Raised Without Religion

Fírinne McIntyre ✒ writing in Being Human.

At 23 years old, like many others my age, I select the little box “No Religion” in any form or questionnaire inviting me to state a religious preference.

This may not be so unusual, as atheism is far more common among those my age in Ireland these days than it ever was before. According to our Central Statistics Office, 15.6% of twenty year olds in 2016 indicated no religion, a figure doubled from 2011. However, the figure for those aged 5 in 2006 may be expectedly lower.

Exempt from religion classes from primary school on and baptised by a rebel priest – Des Wilson – I found myself feeling slightly outcast amongst my peers at school from a young age. I remember reciting prayer as Gaeilge in front of the bathroom mirror, not for fear of God but for fear of Santa knowing that I did not complete my homework. I readily believed in the jolly gift-bringer and his reindeers, but the idea of an all-knowing Man in the Sky deciding to send us to Hell for being gay or burn us alive in war-torn countries for having been born in the wrong place was not an idea as easily embraced.

My father, a writer among other things, was fond of bedtime stories, ranging from Captain Fírinne saving the day to many of his own theories about our grand universe. What stuck with me was his belief that none of us can remember where we were before birth, so why should it be any different upon death? He prefaced and followed every theory with the adamant advice to choose my own path when it came to religion – whether I wanted to be Christian or Muslim or a Giant-Flying-Spaghetti-Monsterist, he would support me.

I proudly proclaimed myself an atheist like my father. And so, I was exempt from religion at school and refrained from making my Communion at age 8 like all the other children. I could not refrain, however, from jealousy over the money they would receive on the day, and so my father brought me to HMV. I came out with a pink Nintendo DS and 3 games of my choice, a much better deal than that of my peers.

At age 10, he brought me to the World Atheist Convention in Dublin. Richard Dawkins was one of the guest speakers. We stayed back after the conference because I wanted to meet my first celebrity. My father still proudly tells his friends that I met Richard Dawkins at 10 years old, and told him that I thought if God existed, he must be “a fat man in the sky eating donuts while children die below him”. I’m hopeful that Dawkins found it funny and appreciated it, as he willingly signed my napkin before leaving.

That same year, I watched a documentary with my father that had a lasting impact: ‘Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die’. It was heavy material for a 10-year-old, but opened my eyes further to what I still believe to be the reality of the world we live in – without death there is no life. And it is not a “sin”, just as abortion is not a sin, to offer the end of life choice to those who need it.

I did find myself struggling with the stark finality of death after watching that documentary, as my belief in the oblivion awaiting us began to shake me to my core. I was brought to my GP at the time, who recommended prayer, suggesting that if I believed in the afterlife I might cope better with my intense fear of dying. I promptly responded that I highly doubted that there is a heaven for bugs, so why should it be any different for humans? He didn’t mention it again.

There may be much comfort for those who believe that there is no end, but in admiring my dad’s comfort in his own belief in death, and respectful of there being “no life without death”, I find myself having gained the same comfort in my adult years. I am no longer afraid – and I think I prefer the idea of oblivion after death to an eternal inferno, anyway.

Fírinne McIntyre is a Fluent Irish speaker in the process
of completing her Masters in Translation Studies.