Religion In An Irish Classroom

One of, if not the, reason I am an atheist is because of religion in school. I am from Ireland and like a vast majority of Irish families; I was brought up as a Catholic.

 I was baptised as a baby (less than two months old), I received my first communion at age eight and then received my confirmation at age twelve. All of course, by my own will…yeah, right?

We all know a twelve-year-old can’t even make a proper decision for themselves, never mind a two month old, an eight year old and of course…the twelve year old. Obviously this is just the way it is as a catholic in Ireland – I am not sure what age you receive these sacraments in other countries but I presume they are roughly the same.

I was sent to a Catholic school from the age of four until I was thirteen (primary school). Once I got to secondary school (high school) the only school in my area was a ‘non-denominational’ secondary school. I put this is parentheses for a reason which we will come to later. I now entered secondary school at the age of thirteen and had received the three major sacraments a catholic will ever receive and there was just one little problem, I had never once read the bible. Yeah. The entire reason I was a catholic was due to this book but yet I had not read the damn thing. Why, you ask – because nobody ever tells you to and because I was a child. You are told the odd few things in school, like Jesus turning water to wine, curing lepers, the virgin birth, etc. The ‘necessary’ stuff. However you’re not told about god asking various people to sacrifice their children, to kill people in his name, the amount of disasters he caused, the fact that he apparently hates the gays, etc. You’re never told the bad stuff.

However once I reached an age where I could think for myself and being a pretty good catholic (I went to church every Sunday, said a prayer before bed) I decided for the first time in thirteen years of believing in a faith I really knew nothing about it was time to actually pick up the bible and read it. I read the bible twice in a month. Letting everything sink in and I then did a lot of research. After this, you probably already know what happened, I became an Atheist. I’ve never been so happy in my life.

But how am I so happy now? Well here is the moment I realized I was a lot happier without religion – when a family member died when I was religious I got very angry with God as it was up to God who died, when and how. But when a family member died when I was an Atheist I dealt with it a lot easier. I know people die. It’s how the world works. It was nobody’s fault. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t the person who died and it definitely wasn’t God’s fault they died. They just…did.

Getting back to religion in school.

I now found myself in a very weird predicament. I was in a class of twenty-eight students. All Catholic, except me. Yes it was a non-denominational school, but this is Ireland, if you sit down too fast in Ireland Catholics fall out of your pocket. So I was very outnumbered and often very afraid to speak up in class when the teacher would tell everyone to say a prayer before class began (which, for the record, is actually illegal in a non-denominational school). I spent the first three years of being an atheist absolutely terrified of people finding out I was one. I even pretended to still be catholic and actually joined in on the prayers even though all I was thinking was all of this was bullshit. I was thirteen after all, of course I was going to be terrified if people found out I was “different”.

Thankfully I started to come out of my shell a bit and often decided to debate with my religion teacher on her ways of teaching (through a Catholics eyes) and one day, shortly after she had found out I was an Atheist, she placed a bible in front of me in class and said “Here, read this.” I smiled, pushed the book slowly back in her direction and said “I already have. Twice. It’s the main reason I am an Atheist.” I then asked the class out of curiosity who had read the bible. In a class full of Catholics, beside myself, they were of course going to have read the bible, right? So I just asked for a show of hands who had read the bible, and to my surprise, I was the only one with my hand in the air.

I, the atheist, was the only one who had read the book. Surely that’s a sign to the teacher? No. Her reasoning was these people had a stronger sense of faith than I did. I stopped debating with her, as I knew I was going to get to sense across to this woman. I know when I can talk civilly to people and have an open, mature conversation – this wasn’t one of them. But the point I am making is I, personally, don’t think religion should be taught to kids in general, but especially not in school. There is a reason you can’t vote until you’re eighteen, there is a reason you can’t drive until you’re seventeen, there is a reason you can’t drink alcohol until you’re eighteen and this is because before that you are basically a child. You, although you may think it, can’t make very well-informed decisions for yourself. I know plenty of people in their twenties who still can’t, never mind a two month old baby deciding if it want’s to be Catholic or not.

Even though this was a non-denominational school just because the teacher was a Catholic all we learned about was things through a Catholics eyes. If I had not done any of my own research into other religions when I was younger I would, to this day, know only one thing about Muslims – they were involved in 9/11. I say the term “they” very loosely there and I know it does not consist of all Muslims. So please don’t take any offence to that. Take offence to the fact that your point of view is not being taught by a Catholic teacher just because they think you’re wrong. Either are Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, not even most Christian views – just the Catholic. And this is not the only religion class I have sat in on by the way. I have been in a class with plenty other Catholic teachers and they all teach from a Catholics point of view. Of course, it’s hard to fault them as this is, sadly, all they know but if you’re teaching religion to a group of impressionable children it would greatly benefit all of them if you taught them all points of view and let them decide for themselves what they think is right at the age of eighteen – when they can clearly think for themselves. Although there is one slight issue there I will admit and it can be summed up in one of my favorite quotes;

“Try and give a man religion at eighteen and he will have no interest.”

The reason for this is simple. Thinking. We in Ireland really need to sort this out. This a major issue, believe it or not and I feel very strongly against it. Time to think for ourselves. Question everything and accept nothing without  facts.