An early memory

My mother was the teacher of Christianity in our family. Unfortunately she wasn't very good at it. She only told the popular stories and didn't give satisfying answers to the questions I would have. I learned that she really didn't know what she was talking about; just regurgitating stories she heard from her mother, her father, or her pastor.

The story she told about why women are unequal to men was one of many. According to my mother it all started when Eve gave the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge to Adam. Because of that act God cursed Eve and all of her female descendants. The curse was that women were always to have horrible pain while giving birth. As I remember it, my mother was very specific to say that all the other animals didn't have pain, it was just humans and it was because of Eve.

Then one day I had the opportunity to witness a cow giving birth. We lived on a small farm and we had a few chickens, rabbits, and a cow. I might be remembering the scene wrong but I suppose it doesn't matter. It was dusk and my mother must've known the cow was about to give birth. When the cow laid down she came to the house to get us and she allowed us to watch this fantastic miracle. By flashlight I watched as this cow pushed and pushed while moaning in obvious pain until the calf popped out of her.

I think I was about 12 years old and very interested in science and math. I fantasized about growing up to be a veterinarian so I was very watchful of all the animals I came in contact with on the farm. The fact that this cow was obviously in pain made an impression on me. My first thought was that my mother had lied to me. She had to know that other animals felt pain when giving birth because she had been raised on a farm too. Or did she not pay attention? Or was she trying to make a point about God and believed at some level she was correct?

Whatever her reason was I never believed anything she told us after that. Especially the religious stuff. Her credibility was shot. I was 12 years old and a hell of a lot smarter than her. As you can imagine I had a awful childhood. The constant religious talk grew tiresome and, on top of everything else, it didn't make sense.

There are a lot more reasons I didn't buy into the religious stuff and I'll write about those in other posts.

Note added 7-17-2009: See PZ Myer's post about a related topic here.