A Good Catholic Upbringing

   For all those who have felt the stinging slap of Sister Agnes Alambre de Pua or Father Kaiser O'Nosferatu,, this is to justify your pain. 
     Is a religious upbringing a dream or is it a nightmare? A good catholic upbringing, what does that mean really? Is it an inculcation into a life of discipline, prayer, an introduction into western thought,,a booster shot of blameworthiness, or an orwellian type of indoctrination. Any of those could be true but there is another side to catholic belief.The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are on a par with partying, drinking, fighting, dancing, gambling, and sex,, all with an unofficial imprimatur,, as long as you profess your faith at funerals and other serious junctures in life. Believe it or not though this combination of things carnal with canon law can form a recipe that fosters thinking individuals. 
     
     According to Bertrand Russell in The History of Western Thought : 
       
     "Not all of the Greeks, but a large proportion of them, were passionate, unhappy, at war with themselves, driven along one road by the intellect and along another by the passions, with the imagination to conceive heaven and the wilful self-assertion that creates hell. They had a maxim "nothing too much," but they were in fact excessive in everything in pure thought, in poetry, in religion, and in sin. It was the combination of passion and intellect that made them great, while they were great. Neither alone would have transformed the world for all future time as they transformed it. Their prototype in mythology is not Olympian Zeus, but Prometheus, who brought fire from heaven and was rewarded with eternal torment. "
      
     Ancient greek life was concentrated on matters of the State. The State Religion, paganism, was hardly a religion at all. Gods were too much like men, well defined and all screwed up. In greek life, however, there was a strong connection to Bacchus, the God of wine and drunkedness. From this cult of wine and devotion to State emerged a mystical skew on life and and a curiosity about the world. Doesn't that sound a little familiar? For Catholics, much influenced by Greek thought, reverance to the State was replaced by devotion to God , and with the aid of the never ending Feast of Cana, the "Big Boss" became the motivator of "mysticism and reflection". Greek tragedy was cobbled together by a bunch of winos sitting under a tree contemplating the enigmatic side of the human condition. The bar substituted the tree in catholic life.            
     Both cultures, greek and catholic, flourished at just the right epoch when the State and the Church were in competition for the souls and minds of the people. Commerce and mysticism created new heresies. Let's face it nothing interesting comes from picture perfect families. The renaissance,, the benchmark for western thought, which produced a conflagration of reasoning, occurred during the reign of Roman Catholicism so that is enough to skew the results of any list. What's important however is that most people we regard as thinkers, no matter what their religious affiliation, passed through some sort of a religious experience. After the rite of passage they either struggled within that context or contested it. Religion implies it has the answers when really it pushes mystery. It doesn't matter that some of those in the elite club of influence have turned against religion. What is important is that religion instigated their rebellion towards another perception. Historically the impetus behind western thought, as well other lordly labors,seems to have been religion. The reaction to a religious upbringing and noble endeavors are inextricably entwined.
     And what about the fear of brainwashing? There is that sinister element in a religious upbringing and sometimes it is successful,,, producing persons who are permanently prejudiced and whose palette of perceptions consist of one color. After all, repetition,, the engine of catholicism, leads to belief in many things for which there is no evidence. However a natural characteristic of organized religion even if it is not the intention, is that while sitting in a voluminous cathedral bored by that repetitious sermon, or the "Words of Paul", one's thoughts might be "hoved" towards the analysis of ephemeral matters and dilemmas.
After the garments in which gospel are swathed are stripped away then what remains is inquiry,,, the igneous rock from which to push off,,, and you can really fly after the push.

Bertrand Russell again:   
     "Is the world divided into mind and matter, and, if so, what is mind and what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers ? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal ? Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order ? Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and unimportant planet ? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet ? Is he perhaps both at once ? Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? If there is a way of living that is noble, in what does it consist, and how shall we achieve it? Must the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valuc'd, or is it worth seeking even if the universe is inexorably moving toward? death ? " 
     
     Combine those subjects with alchohol and you can produce a dreamer. Perhaps the mountain of impenetrable inconsistent religious dogma just naturally stimulates further investigation for some.