Arithmetical Equation

+

=

My life can be distilled into the above arithmetical equation. Capel(Chapel) + Ysgol(School) = Carchar(Prison) There you go, you get a little Welsh Vocabulary thrown in. You also get the actual, real life pictures of the chapel, school and prison that I went to. If you throw into the equation the following quote then you have my 48 years on this planet reduced to a numerical equation. 

 So I have been through the institutions of chapel, school, work and prison, probably like you (but without prison hopefully)

I don't think that Institutions are good for human beings. I believe that children know at a primitive and elemental level that they are being force fed bullshit in Sunday School and facts, figures and dates that they will never use in their adult life in school. We are aware that a human's mental health is a combination of nature and nurture. Your spiritual life or faith occurs as an adult when you have a personal connection to the 'supernatural figure' on the fluffy white cloud. At confirmation class in the above chapel, we as a group of 12 year olds were asked 'Where is God?' and I replied on behalf of the group, "Well I've never met him" and got a well deserved chuckle from the rest of the group and a frown from the minister. I had my own spiritual connection with God in the above prison because I had no other choice than to leave my fate to an (alleged) higher power. I am still open to be persuaded that he/she doesn't exist but once you've had a 'spiritual emergency' there is no going back. As humanists and atheists distrust religion, I distrust Christians who do not proclaim a personal experience, a re-birth. If you are born into a religion or a denomination then you have been force fed and have accepted it hook, line and sinker without questioning it, which to me appears as hollow as the lives of the humanists and atheists. I realise that if my life had not followed the above arithmetical equation then I wouldn't have my own personal God. A God that I certainly didn't believe in or have a personal experience of in the first two establishments.