It seems that religious education that many
receive in childhood creates a sense of revolt and revenge. The God I knew as a
child was a God of fear, not love. Someone told me that I should fear God, the
God-fearing men were saints. I thought that God was a dangerous bogeyman to be
dreaded. So I better comprehended what happened to Voltaire, the father of
atheism. When asked why he did not accept God, he replied: "I cannot accept a
God who I cannot love. The God who was taught to me must be feared, and as I
cannot fear him, I prefer to ignore him."
I remember when I was eight years old, when a
pious and maudlin teacher was preparing me for my first communion. She said
that I should not hide any sin in confession because it was sacrilege. I do not
know what sacrilege was, but such an ugly word could only mean bad thing. And,
in order no to commit such sacrilege, I copied from the catechism all sins
against the Ten Commandments that I found, many of them fatal! At the time of
the confession, I read the whole list, including my murders and adulteries. The
confessor, seeing a little boy through the grille of the confessional, did not
take me seriously and acquitted me of all. Then came the torment of the first
communion. The teacher, always very pious and maudlin, sternly warned me that I
could not chew the sacred host, which was the body of Jesus. The only way was
to swallow it without letting it touch the teeth. For added security against
possible sacrilege, I cut, at home, a series of hosts made with paper and I was
swallowing one by one, without biting or touching the teeth. Like Voltaire, in
my childhood I only met one God and one Christ who should be feared. I do not
know if I did not get to secretly hate this bogeyman of the beyond...
