused from jury duty for refusing to take a religious oath. Arkansas doesn’t say which god you have to believe in, but then you’re given a Christian Bible to swear an oath. Doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, a non-believer, or whatever.
After reading the Bible, I started reading about other religions and also I read Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris , Dennet, plus the writings of religious people. I tried reading a book titled, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.” I read about half of it and couldn’t read any more it. Total bullshit, circular arguments and nonsense. For example, “God exists because the universe exits.” “All religions claim to be the true religion”, (true). But in the next paragraph, “of course, Christianity is the true religion.”
I don’t know why people are called Agnostic.
In reality, everyone is an Agnostic. Agnostic means, no knowledge. That is what we have about Heaven, Hell, and an afterlife. Of course religious people “know” there is. Religion enables people to know things that are impossible to know.
In summary, if one studies religion, which of course the clergy forbids, one can only come to the conclusion that it’s all a lie.
Wayne K
In reality, everyone is an Agnostic. Agnostic means, no knowledge. That is what we have about Heaven, Hell, and an afterlife. Of course religious people “know” there is. Religion enables people to know things that are impossible to know.
I’m an agnostic atheist, but I usually leave the agnostic part out.
It’d be silly if we went around saying “I’m a human agnostic atheist bipedal mammal” and “Oh really? Well I’m a human agnostic theist bipedal mammal”.
At some point, since everyone talking is a mammalian bipedal human, you can drop it from both sides of the equation.
Wayne, I’m not sure this meets philo’s standards for taste and quality :-)
Of course it meets the philo standards. Unless it was written by one of those unusual wimminz named Wayne.
After being soundly trounced by an 8 year old, philo may be in his lair licking his wounds and plotting and scheming, talking to himself about his precious.
Wayne, many parallels between your story and mine. Looking back on my memories of being raised a Catholic, the sense of superiority and privilege and the total lack of introspection rank high.
Wayne, i enjoyed your essay.
Just one thing, though. You say, “My wife and I argue religion all the time, but this hasn’t had a really bad effect on our relationship. At least she finally stopped nagging be to go to church.”
My personal experience is that it didn’t get better with time. It all too easily created a rift between us. It’d be interesting to see if there’s any research on this, to find out if it mostly ends up that way.
Thanks, Wayne. This reminds me that I’m still grateful NOT to have been raised a Catholic. For me, wishy-washy intellectual presbyterianism was a much easier path to saying Phooey on the whole enterprise.
I can’t agree more! From morbid curiosity (I was raised as a Christian but turned atheist around 10-15 years of age) I recently had the lack of pleasure of slogging throught the whole thing myself. It baffles me utterly how anyone can believe this mismatched set of texts. The only consistent thing I see is the hatred and misanthropy which is dripping from almost every page. I’m completely mystified by how anyone can describe this as “the good book”. (I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I felt like venting a little.)
It is now possible to make slogging through the bible a more enjoyable experience :
The Brick Testament
…Holy crap but that makes me angry. No public representation, and now no right to a jury of peers, either.
Thanks! It’s certainly an entertaining supplementary. But I fear nothing can replace the tedious experience of reading through the second half of Exodus, where Yahweh goes to great lengths to specify how he wants his tent. Or Deuteronomy which (except for a few instructions on how to manage a society in as repressive a manner as possible) is mostly concerned with how Yahweh wants his offerings in the aforementioned tent. Reading this felt like a complete waste of time, but then it slowly struck me… it’s an incredibly small god that is being described here. Yahweh has (according to this tale) used this opportunity for communication almost exclusively to blather on about the particulars of how he wants to be worshipped at this particular time. Only a handful of sentences remains that is even slightly connected to morality (though it may as well be about tribal cohesion as ethics) or any other matter of lasting interest.
It’s astonishing how little the vast majority of xians know about the bible, their religion, and its history. It’s not much above zero.
The churches do this deliberately.
My natal church ignored most of the bible with the best of intentions. They treated Revelation like the crazy uncle locked in the basement. I never heard one word about stoning false prophets, adulterers, or nonvirgin brides to death, the Canaanite genocide, or really much of anything in the bible except a few carefully cherry picked passages.
