Catholic guilt?

[Felixfox]

I only went to catholic school for 3 years (first 3 years of school) and I am CONSTANTLY feelingly guilty . Is it the school or just me? It was a terrible place. I remember one of the fathers coming into our classroom just as a pupil was leaving as he was feeling sick. Father promptly sent him back to his desk for us all to pray, this boy was physically sick but we had to carry on with the prayer. His parting shot was a question. To a bunch of 6 year olds. Do you all pray before bed at night? We all mumbled yes. To which he replied,’Good, because otherwise you will go to hell.’ It scared the crap out of me. V complicated story with parents and my brother and I going there. My mother was a nun and left
’God will never forgive you’ and so maybe to usage some hideous and unfair guilt from that was to send us to a catholic school. The point is, I am nearly 50 and I still feel guilty all the time about pretty much anything. Will it go? I’ve tried counseling. What do I do? How do you leave a part of yourself behind?

The religious texts were written by man too of course. All of them.

And once that is understood by an individual, there is no need for any religious guilt.

I am not angry. Not believing an any God does not make one angry. Indeed, I would say the opposite is true.

Quote : "Christianity is not about literal facts. It's about spirituality and metaphors."

Maybe that is the case in your version of religion. But that view is far from universal in theists.

Here is just one of many groups who believe the Bible is literal.

Answers in Genesis

And surely if Christianity is not about facts, as you say, then it is not true. The same as how the Loch Ness monster is not based on fact.

Again, without religion there will be no religion induced guilt.

‘And surely if Christianity is not about facts, as you say, then it is not true.‘

This sentence of yours proves my point. You are judging Christianity as if the beliefs were a series of ‘facts’ but the Christian message is about spiritual truth not factual truth.
So , for example, there are many ways to God and they may all be ‘true’ ie valid.
You say you’re not angry but to me what you say seems to come from a place of anger. Why else would you want to attack it in what to me is a meaningless way?

I am not judging Christianity. Nor am I attacking it.

The OP posted that they suspect they suffer from Catholic guilt. Some posters have replied saying they are Catholic, and it "never did them any harm". Some posters have suggested the OP finds a more modern and moderate version of Catholicism. Same have posted their experience of such religion induced guilt.

My position is to dump religion all together, because it is not true. None of them are true or factual. They are man made inventions designed to explain the world around them.

If you disagree and say I am wrong, that there is a God, or Gods, then prove it. Surely there must be an academic paper or an article somewhere that stands up to scrutiny and proves whatever God anyone claims to exist... actually exists.

If nobody can produce such a paper or article then my position is the same. Avoid religion to avoid the guilt it might induce.

A deity cannot be proved or disproved. It is a matter of faith - some people profess to have a faith in the concept of a deity, but this is simply faith - it is not grounded in any proven reality.

And that is absolutely fine. People are rightly free to believe what they believe. What they should not be free to do is to impose their faith on others, indoctrinate children, blight people's lives with a sense of guilt based on their beliefs, impose fatwahs, kill in the name of religion, use religion in legislation, divide nations along religious lines, impose a ban on contraception then stand back and watch children suffer and starve in acute poverty ...........

By all means believe, but believe for yourself and not for those around you.

Agree with your second paragraph. But not your first.

Because easiest thing in the world for any God to prove they exist. Just pop in and say hello. And it is not up to non believers to prove they do not exist. Those making the claim have to prove they do. Especially, as you say, when they want others to live by their rules.

I'm an agnostic but was brought up in the C of E (rather half-heartedly!). But I'm very interested in religion. I do not sneer at religious belief - just to be clear. But I do differentiate very strongly between what is said in the Bible about Christ and his teachings and the Early Church, and what the RC church has constructed over the centuries since the conference at Nicea in the ....4th century??? when doctrine was agreed.

The only clear guide to what Jesus Christ did and what he said is in the gospels. Then that great PR man, St Paul, (who in my opinion created Christianity as a religion - Jesus certainly didn't - he seems to have had no plans or interest in creating a new religion), put huge efforts into supporting small pockets of followers around the Med and evangelising about Christianity after Christ's death.

A friend of mine was in a church group which went back to the gospels as their only authority on Christianity, and cut out all the stuff added since then. I get this completely.

(To be clear: I'm fully aware of the issues around taking the gospels as literally, or historically, 'true', but that's a different thread!)

