The Ghost of Churchy Past

[Homeless Nutter]

I have no fond memories of anything religion-related. I was raised nominally catholic, because that's who my mother was, but that didn't mean much, because we didn't go to church, or pray except on very rare occasions, when visiting more religious family. When I did have to attend religious rituals, like around the time of my first communion, it was a decidedly unpleasant experience - alien, uncomfortable and boring. The architecture was intimidating, the art was dour, the singing was just plain awful, religious people were pompous douche-bags, spewing vague and incoherent nonsense.

Despite my father being an atheist, I gave catholicism a try, wishing to honour my mother's beliefs, which culminated in me becoming an altar boy for a year, when I was 11. At that point I realized I couldn't pretend anymore, that religion was some alternative source of knowledge, instead of a scam run on dumb, ignorant and desperate people. After that I minimized my contact with anything Christianity-related and when I was around 13 years old I declared myself an atheist.

One important memory I have from church is that of my younger brother (around 8-9 at the time) coming out of the confession box, teary-eyed, because some priest told him - among other wthings - that our mother was raising him like a swine-herd raises pigs, for not taking him to church every Sunday. That was the point, when my mother stopped insisting on any of us attending religious services. Consequently - both myself and my brother are adamant anti-theists. My mom still considers herself a catholic, even though her actual beliefs have almost nothing to do with Christian doctrines - it's just that living in a country, that's ~95% catholic, she doesn't have many options, nor would she want to label herself as anything other than the majority of people do, for fear of alienation.