Day 4: God in a Box

"Nor must it be alleged here as an objection, that we may wish to reject the definition of God as a supremely perfect being… This objection is, I say, incompetent; for although it may not be necessary that I shall at any time entertain the notion of Deity, yet each time I happen to think of a first and sovereign being, and to draw, so to speak, the idea of him from the store-house of the mind, I am necessitated to attribute to him all perfections, though I may not then enumerate them all, nor think of each of them in particular…" Rene Decartes

Supreme

Him

Perfect

Sovereign 

First

All

This is the last reflection of the first week.  Even in this paragraph, a box is built to define the kind of "God" that Decartes is trying to convince his readers of.  I will be presumptuous... but most arguments about "God" have that "God" in a box at the startup gate.  This isn't about trying to give a case for something beyond what scientific discovery has shown.  This isn't about allowing space for the possibility of an ultimate cause of the universe.  This is about a box.  

"My "God" fits into this box and I want you to understand that my box is the right box."  

I don't see too many people out there trying to convince me about an mysterious cause to the universe.  I see people trying to sell me their box.   How do I even start to have a conversation with people about "God" when they have already made up their mind how that "God" looks, acts, behaves, talks,  feels and exists.  

I am not going to claim that the universe wasn't started by something or someone outside or beyond the Big Bang.  I'm not that old to come to any conclusions about how the universe started.  I just don't want the only option to be ... the box.  I am trying to see what could be outside of the box.  I am already part of something bigger than myself... it's called the universe.  How it started... not sure about that one.  It just seems so limiting to only have the conversation about the "God in a Box".  When do we get outside the box.  I'd like to be a part of that conversation.  

Here is my post from 2023 

on the same reflection from Rene Decartes.

 Day 4: In the Valley is where you will find the Poet

Day 3: "Can we touch the truth?"

It's Day 3 and I was ready to stop the train.  When I saw that today's reflection was from Thomas Aquinas,  I went to my Authentic Lent database to see that I had already addressed this very reflection back in 2023.  It was on Day 2 when I posted "Not everyone calls THIS 'God' ".  I don't think I can top my thoughts that I wrote two years ago.  I still don't call THIS "God"... what ever THIS is.  

I was thinking this morning that I am really getting beyond the whole need to process the question of "God".  It's why things like "The Atheist Experience" and "The Line" are not entertaining for me anymore.  (If you are interested in what those are... you can find those links in my blog post on Matt Dillahunty from Day 38  of 2024. ) 

When I listened to Pete's coffee talk this morning... "On Conspiracy Theories" , he said something that stuck out for me.  This whole journey is more than just answering the question of "Does God exist, or not?"  He mentioned that conspiracy theories are simply mysteries that people give answers to.  I am not unaware of the common "conspiracy theories" out in the ether.  I can totally understand that they are those kind of  "answers to mysteries".  Some people need answers.  It's not enough to have a mystery and just sit with that.  Even if their answers may seem foolish to others, they still need to explain what is most likely unexplainable.  

Conspiracy theories not only arise out of mystery, but out of facts that are unaccepted.  So when someone doesn't want to accept facts that have enough evidence for their claims... they come up with a different story.  

Pete's question is one has gnawed on me for a few years now.  "Can we touch the truth?"   I have written poetry, chapters and blog posts on the very premise that I believe I don't have access to the truth.  The last poem on my poetry blog says that I believe the truth really lies... "Hidden in the Stars".  

This may be my last venture through "Atheism for Lent".  I am okay to move on from the deep dive into the darkness.  I have become okay with the unknown and the mystery and the lack of answers for most things.  I am glad to still find some nuggets in the journey and that is always refreshing.  

Day 2: Auditing the Argument

William Paley and the Watchmaker Argument for God's Existence.  

Coming back to AFL for the third time feels similar to when I audited an Animal Sciences class after I already graduated and had my diploma in Agriculture.  I had taken the same class as part of my curriculum for my diploma program.  When I returned to college,  after graduation,  to take another course that I had missed earlier, I found time to sit in on the Animal Sciences class.  Somehow I was able to just sit and take in the material without needing to have answers for an exam that would soon follow.  I might have even learned more the second time around because I was more focused on educating myself than memorizing the material so I could regurgitate it on an exam. 

It seems that I have a different approach this time taking Atheism for Lent.  Maybe I still don't know the end of the book, but I've read the next chapter of the story.  So coming back to a previous chapter seems like I don't have to feel like I am being convinced of something as much as I am reminiscing about when I was being convinced about before.  Now I can just enjoy the story without the added test anxiety.  

The whole Watchmaker Argument pales now because of one book I got my hands on and started reading.  Dr Abby Hafer's "The Not-so-Intelligent Designer".   The idea of having something start the cosmos isn't in question as much as the idea of an "Intelligent Designer".   Either can share the label of "God", but how would you identify that "God" based on the criteria provided.  Limiting "God" to intelligence seems exactly that... limiting.  Just because humans figured out how to make a watch, there is an assumption that whatever is responsible for making humans needs to have the same capacity of intelligence.   I doubt that.  There are humans all over this globe making children that far surpass them in intelligence.  Procreation takes one small moment in time... No intelligence required, just active reproductive organs.  

I am still thinking that religion is mostly accountable for the need to even have an argument.  Somehow, being freed up to just exist in the universe as is also negates the need to participate in arguing "God's" existence.  But if you have a religion you are either trying to preserve or prevent, then you need to preserve or prevent it at all costs.  

I think I will end today's post with the Charles Darwin quote that Pete included in his reflection.  

"The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws."  Charles Darwin

Day 1: The same Sun still shines

"May God die in all of us one day". 

