i was once young and innocent

believe it or not, this foul mouthed, arrogant, sexually starved, tattooed, pierced person before you was once and innocent, believing, unassuming wee lad.

i was a good catholic, i went to church every week, i was an altar boy, i even at one point considered joining the priesthood. i went to a catholic all boys school as well. my innocence was not lost to some sticky fingered, pedophile in the church. no i lost my innocence and childhood naivety in my caribbean history class, close the time i lost my virginity as well come to think of it.

i had a teacher who encouraged us to ask question. to defy convention and i started to wonder about the magna carta and why the native peoples of the americas were slaughtered in the name of god and why slavery was encouraged. basically why the church allowed so much evil to be done in their names.

at first i asked these questions of myself, but i had no answers, so i turned to my books and other books in the library but they only uncovered more atrocities committed in the name of `god`, so i turned to the priest who ran our school and they just seemed uncomfortable as the toed the line with rote responses. the more questions i asked, the more disturbed i became, i tried to be a good catholic but it wasn`t in me any more, how could i believe in something so corrupt.

i started reading the bible but the incongruities became more glaring to me and the questions i was asking began to reflect on the bible itself. i turned to islam but their track record wasn`t much better.

i realised religion on the whole was an opiate. the basic tenets were established by power brokers and politicians to help keep the masses in line.

i don`t take anything at face value, i don`t believe everything the news tells me to and i still question, on a daily basis. i question organised religion, i question politicians, businessmen, i question the news which is paid for by advertisers. but i work in a business where we sell lives and half truths for a living. it doesn`t necessarily get me the answers but it helps me perceive them better when they do appear.