By CATHERINE DEVENY
Added: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Adam for the link.
Reposted from
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-perfect-riposte-to-childhood-indoctrination-20090414-a67t.html?page=-1

GOOD Friday was spent sitting round with lapsed Catholics drinking wine, eating meat and using the Lord's name in vain, punctuated by the odd person saying, "Don't tell my parents." What a thrill to stare eternal damnation in the face with a chop in one hand, a glass of cask wine in the other and a mouth full of blasphemy while still being scared of your mum and dad. All the while not believing in God. We don't believe in heaven any more, but as sure as hell something's making this snag taste so good. It's probably the confidence of our contradictions.

A dozen wide-eyed children were rigid with fascination as we recounted Good Fridays of our childhood, on which being happy and watching television were classified sins.

"What's a sin?" asked the 11-year-old atheist. I could have sung with joy knowing a child knew right from wrong and good from bad but knew not what the word "sin" meant.

Sin. The conflict of desire verses programming may explain the common myth (or as we micks like to think, well-known fact) that Catholics go off like a frog in a sock in the sack. All that programming of wrongness makes some things feel so right. We all have guilty blocks of chocolate hidden in our glove boxes. The thrill of the illicit. But it's not all good.
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TAGGED: CHILDREN, RELIGION