Dreadful Nonsense

I’ve missed a couple of Friday Fives the last few weeks, and I’ve also missed out making entries as a whole, which is very slack jawed of me. My excuse is that it was my birthday, and I could do what I liked.

I will try to write a lot over the weekend, as I’ll also be transcribing our interviews from last week’s trip to London. And will be bored and need distracting a lot.

This week’s Friday Five is about politics, and I’m far too distracted today to get in to that. So, obviously, I’ll do the one from last week on religion. There’s a topic that can be easily and summarily dealt with.

1. Were you raised in a particular religious faith?
My family history of religious beliefs is quite colourful, compared to most Irish families. Our immediate family includes variations on Protestantism and Catholicism, alongside Quakers, Born Again Baptists and some very strict atheists. Long story cut unnecessarily short – my father is Catholic, my mother Protestant. We, their children, are therefore “half-caste”, choosing to kick with both or neither feet, depending on our stage of puberty.
We all went to a Protestant primary school, but were all baptised and raised as Catholics. Our secondary education leapt between both religions, and has resulted in all of us turning our backs on structured religion, although I think a couple of my siblings still have some residing beliefs they keep quietly to themselves.

2. Do you still practice that faith? Why or why not?
I don’t actively practice, no, although I do find a great comfort when times are hard in attending church services. One – possibly the only – advantage of my upbringing is that I can basically pop in to any Christian church and know what I’m doing.
The only times I pray are when on airplanes and at funerals, and both those reactions stem from the same source. In my heart of hearts, though, I truly do not believe there is any higher power. I have so many contradicting beliefs (see below) that I can’t actually really define myself as an atheist, although I would never say I’m agnostic, as that’s just hedging bets.

3. What do you think happens after death?
I have no idea. I think you get to talk to John Edward.
My biggest contradiction with all my beliefs is the fact that, although I don’t believe in life after death, I do believe in ghosts. Explain that one. We lived with a ghost in our third year in college. We christened him Patrick after he appeared the night before St Patricks day. He used to turn on and off lights and stereos in the house, and also occasionally stood over us as we slept. We got in to the habit of telling him to bugger off, and he’d leave.

4. What is your favorite religious ritual (participating in or just observing)?
I love the whole pomp and ceremony of it. The ritualistic aspects themselves – the kneeling, the chanting, the singing, the costumes, the sheer repetition. It’s wonderful.

5. Do you believe people are basically good?
What in the world has that got to do with religion?
No, I don’t believe people are basically anything. It’s very stupid to make sweeping statements, but that’s often the best way to win an argument when you only have a very basic understanding of the principals. I don’t even believe in good and bad, per say. I just think that some people are more community spirited than others, and everything can be put very strictly down to interpretation – one man’s terrorist being another man’s freedom fighter.

This entry was posted on 08 November 2002 at 4:41 pm. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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