To explain my story, let me elaborate a bit on the school system in the netherlands first. Since the end of the 19th century, confessionalists took it as their aim to set up own schools in order to make sure their children were raised with bible lessons and religion. This was because the public schools were more and more distancing themselves from religion teaching.
In the end, all these kinds of schools got same government support as the public ones, as a compromise to the confessionalists by the liberals who wanted to have elections rights for all men instead of a select few.
And thus, I first went to a very awkward school, called the Vrije School, after the principles of anthroposophe
Rudolph Steiner. In this school they educate in all major religions of this world, which in my opinion is a very good concept.
Unfortunately, the school itself couldn't handle the burden of 'theory meets practise', so when I was still very young, I changed schools. Now I went to a catholic elementary school. Besides the subsidy from the government, these schools can count on money from the Church, so these schools mainly serve better education than public schools.
At this school I learned some arbitrary stuff about the bible, I guess about as much as I would've learned on the other school had I stayed there. On top of that, they had special celebrations at christmas and easter and stuff, like advent. For a brief moment I believed in God, but I guess the way my parents raised me was unfit to keep this faith. I think without them, I still would've found out about the God's inexistence, but only a couple years later.
Anyway, soon afterwards I changed schools to a public one. Education was really sucky there compared to the former school, but I was a smart boy, so I didn't need much more to learn anyway [joke]. At this school they didn't teach anything about religion. There also were a lot more muslims at this school. Religion was something outside of that place.
On high school, I had a whole lot religions at history, but only judaism, christianity, islam and most prevalent the old faith of the greek and roman people, which is in my opinion the most fun kind of religion. Plural gods, animals, it all makes the whole thing of believing much more fun, when the gods themselves can be jealous, sexual active etc.
Most people of our time and area have similar experiences, more or less. We grow up in relatively secular societies, with a tradition of christianity and some judaism. Since a handful of decades we fought ourselves free from the burden of going to the church every sunday (at leats in europa, in the USA they're nuts), and education and TV inform us about the multiplicity of faith in the forms of above-called and even more religions. In harsh times (not really, but the press makes us believe we're in rough times), people still seek salvation and a save heaven, so they convert to the
somethingtheism. They reckon there has to be some deeper understanding, like Palme stated.
Now I wonder, what is it that some people still seek deeper understanding, and others, like me, don't see any reason for deeper understanding? I like to believe that I replaced this empty feeling with the alternative called science. Could that be right, is that what divides both groups, that one group doesn't appreciate science as the sufficient omnipotent force, while the second group does, maybe likewise foolishly?
I understand I formulated this quite vaguely, somehow it translates very badly in english.