As I understand it, though no expert, there are two strands to Christian denominations. Firstly, there are the religious texts; secondly, there is the manmade interpretation of these teachings, which changes in the light of societal changes

The problem of course with the religious texts is that they too are manmade interpretations of what individual humans thought they saw a very long time ago in the context of their then societal norms and the state of scientific knowledge at the time.

None of it is relevant to now.

I get that there are metaphorical interpretations to be postulated which might contain moral lessons or ideas worthy of thought at any time, but this does not need to be hedged round in supernatural belief.

The bottom line is that we all know that religions are dangerous and have spread misery and discord over the centuries, which would be bad enough in itself, but is even worse when there is no basis in fact or logic for their actions. All that misery for nothing ......

It's hard to shake off a Catholic education. It's important to try though. It's a miserable restrictive death cult at best.

What do you mean ‘death cult’?

It’s obvious, surely. It focuses on the sacrifice of Jesus’ death on the cross as the constitutive moment that ‘saves’ a humankind perceived as hopelessly ‘fallen’.

Its chief iconography is of a tormented, almost naked body being tortured to death in a spectacularly unpleasant way.

Its central image is a tortured, speared, crucified, dying man. Its third sacrament, for children aged seven, is eating the body and drinking the blood of the dead man. Its sacred items are bones and blood stains. Death is everywhere in Catholicism.

X post.

I am with you on the death cult - I think it is grotesque.

The trouble is that everyone becomes inured to it - this iconography abounds. It is only when you stop and think about it that it is possible to really take on board what this is all about. People hang round their necks gold jewellery of an instrument of torture - what the heck is that about? If it were to be replicated in the present day they would have little gold electric chairs round their necks.

The catholic guilt of course centres on the concept of original sin, which makes no sense whatsoever - and as for the concept of atonement for this imagined sin by human sacrifice .......

We need to be free from these primitive ideas and move forward into a world where people can live their lives based on human kindness. It's not really been tried yet.

Yes you understood me correctly. Multiple lines of scientific evidence suggest God / theistic belief is the best inference of what we can observe, so the best explanation is that an intelligent designer exists. Scientific theories by their very definition will be naturalistic by their nature based upon modern scientific methodology which itself isn't an issue but in my opinion if you infer from the evidence that there is no God then that is a weaker interpretation of the data. If you're interested in further reading I'd suggest starting with the writings of Lee Strobel and the book 'Is God Real?'.

I do not infer that there is no deity ... I infer that no-one knows.

The important thing is this: that this presence or absence of knowledge should not be used as a reason to dictate to others, inculcate guilt, make people's lives miserable and exercise power. None of this is necessary.

My stance is that I simply embrace the not knowing as a reality of the human condition and proceed to live my life with as much kindness as I am able.

‘dictate to others, inculcate guilt, make people's lives miserable and exercise power. None of this is necessary.’

But where is this happening today?
There are quite a few potshots here against the RC church. This may have been true in the past when life was completely different and society was more authoritarian.
There seems to be a general theory that this is true still in 2026 and I just can’t believe this is so.
The church does reflect contemporary society and society doesn’t work like that any more.
I would be interested if anyone can give me contemporary example from the UK of this type of practice.

Theism (an intellectual designer) is the best explanation for what we observe with one example being fine tuning of the fundamental laws of the universe. No scientific paper, by their very nature, is going to conclude by saying 'we cannot explain this observation so there must be a God' as that would be a theological argument not a scientific inference. Therefore atheism requires faith that all scientific discoveries are all a result of unguided, undirected processes including the origin of the universe and human consciousness among other examples of which I posted earlier. Nobody has proved how the universe started from nothing, how consciousness developed etc. Atheism as a world view fundamentally requires faith that these aspects rely solely on these unguided and undirected processes and since their is no proof that naturalistic explanations are true, atheism requires faith.

Recognising that we simply do not know requires no faith at all.

Humans seek patterns and explanations and it is not easy to accept the not knowing.

There are quite a few potshots here against the RC church. This may have been true in the past when life was completely different and society was more authoritarian.
There seems to be a general theory that this is true still in 2026 and I just can’t believe this is so.

I do not share that optimistic view .... we would not have a member starting a thread about her catholic guilt if that were so. But it is interesting that you acknowledge that religious teachings reflect their societies rather than representing universal truths.

