No Mass Appeal for me
A difficult time arises in the life of an agnostic when he's faced with a choice of whether or not to bring his child to Mass.
On the one hand, I have grown to despise the Catholic church and all its dirty deeds, its nonsense, its bullshit, its determined protection of the guilty and its persecution of the innocent (specifically in relation to acts of sexual perverts amongst its ranks). I accept that there are many nice priests and bishops who just want to help people by giving them a comprehensible spiritual code in their lives in the knowledge that it will enrich them or help them to cope with incomprehensible and head-wrecking notions such as death, but... I'm afraid all I can see when I look into a priest's eyes or when I look around a church is just a large powerful institution that will cling grimly to its power base for as long as the earth turns. They're running out of suckers here now that we're all educated and well off and couldn't be arsed with their hokum. So, the fertile recruiting grounds for members are in the dirt poor places - Africa and the like. There's an incredible power of persuasion built into a pitch to a guy lying in a gutter. I don't want much to do with these phoneys if I can help it and I don't much fancy the idea of my children being taken in by their nefarious wibble.
On the other hand, my wife is one of those who thinks that "it's good to give them some sort of religion" and when you're in a small overwhelmingly Catholic community where every other kid in the class is having their first communion, and your child wants to do it because everyone else is, then you have to come up with convincing arguments to deny him this pleasure.
Well, I couldn't, really, so I find myself having to go to that wretched Mass shit if I want to play along with the whole Holy Communion thing. The other Sunday at Mass, I was already slightly on edge from the combined factors of mild hangover coupled with the expectation of Munster's first European Cup match coming up later that day against the Langers from Leicester and the irritation that I'd have to go to the pub and listen to Brit commentary on a Brit tv station if I wanted to watch my province play. Anyway, as it turned out, we won, so that should keep those wankers quiet. As I was saying; at this Mass yoke, as I looked around the church and at the priest, who was hoo-ing and haw-ing away at the pulpit in a saintly pose with the head tilted to one side, I began to get increasingly angry at the whole set-up; at me - look at me! the hypocrit! Kneeling down with my knuckles clasped together before a marble collection of holy paraphernalia and stained glass windows and a holy-Joe of a priest and his gang of pawns answering his prayers, and I knew the answers myself but I wouldn't say them! And I thought; well, why won't I say them if I've gone to bother of going to Mass in the first place?! And then I looked at yourman beside me, I stopped being angry and watched him go up to the pulpit and do his little reading, which he delivered very well.
On the one hand, I have grown to despise the Catholic church and all its dirty deeds, its nonsense, its bullshit, its determined protection of the guilty and its persecution of the innocent (specifically in relation to acts of sexual perverts amongst its ranks). I accept that there are many nice priests and bishops who just want to help people by giving them a comprehensible spiritual code in their lives in the knowledge that it will enrich them or help them to cope with incomprehensible and head-wrecking notions such as death, but... I'm afraid all I can see when I look into a priest's eyes or when I look around a church is just a large powerful institution that will cling grimly to its power base for as long as the earth turns. They're running out of suckers here now that we're all educated and well off and couldn't be arsed with their hokum. So, the fertile recruiting grounds for members are in the dirt poor places - Africa and the like. There's an incredible power of persuasion built into a pitch to a guy lying in a gutter. I don't want much to do with these phoneys if I can help it and I don't much fancy the idea of my children being taken in by their nefarious wibble.
On the other hand, my wife is one of those who thinks that "it's good to give them some sort of religion" and when you're in a small overwhelmingly Catholic community where every other kid in the class is having their first communion, and your child wants to do it because everyone else is, then you have to come up with convincing arguments to deny him this pleasure.
Well, I couldn't, really, so I find myself having to go to that wretched Mass shit if I want to play along with the whole Holy Communion thing. The other Sunday at Mass, I was already slightly on edge from the combined factors of mild hangover coupled with the expectation of Munster's first European Cup match coming up later that day against the Langers from Leicester and the irritation that I'd have to go to the pub and listen to Brit commentary on a Brit tv station if I wanted to watch my province play. Anyway, as it turned out, we won, so that should keep those wankers quiet. As I was saying; at this Mass yoke, as I looked around the church and at the priest, who was hoo-ing and haw-ing away at the pulpit in a saintly pose with the head tilted to one side, I began to get increasingly angry at the whole set-up; at me - look at me! the hypocrit! Kneeling down with my knuckles clasped together before a marble collection of holy paraphernalia and stained glass windows and a holy-Joe of a priest and his gang of pawns answering his prayers, and I knew the answers myself but I wouldn't say them! And I thought; well, why won't I say them if I've gone to bother of going to Mass in the first place?! And then I looked at yourman beside me, I stopped being angry and watched him go up to the pulpit and do his little reading, which he delivered very well.
posted by MunsterMad at 7:29 AM
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