From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Sun Sep 05 1999 - 21:01:52 MDT
Greg Burch wrote,
>Actually, I don't think about it like this at all and I have many more fond
>memories of my Catholic upbringing than unhappy ones. For one thing, I
know
>I got a MUCH better basic primary education going to parochial schools than
>my peers who went to public schools. When I transferred into public
schools
>in the 9th grade, I was at least two years ahead in every subject and in
many
>areas the public school curriculum never caught up even by the end of high
>school. Second, I was primarily educated by hip, post-Vatican II nuns, who
>were actually amazingly cool people, by and large. After my father, my 5th
>grade teacher (good old Sister Thomas Marie) certainly did more than anyone
>else to kindle an interest in natural science in me. I used to go up to
the
>convent in the summer after that school year and work with her cataloguing
a
>huge collection of exotic seashells that a parishioner had bequeathed to
the
>school. While we poured over the shells and looked through books to
identify
>them we talked a lot about Darwin and evolution in an open way, something I
>wonder whether many lay teachers would have taken the time to do. The
priest
>who dealt with the school kids during those years was also a pretty cool
guy:
>He drove an old MG that he worked on behind the school a lot in a greasy
old
>cassock.
Well, that doesn't sound so bad after all. In fact, it sounds better than
the secular/public school childhood I endured. Religious memes (uh-oh, here
I go again) probably catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
>Beyond this, I was never "compelled to believe" in any oppressive way. As
a
>result, I never had to have a "crisis of faith" like so many people who
were
>raised in religious surroundings. Instead, I just naturally came to doubt
>the underlying ideas more and more, but in fact never lost an appreciation
>for the ceremony of the Roman practice. Far from a "childhood of psychic
>abuse", I recall those times fondly as one in which I was educated in an
>ancient tradition that seemed more like something out of Hesse's "Glass
Bead
>Game" than anything else . . .
Perhaps you also have a stronger than average memetic immune system. Anyway,
it seems unlikely to me that you'd ever put any faith in extropic popery (or
popish extropy?). I admire your ability to transcend religious memes.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:05:02 MST