Guide To Life - Religion

I’m a little puzzled by religion, if I am brutally honest.

I was brought up a Catholic. I was baptised in a Catholic church at a time when I had no say in the matter. In fact I may have screamed as the Holy Water hit my forehead, which some people might have considered a bad thing – after all, don’t vampires scream when you throw Holy Water at them?

I had to endure confession, when I was a child and found myself struggling not to laugh as I lied to the priest about my sins simply because I couldn’t think of what I had done that was wrong. My penance was to say the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” multiple times – there’s a lot of trust in this punishment because you can simply just sit there and think about what you are having for dinner tonight rather than reciting prayers.

First communion was strange too because I was a child and was offered bread dipped in wine – although initially I don’t think wine was involved because we were all underage.

I then acquired a new name as I was confirmed. I chose John because it was common – not because I admired John the Baptist as I told the priest when asked (another lie).

None of this made me a better person. Worse, there was no proof that any of the teachings I was indoctrinated with were actually true or based on fact. I started to realise that the teachings of the Bible were in fact rather contradictory, which is no surprise when you think about it.

The word of God was written by man and of course, as we all know, man has the uncanny ability to exaggerate to prove a point – I do it on this blog all the time. If you think about it, the Bible has been translated numerous times and even reinterpreted and modernised so some of the stories, as fascinating as they are, are bound to be enhanced for dramatic affect.

My scientific mind has been questioning the logic of what I was taught ever since I was a teenager and I have a relatively clear picture in my mind.

Some of the stories in the Bible basically teach us to be good to each other and not be arses. Whether you believe all of the amazing things that Jesus did is up to you. It’s a stretch to believe that he could turn water into wine, cure leprosy and raise a man from the dead but the words he supposedly spoke and his deeds are worthy of consideration.

I am therefore not anti-religion, despite my mockery of it.

On the contrary, if it makes people happy then I’m all for it. If you are a person who can made happier by spending an hour in church every Sunday praying to God and as a result feel a deep sense of fulfilment and happiness then that’s terrific.

The same goes for other religions too. For example, I have known Muslims who are lovely people and pop off to pray at regular intervals during the day and worship at their mosque. I know Sikhs and Hindus who are content with their religion and happier because of it.

If your religion can make you happy then that’s a beautiful thing.

What I don’t like, though, is when religion is used as an excuse to cause harm. Over the years, I have seen this happen many times. People who look down on me because I am a Catholic, for example. People who actually prefer to mock me for confessing my sins to an “old man in a frock” (their words not mine) are not helping anybody – especially themselves.

Worse, there are those who actually harm people in the name of religion because their views are different. This has happened throughout history and is happening right now.

Aren’t we all past that?

Most if not all religions are peaceful and promote moral ideologies. Yet there are people who interpret the teachings of their religion in a way that suits their twisted minds, even in some cases, harming people with supposedly the same religion, just a slightly different flavour.

And I am not singling out Islam here, by the way – Christianity has a bloody history of doing exactly the same.

The bottom line is that religion, if you choose to believe, should make you a better person, eager to promote happiness and a willingness to help others. It should make you happy in your own belief and if you can turn to it in a moment of despair for comfort and security then that is fantastic.

When religion promotes peace, happiness and prosperity then it is a good thing.

If it is used to oppress and harm people then it is a bad thing and people who use religion to exploit and harm others are using religion nefariously.

By the way, I do not count Scientology as a religion and that is a prime example of how a so-called religion has been used to control and exploit people. It is the opposite of what a religion should be.

I’ll just finish by telling you all that I haven’t been a practising Catholic for almost forty years. I wonder what I would say to a priest in a confessional booth? And how long would I be in there?

I’ll leave you with a joke by the late great Dave Allen. Like me, he was a Catholic and courted controversy with his jokes about religion. Here is one of them:

If you can’t laugh at religion then there is something wrong. I like to think that God has a sense of humour.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 13

Today’s song is A Soapbox Opera by Supertramp, performed in the video below by co-founder of the band Roger Hodgson with a full orchestra.

