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Post by collina on Apr 29, 2009 20:04:11 GMT
It's into laying large amounts of guilt on you, for things that you didn't even do! When I made my first confession (at six) we were encouraged to make up sins if we hadn't got any to confess. Who the fuck makes a six year-old child account for his actions in front of a total stranger, hidden behind a grill in a dark box? What the fuck were we thinking of, I ask ya? |
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Post by Wasp on Apr 29, 2009 21:32:10 GMT
It's into laying large amounts of guilt on you, for things that you didn't even do! When I made my first confession (at six) we were encouraged to make up sins if we hadn't got any to confess. Who the fuck makes a six year-old child account for his actions in front of a total stranger, hidden behind a grill in a dark box? What the fuck were we thinking of, I ask ya? Now this is something that I can relate to. I was invited to my nephews first holy communion and I refused to attend even as a witness at the back of the church. Obviously this caused some friction and when I was pushed on the subject by the parents I said if you want to make your child feel guilty about itself infront of a basic stanger in an unblical practice that is up to you but I refuse to take part in such a service. After the silence I said how can you do that to your own child, making him feel guilty about himself and even having him think of what he has done worng so he can tell some man in a box. Due to all the accusations that were threw at me I finished with God forgive you for doing that to your own flesh and blood. |
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Post by Jim on Apr 30, 2009 14:33:10 GMT
I never took my first confession seriously. Even when I was that young I had NO interest in religion, I believed in god because I had to believe in god but my parents didnt push church onto me after I was around 7. And what 7 year old goes voluntarily?
Pushed into a box, door shut, very dark, a priest on the other end who you can't see asking you what your sins have been; I told him I stole a feg from my ma's handbag and that was all I could think of. Didnt give a shite, just wanted the new clothes and money from relatives. Didn't even go into school the week before to study who I chose my name. Chose Joseph because I didnt have to do much studying about him. Didnt do any, didnt go into school because I was sick.
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Post by bearhunter on May 14, 2009 1:18:10 GMT
I realised I was an atheist at about 12. I was a pretty bright kid and I figured out that there was so much contradiction in religion generally and Catholicism particularly that it had to have been invented by man. And so, I thought, it has nothing to do with God, except to use that label to back up its authority, in much the same way that the justice system uses prison to back up its authority.
I still have a soft spot for the “bells and smells” and I love the Latin. But that’s just an aesthetic thing, rather than a belief thing. To my ma’s eternal disappointment, I haven’t been next nor near a church except for the odd wedding or funeral (and at least half the funerals have been non-catholics) and I feel none the worse for it. I look on Catholicism as a belief I simply grew out of, like Santa. Simple stories of larger-than-life characters doing magical things enthralled me as a child, but I always preferred the secular ones like Cuchulainn, The Fianna and the Greek and Roman legends to David, Solomon, and Jesus.
I don’t miss it. I don’t miss the guilt, the hypocrisy (shaking hands with fuckers who’d cross the road to avoid you six days of the week really pissed me off), the “we know best” paternalism or the thuggery of the Catholic teaching orders. Pour enough of anything down someone’s throat and they’ll get sick eventually.
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