Probably like a fair number of posters this week,
I was dragged off to church every Sunday against my will. I stopped going voluntarily when I could no longer bring candy and other snacks with me to pass the time whilst I played with a toy, and grew progressively more and more annoyed about having to go with each passing week. For the first three years of school, my parents shipped me off to a private, Roman Catholic school. I can't think of a bigger waste of money, especially as every single person I know who stayed and graduated is an atheist now. After three years of it, I was able to convince my parents to just send me to the same schools everyone else in the area went to. Sadly, it came with one condition. They told me that as I wouldn't be having a class on Catholicism every third day of school, I'd have to attend CCD classes once a week in a a building adjacent to our church's chapel.

I could almost have killed some time just reading if it were actually based around the bible, but it seems the local diocese had approved text books we would be learning from instead. It was filled to bursting with the most idiotic sort of crap. Example questions I remember being:
·If your friend is selling stolen CDs, what would you do?
·If Jesus were alive today, who do you think his role model would be?
·What do you think Jesus' favourite type of crisps would be?

For the most part, I'd just bring a book and sit in the back and read or something. Then when I was about 14, they started implementing a test system, were you'd fail a grade at being Catholic if you didn't pass. I told my teacher that year, "Look, you obviously take this all quite seriously, but I don't believe it at all. I see no reason to be rude to you and mock your beliefs, but in exchange I ask that you don't sit and call on me every class asking how I know god exists." She was fine with that, and I moved on to the next year without issue. A new teacher, and I told him the same thing as the last. It seems he just couldn't let it slide though, and decided he was going to save my soul. Every week he'd ask me things like, "Ithy, how do you know god exists?" or "How can you tell that Jesus is the saviour?" Each time I'd tell him, "I let you know before the term started, I don't believe in any of it, as far as I'm concerned it's rubbish. Let me be, and I'll be quiet and polite again."

It seems this was all too much for the poor, old man to bear with, and about three weeks into his term, my mother got a call from the nun in charge of the programme. We were informed that my instructor had been going to her after every class, and crying because he was upset that I was going to go to hell. I was either to start playing the part of devout Christian, or else she said I was no longer welcome there and would have to leave their church. I felt bad for the guy, but I'd offered him an easy out from the start, tried being polite with him, and told the nun that if I cleaned up my act like she wanted, I'd be lying through my teeth and condemned to hell by her religion anyway. My mum started asking about refunds for that term's tuition, and I haven't been back to church since.
( Ithyphallophobia, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 17:37, 3 replies)

Wouldn't it have been easier to tell your parents that the teachings of Cathol were not for you?

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 19:11, closed)

They were the
if you don't have a religion, you're automatically immoral sorts. They were well aware of my objections, from around the age of 7 or 8. Originally the deal was supposed to be I could leave the church after being confirmed, which sort of defeats the purpose of confirmation to begin with, but religion and logic rarely go hand in hand. For three years or so after this incident, they were hounding me to find another religion, so I wouldn't become a moral degenerate. The notion of a moral system that wasn't derived from divine edicts completely baffles them to this day.
( Ithyphallophobia, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 19:52, closed)

They must be so proud!

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 1 Sep 2011, 22:03, closed)