Thanks Wayne .. had a nice down-home feel.
Yes AR is about “Babble” as it gets, but NW to me includes UARK in Fayetteville and a bit of progressiveness. I’d like to think of that little spot as sort of the Austin, TX of AR!
As to agnostic. I say any science type is agnostic about anything including god stuff. I am 100% atheist and I do not ever expect to have any objective reason not to be atheist, but if somehow proper and sufficient evidence is presented that I can understand and that I feel is sufficiently vetted I’d switch to agnostic theist.
My point is there is no dogma in science so therefore there must be an agnostic component to every belief we hold. We go where the evidence leads us.
This is not to say we have to track every unfounded lead any wacko gives us. Abduction and Occam’s Razor are allowed in science for EXCELLENT reasons.
Would one want one’s mechanic to do a gremlin cleansing because that is one of the hypothesis out on the street re: wicked engine misses like those one’s car is experiencing?
Re-reading I abducted the English Language and word meanings apparently!
Of course abduction in my scrambled brain means “abductive reasoning”. LOL sometimes my fingers do the thinking for me – scary.
@Dickthedamned or damneddick,
If the sky-believers are not truly whacked-out (emotionally sick), they might survive a long time coupling with divergent beliefs (a form of bestiality, certainly) but being ‘saved’ sure ends marriages just as well as the church-claim that it can save them. My niece recently married a fellow who divorced his first wife because she would not ‘come to the Lord’… Not sure why she wouldn’t…every time I come I sing to myself like an old Billy Graham, “Oh lamb of gawd, I come…” but that might be peculiar to Baptist preacher’s kids… not sure. Personally, I would recommend that other atheists try ‘coming’ to the Lord too, if only to keep their marriages intact… finally this might be the only sure way to avoid blasphemy and divorce. (By the way, a note to those sick atheists who might suggest that little lambs are actually somehow involved in this matter, Damn you! Not one lamb is harmed in my coming to the Lord, not one…)
Yep, that first paragraph describes much of my early Catholic life to a t. That whole praying for Jesus to take your soul if you die in your sleep is serious nightmare fodder.
The best source I know of for turning a believer into a non-believer, is the Bible.
This is so common. The next atheist billboard should be “Read the Bible”. Nobody could object.
Hey, another NWA atheist! Fun times. It’s such an odd place to live… in some ways, NWA is so progressive, with the different religions caused by the huge influx of immigrants and aliens here to work for Tyson, Walmart, JB Hunt, etc. On the other hand… it’s as bible-belt white bread as you can get.
Just remember kids, if you want to be a good Christian you must follow the scriptures:
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
New International Version (NIV)
6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
procyon quoting babble: “.. the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.[and eventually into the arms of Hitler. Praise be to the LORD the Almighty GOD sayth the LORD].”
That would be better than any of the ones that I’ve seen. I really like that idea.
Nope, it’ll never happen. Silverman and his mob would never be satisfied with something that didn’t send the wrong message.
I don’t think I had any contact with Catholicism growing up (lucky me). The closest I got was reading “Bless Me, Ultima,” in high school, and even that second hand account was able to impart the severity of not going to church *every* Sunday. That struck me as completely unfair. Someone who lived a moral life but had the misfortune of missing church or their last confession would be damned to hell while a murderer could get into heaven as long as he could confess to a priest and repent before he died.
Anyway, I’m glad you were able to leave religion, but sorry that you’ve had to suffer for it.
Reading through the comments, especially #10 (trondreitan)
made me wonder why I don’t see more arguments online about how Christians shouldn’t be online because the bible says nothing about preaching on the internet. I mean, if god was all-knowing, he’d have predicted the internet and mentioned whether it was a good thing or not. That is pretty big proof to me that the bible was created by man rather than some omniscient entity. And why didn’t this god magic the ancient Jews have some high speed internet to better spread his word? It would have been way better than having scribes copy unfaithfully and mistranslate. /rambling
kemist @8:
-Thanks for the link. That was quite amusing!