2023 Day 8: Camped at the Crossroads
“Reflecting on today’s reading, Peter Rollins points out that if Hume had made Philo an atheist, the Dialogues wouldn’t be nearly so controversial.[127] I agree. It’s way more threatening for someone who’s “on your team” to question the existing authority/belief structure than to encounter the same doubts in someone from the “opposition.” For a theist to doubt and question the Theos really gets under the skin of other theists. “If he is asking these questions, what does that say about my beliefs? Am I wrong? Have I believed a lie this whole time?” Courtney Cantrell
Excerpt From. Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice
One of the treasures of Atheism for Lent is the community it comes with. I don't know if anyone would like to do this journey alone. I am grateful for the opportunity to connect via Zoom and Whatsapp with others on the same AFL pilgrimage as I'm on this Lenten season.
One of the changes I've seen this year that I didn't see in the previous years is how Artificial Intelligence has been embraced to help with the material. I'm not going to make any judgements in this post about the use of AI to help with navigating the harder to understand concepts. I actually don't have much of an opinion about it other than I just chose not to use it. That's it. No feelings involved. I just haven't found ChatGPT to be the companion I want with me on this trip.
I did, however, get a companion that suits me a lot better. Her name is Courtney. She has been through AFL a few times. She has struggled with the material from time to time. She has grown in her understanding through the journey. She has written her thoughts and shared them. That hold more value for me than a computer.
Courtney gave me a copy of her new book which is a journal of her journey through Atheism For Lent. I was touched when she contacted me at the end of February asking if she could use an excerpt from one of my blogs for her book. We found out that we are both admirers of Star Trek wisdom.
Courtney send me a copy yesterday and I read through week one. I would bounce back and forth from my thoughts to her thoughts and found that I could walk along beside her as she collected her thoughts and feelings into her story. I paused at week two because I wanted to get through the week of readings that Pete was providing before jumping ahead with the voices that Courtney was writing. They weren't in the same order. But then came David Hume.
I looked back to 2023 and found I was just as lost with Hume's story then as I was today. I couldn't visualize it. So I decided to pick up my e-reader on my Iphone and barrel down to get to the Hume chapter. I bypassed Bertrand Russell and apologized to him for my leap ahead. But when I got to Hume, I was so relieved that discover another writer that had to wait until he was dead to have his work published. I was entrenched. Courtney broke it down so I could track better with the story. Her personal style makes the material so much easier to digest for my less than adequate academic brain.
When I came across the opening quote, I thought of the plethora of people who have invested their lives in their religious systems only to leave them and be ostracized by family and friends. Courtney pointed out that for someone to relinquish one's faith after they have been so invested in it, is more threatening to people because of this ...
“If he is asking these questions, what does that say about my beliefs? Am I wrong? Have I believed a lie this whole time?”
I totally understand and it makes so much sense as the the tension I've faced from people after my departure from the embrace of Christianity. It's not about me. I just made something possible that they still need to be impossible. I am evidence of a life that is real outside of the walls they have lived in their whole lives. It makes sense how scary that can be for people.
I still don't have much confidence in navigating that space with people. I still feel like I'm dangerous. I feel free in my own space, but I feel dangerous in their space. I'm not trying to break down their walls with any form of aggression... it seems that just being who I am is wind enough to shake their foundations.
I am soaking in this book of Courtney's and so thankful that it is a part of what is probably my last time through Atheism for Lent. However, I just might find it in my sightline next year when Lent comes around.
My reflection last year was entitled "Camped at the Crossroads". I am still camped at those crossroads, and am honoured this time to sit down for tea in my camp with my new friend Courtney.
"But were this world ever so perfect a production, it must still remain uncertain, whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel, when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labour lost, many fruitless trials made; and a slow, but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making. In such subjects, who can determine, where the truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability lies, amidst a great number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a still greater which may be imagined?" David Hume
