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I was a altar boy in my teens. One time in winter we had to attend a funeral. First we were in church, so I put on the white rope stuff during the mass. But then we had to go out to the graveyard for like half an hour more and stand there in the cold.
I told the priest that I would just quickly put on the jacket underneath because it was freezing outside. But he forbid in and said I should have thought of it before the mass and had it on under the ropes in church all the time because now there is no time for that. He forced us out without jackets into the freezing cold.
Right there I started thinking what kind of a priest do we have who cares more about dead people and make it convenient for them instead of the living. And if the priest represents god here in our community because he talks to him and can forgive our sins in his name and so on, then this is also gods will. So what king of a God am I worshiping here?
Anyway, I think that was the start of me stopping believing in God. I stopped being an altar boy, later stopped going to church and started actively researching those deeper questions around organized religion and god. Over time it led me to became an atheist who hasn't seen any evidence for existence of any god.
I was raised catholic and went to a catholic primary school. At one point we had a class where we would visit the local catholic church once a week and the priest would explain things about how things worked in church.
On one such occasion he pointed out a red light near the altar and said that the light indicated that god was present in church. (Apparently it’s called a ‘sanctuary light’ in English). I spent an entire week trying to figure out how this god-detector worked. I had several designs worked out in my head, like it having an unreachable switch that could only be pressed by god himself.
The next week we arrived at church a little early and I caught the priest putting a candle in it and lighting it himself. That’s when I started to realize the whole thing was one big scam.
We had the same sanctuary light (thanks for the name) in my school chapel.
But it was made with a simple LED and resistor circuit (probably made in the school 'techno' class).
A friend and I got kicked out of catechism for removing the battery of that LED circuit.
It wasn’t a big loss anyway, I remember the teacher being all pumped up when we asked "so God is the God of all Gods?". He made us write that down, which is a totally false affirmation for a monotheistic religion (God if the only one, there are no others).
Anyway, I was happy to be kicked out of catechism 🤷🏻♂️
Once I volunteered for a nonprofit fundraiser type thing. It was early spring and cold as hell. My friends got taken to the hay rides and the fire pit and they stuck me at the highway, pointing people towards the highly visible parking area. I marched in circles and designed ten thousand signs that could do the job that I was doing. I vowed then and there to never, ever be a cog in some Boomers vanity charity event ever again.
Service clubs tend to treat volunteers like slaves and then lament that no one wants to volunteer to be their slaves.
I am an atheist myself but sometimes I comfort myself thatbthere may be someone who enables a afterlife for the sake of the dead. Also - a priest doesn't talk to god in the catholic church; Only prophets do.
Just want to suggest: The entire mass got there with jackets, etc. He could indeed have postponed going outside in order for the staff to put jackets on.
But he did teach a boy a lesson: Think for yourself and think ahead. Among the dead are people who may have suffered tremendously. In order to respect them you had to be brave and strong.
Your story doesn't contain lost fingers due to frost bite. And it cuts short of the things afterwards: He may have invited his staff for hot chocolate afterwards.
It formed you in some way and you could cherish that. And respect for the priest that he stood his ground regardless of his wrong doing: He tried to convey his point - Though I agree that it was shit-tey.
I did plan ahead, the plan was to get my jacket in between when everyone was walking out of the church to gather at the graveyard.
Also if we are nitpicking then everyone can talk to god in the catholic church, including the priest after he listens to all my sins, but god for some reason only responds to the prophets.
Anyway, those nuances are for the scholars, not for a teenage altar boy.
True