My Confirmation

In the spring of 2005, when I was 14 years old, I had my church confirmation.

Most people in Norway become part of the Church of Norway when they are baptized as a baby. The Confirmation is when people are old enough to chose for themselves that they still want to be part of the religion.

For most, it is simply a tradition. So there are even Confirmation services held through the state and other religious groups, for people who do not want to do it through the Church of Norway.

I don’t think I had completely become an atheist/agnostic when I was 14, but I was not very religious either.

I’m not quite sure why I went with a church Confirmation instead of doing it non-religiously. I think I pretty much just went along with the majority.

There were some things we had to do in preparation for the Confirmation. All the teens had to take part of a certain amount of church services and courses.

I remember that I was very curious during some of those earliest courses. So I was asking a lot of hard questions about Christianity. But the course leaders were not able to answer most of my questions.

They actually took my questions as an attempt to ridicule the faith. At one point I was even asked to exit the building.

It was at this point that I realized that the people who claim to have all the big answers are just pretending. If these people were that touchy about their faith, it did not seem very likely to hold much water.

If they got that annoyed and angry about being asked to explain impossible events, maybe those events never actually happened. Still, I went along with the rest of the Confirmation “education”, so I got to be part of the ceremony.

The ceremony ended up being quite nice, and it’s always nice to have an excuse to get the family together.

I think there is something to be said about having ceremonies. Even when it is based on a belief that not everyone attending actually believe in.

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