The Animals Question
Sam Bellotto Jr.
Many decades ago when I was a child in grade school, my parents colluded with the local Catholic diocese to make sure I attended religious indoctrination classes regularly. They referred to them as religious instruction classes.
It was a struggle. Every Tuesday afternoon, we Catholic kids got excused from regular school one hour early to trudge over to the closest Catholic school, where the nuns filled our innocent heads with biblical mythology and Catholic dogma. Honestly, I would rather have had an extra hour of mathematics homework.
My incredulity was slathered on thickly, layer after layer. In communist countries, we were told the children were denied food for days and then ordered to choose between a large bowl of hot soup or God. The world would not end until every living soul was converted to our religion. That included Jews, Muslims, and Baptists. Sometimes it was hard to hide a smirk. If the nuns knew what I was thinking, I would surely go to hell. But, supposedly, God knew anyway.
During one class, the subject of heaven was brought up: every good Catholic’s treasured goal, better than a condo in Florida or a comfortable retirement. Somebody asked if animals also went to heaven. It may have been me. I do not recall clearly back in the misty folds of the past.
The nun, without skipping a beat, responded with an emphatic “No!” Animals, you understand, did not have souls. Only souls could be admitted into the glorious afterlife.
I was outraged. At this point in my life, I had already had a variety of beloved pets: turtles, white mice, reptiles, and even a dog. That these precious companions would not be able to join me in glory seemed egregiously unfair. Why would God be so cruel? What’s more, the chances of there being a heavenly petting zoo where I could cavort with friendly lions and bears was frustratingly slim.
A heaven with only boring humans? This fact wore on me more and more heavily, day after day. I found it difficult to sleep. I could not even look at a cricket square in the eyes.
Eventually, I reached a momentous decision. I did not want to go to a heaven that did not permit any of our fellow creatures. The ban that No Animals Need Apply would keep me out, too. I guess that was the pivotal moment I turned to atheism and never looked back.
Sam Bellotto Jr. is a retired journalist. He has written professionally on a wide variety of nonfiction subjects his entire career, from garbage collection to music. He has sold a handful of science-fiction stories and has published a science-fiction novel. He is also a popular author of crossword puzzle books for all ages.
So Jews Don’t Go to Heaven?
Russell E. Jackson
My pivotal moment was when I was told by a nun that Jews could not go to heaven because they did not believe that Christ was their savior. It was hard enough believing the Jesus story as it was. I was still in public grade school, somewhere between ten and fourteen years old. We were allowed a “Release for Religious Instruction” once a week around 3 p.m. When the day for Confirmation arrived, I just walked away. Fortunately, my parents were not overly religious. My mother was raised Catholic, and my father was some sort of Lutheran raised in Minnesota whom I never saw go to church except for weddings and funerals and such, as was expected socially. I was baptized Catholic. Pop did not care, and Mom’s parents and siblings expected it. Mom was a bit upset that I had walked out on the church, but I mollified her by accompanying her to church on the special days, such as Easter and Christmas. I continued to do that until she passed on. I have gone to mass when visiting friends or relatives when that is expected from a social standpoint. Through the years, I have given much thought to my decision, and if anything it has solidified. I am approaching eighty-five now, and all the religions (other than Asylumism1) remain to me as goofy, irrational, and divorced from reality as when I first walked away. It would be interesting to be frozen for, say, a hundred years and upon waking up see just what the people of that time (assuming there are any) think of this period in history.
I came to Free Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer quite late in life and enjoy reading them. They don’t influence me in any way, but I enjoy reading material from people who know how to think rationally and logically. It’s like finding water in a desert.
Note
- Asylumism was a fictional religion created by Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko (1932–1997). One of its tenets was that Earth had been populated by the rejected mentally ill of a higher civilization.
I Couldn’t Help It! It Was Hilarious
Douglas Whaley
My pivot point came during an eighth-grade catechism class taught by the Mother Superior herself: a tall, scary nun in full habit. I had always mistakenly assumed that Jesus was the biological son of Mary and Joseph and, while in the womb, had been endowed with God’s divinity so as to become his son too. When her lesson revealed the established meaning of “virgin birth,” the pure absurdity of the concept made me burst out laughing, adding something like, “You’ve got to be kidding!” The Mother Superior was not pleased, and she made it clear how sinful I was to make fun of basic Catholic doctrine. But with that laugh, my faith—already shaky—vanished forever. I became an instant atheist.
Douglas Whaley is an emeritus professor of law at The Ohio State University, a sometime contributor to this magazine, and the author of the atheist thriller Imaginary Friend.
Caught in an Evasion
Anonymous
OK, not quite a nun story. But still …
Who: Me. A smart upper-middle-class white kid.
When: March 1971 at age fifteen.
Where: Theology class in Catholic high school in Rochester, New York.
What: Realization that Catholic theology is false.
Why: The theology teacher did not directly answer a question posed by another student. To answer the question honestly, the teacher would have needed to dispute Catholic dogma. Instead, the teacher talked about how he thought it was important to believe and support the church.
Pivot Point: I suddenly realized the Catholic theology they’d been teaching us wasn’t literally true. They simply wanted us to believe because they thought it was important to assure our belief and support.
Epilogue: Over the next year, I concluded that supernatural beings and forces didn’t exist. No gods, devils, angels, or demons. About ten years later, I discovered that secular humanism was the philosophy matching my beliefs.
I Spoke for the Animals
Rose Sadoski
I was ten years old and in fifth grade at a Catholic elementary school. My pivot point came during a religion class conducted by the priest, who informed the class that only people have souls and can go to heaven. The moment I heard these words, my mind rejected this idea as impossible. An avid animal lover, I knew there could not be as wonderful a place as heaven without animals. My hand went up, and when called on I blurted out my firm conviction that animals must go to heaven too! There was outrage on the priest’s red face as he ordered me to shut up and proceed to his office, where my parents were later informed of my blasphemous beliefs. My parents had taught my brothers and me to think for ourselves, however. They explained that because our rural area only offered a public school consisting of a two-room school with one teacher for all eight grades, my only chance for an education was to stay in the Catholic school. Needless to say, I was required to apologize to the class for contradicting the priest and keep my opinions to myself.
By the time I had my children, I needed to hope there was a god, as there would be no other way I could face losing a child if such a tragedy happened. Now that my children are grown, I realize there is no god to protect us. It is a cruel world, and we have no defense whatsoever! My eyes are open now!
Rose Sadoski is seventy-eight and unlike most of the esteemed, well-educated readers of FI, she is a simple wife, mother, and retired blue-collar worker. However, she has sampled most mainstream religions or researched them, although none were found without serious fault and against logic and reason. While raising her children and since retiring, she has always done all the volunteering she could possibly fit in her life. Sadoski has been a Free Inquiry subscriber since the ‘80s.