I have a friend who hails from South America ... catholic toxic authoritarianism is alive and well she tells me. Hence the large poor families.

Yes but that’s guilt from the past.
Society was more authoritarian then, so the Church had more authoritarian rules reflecting and originating in that society.
Yes, of course the church changes over time as society changes. That’s the human part of the Church which interprets the gospels in the light of contemporary scholarship and state of the world.
It ‘s certainly not ‘interesting’ in the sense you mean. It just a basic fact.
The sacrament of Confession was previously an important part of Catholic faith; now it’s rarely practiced in many parts of RC church . Times change . The Church itself doesn’t change in its fundamentals.

Do you still consider yourself a believer, or have you moved away from Christianity altogether? I’m asking because it probably changes what leaving the guilt behind would look like for you.

Quote : "Theism (an intellectual designer) is the best explanation for what we observe with one example being fine tuning of the fundamental laws of the universe."

No it's not. And I can test you on that. Name one fundamental law and how Intelligent design is the only answer. Intelligent design is basically a "god of the gaps" argument. Here is one of their websites:

Intelligent Design | The Definitive Source on ID

Pick one of their papers. And let's see if there is a debunking paper that goes along with it.

Quote:" Therefore atheism requires faith that all scientific discoveries are all a result of unguided, undirected processes including the origin of the universe and human consciousness among other examples of which I posted earlier."

No It does not. Saying "I don't know", as I often say, requires no faith at all.

For example. Because of my trade I have a good understanding of Newtonian physics. I have studied the subject and use it. I can explain it. I don't claim to know and understand Einstein physics. So I can explain the Newtonian physics of getting a GPS satellite into space, but I can't explain how Einsteins relativity is applied to the signal from that GPS satellite. But plenty of people can. And as evidence that they understand it, we have GPS.

Individually, we do not need to know everything to function.

Quote :"Atheism as a world view fundamentally requires faith that these aspects rely solely on these unguided and undirected processes and since their is no proof that naturalistic explanations are true, atheism requires faith."

No. There is proof all over that science is true. The device you are reading this on for example. For loads of people that is enough. It is people of faith who need a god to be involved somehow. People who do not have/need/have not been indoctrinated in any religion do not

There is zero proof that any god is true.

Masturbation. Gay sex. Abortion.

Here is a handy list. UK, And current.

S9 Commandments and Concepts of Sin.pdf (stjosephs.org.uk)

And here is an odd thing. Something I find odd anyway. The 10 commandments being applied. That is Mosaic law. They are just part of the 615 or so Mosaic laws in the Pentateuch. But there is this new covenant thing, where loads of these laws the God gave, apparently, do not apply any more. Eating bacon, circumcision, stoning gay people, pro slavery laws, laws re menstruating women. Christian Churches do pick and choose what laws they want to apply. Yet all of these laws allegedly came direct from their never changing God.

Just to add to my reply above. I just checked this site. I posted the link to their main site above. But is the list of science paper/articles/ books that the intelligent design folk say proves their point.

Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design | Intelligent Design

I enjoy flat earth discussions/ debates. Debunking flat earther claims and so on. And in the debunking "community", there are " Toon's Laws of Flerth. It's a light hearted thing really, but at the same time, flat earthers really can mess folk up with their anti science.

Toon’s Laws of Flerf | MCToon

Toon's first law of flerth:

1. Flerf citations always contradict the flerf’s claim. No exceptions.

With this in mind, I went through the list of papers etc given on that Intelligent design site, and yes, Toons first law of flerth does appear to apply.

I see no title in that list that says what they claim. I mean this looks promising. This entry in their list.

Frank J. Tipler, “Intelligent Life in Cosmology,” International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2(2): 141-148 (2003).

But clink on the link to the article, and this is the very first line is : "I shall present three arguments for the proposition that intelligent life is very rare in the universe."

I would say that is downright dishonest of the Intelligent design folk. Would you not agree ?

In fact, dishonesty in Christian Apologetics is something I started a thread about a while back. The thread was really about creationism . But a quick dive into the IT site, and it looks as if they are just as dishonest.

Does Christian apologetics encourage people to be dishonest ? | Mumsnet

So really, there is no reason to feel any religious guilt.

I’d gladly see the back of faith schools, and bishops in the lords. Would help integration too.