The song is really about finding meaning in religion, specifically in Catholicism, which I’m sure that many Catholics struggle with.

I am a lapsed Catholic, if such a thing exists. My mother is Catholic but my father wasn’t. My mum’s parents were also Catholic, particularly my grandad who made sure that my mum, an only child, attended everything that the local church threw at them.

I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that he wasn’t very happy when my mum announced that she was going to marry a non-Catholic. From what I remember of him, he was a very strict and principled man and most if not all of his principles came from Catholicism.

My dad was a good man so I can imagine him sacrificing a lot to marry my mum. In the end, he agreed to live next door to my mum’s parents and also to get married in the Catholic church, agreeing to raise his kids as Catholics.

He left that chore to my mum who made sure that my sisters and I were immersed in Catholicism from the day we were born. We had to attend church every Sunday, every Feast Day as well as taking part in extra-curricular activities that the church organised.

We went to a Catholic infant and junior school where again we were immersed in the religion. From baptism all the way to confirmation, via first confession and Holy Communion, Catholicism was stitched into my psyche. I could and still can recite several parts of the Catholic mass in Latin, such is the manner in which they were entrenched.

I suppose I started to question my religion when I left the Catholic junior school for a non-Catholic grammar school, which claimed to be the best school in my home town of Walsall.

Why did my mum allow this?

Mainly because I passed an exam called the 11 Plus and this qualified me for a school that was sought after by most parents in my town. The school used the 11 Plus as a means to pick the most intelligent kids. If I had failed the exam I would have had to attend a Catholic secondary school.

As I got older, I stopped going to church, much to my mum’s dismay. My grandparents both died before any of this happened and I imagine that my grandad would have intervened.

Nowadays, I only mention that I am Catholic when asked or when I decide to mention it in a blog post such as this.

I do wonder what my grandad thinks of all this.

If Catholicism is to be believed than my grandad will be watching from afar and shaking his head in disbelief at my lifestyle choices, particularly as I no longer go to church and openly question religious beliefs.

He may be impressed that I have actually seen Pope John –Paul II in the flesh when he visited Liverpool in 1982. In fact, that was the last time I openly defended Catholicism. A good friend of mine began mocking me when I returned from seeing the Pope drive past in his Popemobile.

At the time, I felt like I had merely seen one of the most famous people in the world. However, my friend asked, in a mocking manner, whether I felt “spiritually uplifted” having seen God’s representative on Earth in the flesh.

Actually, that’s not true. I didn’t specifically defend Catholicism; I defended religion in general. What I actually saw as the Pope drove by was a lot of happy people. I told my friend that belief in a religious system can help people come to terms with all of the nasty things that happen in life. Some people did feel spiritually uplifted by seeing the Pope and these are the same people who will feel the same when they go to church every Sunday.

And it doesn’t matter what your religion is.

Yes, there are nutters out there who use religion as an excuse to create havoc and catastrophe but these people are the minority. Sadly, they get the most publicity. You only have to look back in history and you can see examples of the abuse of most religions to control people and cause harm.

Yet at the same time, I see people who are happy and content solely because of their religion. I am talking about Catholicism, Christianity in general, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism etc. etc.

I do not regard Scientology as a religion by the way.

A prime example of what I mean is when Mrs PM’s grandfather died. He and his wife were “born again Christians” and had converted to that religion about twenty years before. Mrs PM and I immediately went to visit her grandmother. I walked into her house and immediately hugged her and said

“I’m really sorry about Tom.”

She looked up at me and said, with a smile:

“It’s okay, Dave. He’s with the Lord now.”

Her religion helped her overcome her grief because, in her eyes, her husband was now in Heaven waiting for her in Paradise.

Yes, I am sceptical about this, but in that moment, her words confirmed the point that I had made to my mocking friend.

Religion provides comfort and belief and for that reason I won’t dismiss it - though I still hope God has a sense of humour and can forgive the times I’ve mocked religion in the past.