How To Raise an Atheist (1)

I was raised in and live in a highly religious country. Almost any time you turn on the news there is some sort of religious holiday, or at the very least intense preparations for one are being done. According to our constitution, clerical and political issues are meant to be kept separate, but every major commemorative event¹ shows our leaders busily making the cross sign.

From left to right:

• President surrounded by high-ranking Orthodox priests².
• Mayor commemorating a victim of the 1989 Communist Revolution³.
• Yearly gathering at Nicula Monastery to commemorate the Assumption of Mary⁴

At home before I started school, religion was not something we discussed. It was not a taboo subject or anything of the like; just something that never really came up. We celebrated Christmas… or rather its communist alternative where Father Frost (as opposed to Father Christmas) would bring nice kids gifts. There was also a lavishly decorated pine tree too, underneath which said presents were placed.

I vaguely remember singing a traditional Hungarian Christmas carol, every time before entering the living room to open gifts. It was called “Mennyböl az angyal” which translates to “The Angel from Heaven”. I had no idea what “Menny” (Heaven) meant at the time, so I would often sing it as “Megyböl az Angyal”, meaning “The Angel from the sour cherry”, much to my poor Grandmother’s horror.

My first God-related memory, stems from my kinder garden days. I think I was around 5, tucked in bed for the afternoon nap, holding a whispered conversation with the girl next to me:

Me: And what about God?
Girl: Huh?
Me (uncertainly): He’s inside you…
Girl (flippantly): He’s gone for a walk.

… then came the Communist Revolution and a year after that, I started primary school.

I attended a Hungarian primary school, and my parents fought tooth and nail to get me this amazing primary school teacher. She had also taught my older cousin⁵ . If you thought that Hungarians were any less religious than Romanians… well you would’ve been sadly mistaken. Sometimes I think that the fact that they’re an ethnic minority, somehow made them even more religious. Perhaps as a way of seeking refuge against the evil Romanians and their perfid ways .

One of the first things the teacher was required to ask, was our religious denomination to know which religious education class to put us into. For some reason, this was supposed to be a public flogging event, where everyone would stand up and state things like ‘I’m a Reformed‘ or ‘I’m a Catholic‘. When it was my turn, I just stood there all confused and eventually said ‘I’m… nothing.’

The teacher was of course flabbergasted, and the whole class turned to stare at me. I was never very comfortable in a crowd, so obviously being looked at as the oddity of the millennium didn’t exactly help. In the end, I was told to sit down, ask my parents and give my answer the next day. All this was said in a tone hinting towards “of course you’re baptized, you silly goose “.

Going home, I meekly recounted the story to my mother:

Me: So… today I was asked what my religion was.
Mom: Oh? And what did you say?
Me: I said I was nothing⁶ .
Mom: You said correctly.
Me: What about you then?
Mom: I wasn’t baptized either. Daddy was baptized in the Greek Catholic rite, but he’s not any more religious than I am.
Me(uncertainly): So… what religious education class am I going to attend then?
Mom: You are not. It’s not a compulsory class.

The next day, when the teacher asked me of my religion (in front of the whole class once again), I promptly answered “I am Catholic”. This seemed to pacify everyone and the issue appeared to have been dropped. I did feel rather lousy for having lied, but I figured that since most kids had their parents’ religion, it was not so much of a stretch for me to claim my dad’s.

Of course, things didn’t stop here. The next episode I remember had to do with bringing documents to school. Once again, students – or rather students’ parents – who forgot are publicly humiliated reminded to bring them to school.

Teacher: Please tell your parents that we need your “cross letter⁷” at school.
Me(dreading to answer): I don’t have one…
Teacher(incredibly annoyed): Of course you do! Everybody has one!

At home, my mom once again confirmed that I didn’t have such a thing, wondering why the teacher had asked of such a thing. After all she had gone and personally told the teacher that I was not baptized. Luckily, by some stroke of luck I mentioned the incident to my Granny, who used to be a primary school teacher as well, and she saved the day. Apparently “cross letter” was an old term for birth certificate…

The rest of my primary school days are not quite so clear in my memory. It’s mostly a series of events where the teacher would ask me in front of the whole class “Why aren’t your parents letting you attend religious education classes? You’re not being taught anything bad there.” followed by classmates parroting the teacher, of course.
Sometimes, I would try to retort, but of course being still an 8-year-old child, this didn’t really go well:

Me: My parents are not mean, they bought me a Bible and let me read it.
Teacher (haughtily): As if you could understand the Bible. Not even I can fully understand it.

Cue classmates staring at me pityingly, while I do my best to be swallowed by the ground.

After that I would generally be running home to my parents, tearfully begging to be allowed to attend religious education classes. My parents however, were not the uneducated hillbillies my primary school teacher was used to dealing with… they were sneaky and knew my character quite well.
Our ‘negotiations’went pretty much like this:

Dad: Why do you want to attend religious education classes?
Me (bawling): Because everyone else is attending!
Dad: But you’d have to go to school an hour earlier or stay an hour later.
Me (wavering): … yes.
Dad: And you’d have more homework too…
Me: Yeah… they even have tests during classes.
Dad: Do you really need extra homework? On top of your swimming lessons/ piano classes?!
Me (sulkily): … no.

Of course, I’d forget all the above and sneak out earlier some days to attend religious education classes. Classmates were all really happy to let me attend, especially since this was one thing they knew which the top of the class⁸ didn’t. But you know, in the end the novelty wore off for both sides. I still sometimes stealthily sneaked into these classes once in a blue moon, but having extra homework to worry about put a serious damper on ever considering attending “full time”. Not to mentioned that I liked being treated as somewhat of a celebrity.
My classmates, they continued to be horrified at my doing needle-work on Sunday⁹.

In the end, I managed to do something even worse than be an atheist heathen. After finishing primary school, I decided to go to a Romanian school… Well technically my parents decided this, and disgustingly enough I was more swayed by their logical arguments than my classmates’ repeated insults or my teacher’s claims that my Romanian knowledge was already very good¹⁰.

After this, things … started to change on the “religious front“. I’ll let you decide if it was for the better or worse in Part 2.

Feel free to share your (early) religious experiences, or other comments related to this… well assuming of course anyone was patient enough to get here. XD

1. Not necessarily of a religious nature. [↩]
2. Picture from How Religious Are Romanian Politicians [↩]
3. Picture from December 22nd 2009 at Falticeni [↩]
4. Picture from Nicula a magnet for Christians and Politicians [↩]
5. Whose coolness level skyrockets by the mere fact that he’s 3 years older than I am. [↩]
6. At the time, I didn’t think of the irony of saying such a thing, and my mom is not the type to think of “hidden meanings”. =/ [↩]
7. A literal translation of keresztlevél [↩]
8. i.e. yours truly [↩]
9. We had to sew a skirt once, and as per usual I had put things off till the very last minute. [↩]
10. It all depends on who you were comparing me to, after all. [↩]