"DO WHAT YOU FEEL, FEEL UNTIL THE END"

Dear The Curmudgeon's Agony Aunt

I'm an atheist and I guess that I've been one all my life. I was educated in the Catholic faith and attended Catholic primary, intermediate and secondary schools being taught by Catholic nuns, brothers and priests. During this time I participated in, not always freely, various Catholic ceremonies and 'sacraments' like Baptism,  First Communion, Confirmation and Benedictions, Masses, Confessions and all sorts of bizarre and arcane practices. I was appointed an 'officer' of the Catholic Church in some of these being an altar boy and a sacristan.

As I said, I've been an atheist all of my life and, when attending and participating in these ceremonies I didn't believe in them, thinking the whole thing in fact was a bit of nonsense. As a result, in all of my schooling Christian Doctrine (a compulsory course on the curriculum right through the seventh form) was my worst subject and one that I often got failed marks for.

I confess though that I did like the pageantry of the church services, particularly when they were performed in Latin up until the mid 1960s. I liked choral services and to this day like to listen to Gregorian chants which I guess explains my liking of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Enigma's MCMXC a.D. As a consequence, at times of religious periods like Easter and Christmas I feel empty and disillusioned.

Is this a problem?

Asher Ashell

Dear Asher

Good on you for not buying in to that mumbo jumbo that goes by the name of Catechism. At any age it's important to believe in the self and not blindly take in spurious teachings of others who have hidden agendas. Sigmund Freud, in 'The Future of an Illusion'  said that dogmatic religious training contributes to a weakness of intellect by foreclosing lines of inquiry. He argued that "in the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction which religion offers to both is all too palpable."

'The Future of an Illusion' however has been criticised as one of the great failures of religious criticism. Howard Bloom believed that Freud underestimated religion, and that as a result his criticisms of it were no more convincing than T. S. Eliot's criticisms of psychoanalysis. Bloom suggested that psychoanalysis and Christianity are both interpretations of the world and of human nature, and that while Freud believed that religious beliefs are illusions and delusions, the same may be said of psychoanalytic theory. In his view nothing is accomplished with regard to either Christianity or psychoanalysis by listing their illusions and delusions.

As said, you have shown strong cognitive awareness in resisting indoctrination but don't underestimate the power of the subconscious and as Proust said "even though our lives wander, our memories remain in one place."

There is no problem in enjoying the things in your memory that give you pleasure. Go and listen to O Fortuna or Sadeness Part i up as loud as you can stand.

I trust that this helps.

The Curmudgeon's Agony Aunt