(My blog post from Day 4 of Atheism for Lent 2022) 

Three years to this date, March 5, 2022 and four days into my first experience with Atheism for Lent,  we were introduced to Elie Wiesel.  Today, Ash Wednesday, begins Atheism for Lent 2025 and Elie Wiesel is the reflection for today.  

As soon as I saw his name, I went to my blog post first and discovered it was exactly three years ago today that I was faced with this story.  I went into detail in my blog post as to the significance that this story played for me.  This morning, I didn't want to listen to music or read the story again.  It was still fresh in my mind, almost as if I could imagine being there with Elie.  

Maybe going there again serves a purpose in this journey and maybe there was a good reason that Pete came out of the gate with this story.  This time, he didn't say he would ease us into this journey. At least I didn't hear him say that.  

I still don't know if I have it in me to listen to music and let my mind and body experience that story again.  So I did something different this morning.  I sent an email to Germany.  

I have recently reconnected with my second cousins who both live in Germany.  They are the granddaughters of my great uncle, whose story I shared in my blog post .  I asked them to share some stories of their Opa with me.  I wasn't looking for a history lesson.  I already have that.  I was looking for their stories with their Opa.  I want to find the humanity in my great uncle.  I don't want his past to define him without who he was to his family.  Their stories matter.  We are all more than just the sum of the stupid stuff we did or were are a part of.  I have to believe that.  I have to believe that I can find a common humanity in others, no matter what they've done.  That is where things like compassion,  forgiveness and love can be found.  

I remember reading a story about Corrie Ten Boom.  It was after her own internment in a concentration camp that she found herself in the presence of one of the soldiers that was at that very camp.  That soldier had shown up at a Christian gathering that Corrie was speaking at.  I was moved by her response of forgiveness and how she reached out and shook his hand.  I read that story as a child in a Christian comic book about "The Hiding Place".  I had hoped it was genuine and not just a gracious response because she felt she had to as a Christian author and speaker.  Maybe she found his humanity and was able to move beyond the history.  

This morning I got a picture of the sunrise.  It looks eerie peeking through the trees like it would have peeked through the fences and barbed wire of the concentration camps in Poland and Germany during WW2.  It is the same sun that that prisoners like Elie Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom saw.  It's like this morning, the sun was trying to tell me something... 

"I am still beautiful and can still give you light, even though I have to shine through the obstacles of your life."  

The glass cross on my wall wants to know why it is still there.

I understand a lot of people when deconverting from Christianity do a purge of the icons of their previous faith.  I did that for the most part too... except for one cross. It is a stained glass piece of artwork that my husband and I got for a wedding present from the pastor (and his wife) that married us.  This is still hanging on our wall maybe asking me on occasion to redefine its meaning.  

"Why am I still hanging in a house that doesn't need me as a religious symbol anymore?"  

"What story can I tell now that makes the dust I collect worth removing?" 

"Who are you trying to make happy by keeping me here on this wall?  The people who gave it to you have never visited you once in the 16 years you've been married. "   

I am still waiting to reply back with an answer... I don't have one yet.

(originally shared in Blaze Study Group on Whatsapp... five days to the beginning of AFL.  Patiently waiting.  Maybe I will come closer to finding answers for these questions) 

Authentic Lent continues...

 It's Wednesday today.  In one week it's Ash Wednesday.  It begins again.  Atheism for Lent.  

In 2022, I signed up for Atheism for Lent (AFL) for the first time.  I am not sure what I expected or even what I was looking for at the time.   These were my first thoughts into the journey of what is AFL.  

"It seems that most of my inspiration, lately, comes from my time in the hot tub.  Last night, as I ceremoniously said good bye to "God",  I noticed that there was a very grey sky.  No poofy clouds as such... just one big cloud cover of dismal grey.  There I was, awaiting some sort of symbolic entrance into the "Dark Night of the Soul" and not even a dark night was there.  Just some smokey like substance I couldn't even participate in." 

Three years ago, I was invited into something.  I had no idea just how much of that something would open up a different world and different direction for me.  What started with a dismal grey cloud became a beautiful night sky that was filled with beautiful stars that were not just some cosmic mysteries, but eventually became my family.  I had lost something and someone but it was in losing that something and someone,  I discovered that one thing never left me.  That one thing meets me on those nights I'm in the hot tub looking up at the stars.  That one thing carries me throughout my day.  That one thing still doesn't have a label for me, and I am perfectly okay with that.  I am perfectly okay with not putting boundaries around my existence anymore.  There is freedom in that.  There is joy.  There is love.  

I came back to AFL for a few reasons.  I did two years (2022 and 2023) and then took a break from AFL in 2024.  Each of my lenten journeys in those three years is recorded in this blog.  Lent has become a time for reflection, introspection, discovery, awareness, connecting and maybe even change.  Lent invites me into spring.  I was born in the season of Lent, I was married in the season of Lent.  Lent is Spring and all the energy that Spring brings with new life is found within the season of Lent.  

Lent ends on Good Friday and I still don't need Easter on this journey.  I am okay ending with the loss and staying with it.  That has become my reality in so many ways.  I don't get a resurrection story with the losses in my life, so why have one during the season of Lent.  

I am anticipating the beginning of AFL next Wednesday.  I am excited for the community that comes with the journey.  I think the community is what makes this journey so valuable.  All of life is lived in community, so our journeys of discovery are also best lived in community.  I am grateful for all the people that come along on this journey and I will listen to them as much as I will listen to the material given us.  

Thank you Dr. Peter Rollins for giving us all this opportunity to spend this season in this space together.  You have given us all a gift that keeps on giving.  

(The cross at the beginning of this post is made up from words taken from each of my blog posts from the last three years.)