'Insha'Allah, here goes nothing . . . '

He might have written books on philosophy, but when faced with the Leaving Cert religion exam, JOE HUMPHRIESwent straight for regurgitating inherited Catholic doctrine

OH MY GOD, I can't believe I agreed to this. I'm 20 minutes into RE, and wondering what made me sign up. Ego, probably. As the holder of a Masters of Arts degree in political philosophy (first-class honours), and having written a book on world religions ( The Story of Virtue), I couldn't resist showing off, could I? Well, now the joke's on me because I really don't know what a poustinia is, and I'm being asked to describe its origins. If I was aware that it is, in fact, a small, sparsely furnished cabin designed for prayer (so Wikipedia later tells me) I'd want to collapse in a corner of it and cry.

I’m having flashbacks to my original Leaving Cert exams exactly 20 years ago. I had a chronic case of writer’s block on the first English paper – trying to grapple with the seemingly-facile essay title “What is means to be Irish” – and left the exam hall in tears. Only a sterling performance on paper two, on poetry and prose, brought me up to a pass – a bare D. (Which goes to show that you are not defined by your Leaving Cert results. Either that or you don’t need to rite English very best to be a journalist.) My own trauma from 1989 gave me some sympathy for Leaving Cert students but now that I’m back behind an empty copybook I’ve got even greater respect.

“At the time of Jesus, people had different expectations of the Messiah: Davidic, Priestly, Prophetic,” the exam paper in front of me reads. “Outline what was involved in two of the above expectations of the Messiah.”

Clearly, there is a curriculum here – and fair play to anyone who studied it. I, on the other hand, am wondering whether I can get away with some diverting anecdotes from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. (Or do you lose marks for blasphemy?) At least, I’m thinking, I can neatly work my ego-trip confession into what would be a pertinent answer for “Section D: Moral Decision-Making”. Insha’Allah, here goes nothing . . .

Two hours and 10 minutes later, I’m done. My fingers are aching. I don’t think I’ve done this much handwriting since I had to report on back-to-back Oireachtas committee meetings. There wasn’t too much time for polishing my answers (most of them were a series of unrelated anecdotes connected by the phrase “but I digress”), and I only had a chance to re-read three-quarters of my work, so close was I to the wire. But I am happy enough.

Unit one on mythology played to my strengths as I've a bit of a "thing" for religious storytelling. Unit two was the toughest, principally due to the narrow choice of questions (designed, no doubt, to expose bluffers such as me). I had desperately wanted to give profound and memorable answers. But, as the time pressure mounted, I decided to settle for something – anything – to fill the space. More often than not, my escape valve (and I'm ashamed to admit it) was uncritically regurgitating inherited Catholic doctrine. (Did I really allude to the resurrection of Jesus as an historical event? Yes, alarmingly, I did.) At one point, I started answering the question about the difference between the sacred and the profane but then doubt overcame me. As I learned following the exam, profanity, in the religious sense, has less to do with a four-letter-word than matters literarily outside the church. Seeking further clarification in Patrick Quinn's Philosophy of Religion A-Zat home, I was informed: "For the religious individual, profane temporal duration can be arrested and transformed through ritual and sacred activities." Just as well, then, I instead answered the question on "deciding what is right and wrong". There was plenty of room for waffling there.

Unit three was a bit of a rush-job. I had left myself only 15 minutes to explain the influence of Darwinism on the relationship between religion and science. Fifteen minutes! I could have done with two hours.

As it was, I had to confine myself to a few statements of the blindingly obvious, or utterly banal. I hope it does the trick.

One thing’s for certain: RE has come on a lot since my day. An exam subject since 2005, it was a doss class 20 years ago. I recall our religion teacher spent most of his time trying to fend off prurient questions about whether certain sexual practices were sinful. Now had that come up on the paper, I’d have been laughing.

How Joe did

THE MARKER SAYS

This candidate attempted all questions in a good way. The candidate’s writing was legible and questions were clearly labelled.

Overall, however, the 80- mark and 40-mark questions could have been answered in greater detail.

Unit one, A1 a and b were answered very well, with attention given to exactly what the question was asking. In unit two B the candidate lacks sufficient detail for full marks. Reference to scripture may have improved results here. In unit two D the candidate’s answer lacks the clarity and focus required for a high mark. In D a, the treatment of “war” was the stronger part of the answer.

Finally, in unit three, section J, the candidate has chosen to answer on Darwin. Again, the candidate has not answered in enough detail for an 80-mark question.

They have shown a fair knowledge of the topic, but the answer is lacking in the amount of detailed, accurate, relevant information required for full marks.

JOE’S RESULT

C3

Joe Humphreys is the author of two books on popular philosophy, including The Story of Virtue: Universal Lessons on How to Live(Liffey Press, 2005)