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.)

"The Voices of Lent that spoke to me"

THE VOICES OF LENT THAT SPOKE TO ME.

(AN ALPHABETIZED LIST OF ALL THE  PEOPLE 

WHO HAVE SHARED AUTHENTIC LENT WITH ME) 

I did it.  I finally got this blog organized so I can find what I wrote.  

Two years ago, I was inspired to join Pete Rollin's Atheism for Lent Course.  In 2022, I still was uncomfortable with the term "Atheist" as a descriptor, even though, I had tossed out most of my religious tapestries by then.  I wanted to expose myself to the great thinkers of the past that would maybe encourage me to discover a different perspective on life.  

When I peruse the first year of blog posts from 2022, I can see my resistance toward the whole atheist label and atheist viewpoint.  I was still trying to hang on to "Creator" even through  the "God" ship had already sailed for me.  I find vestiges of my struggle in those forty-five days of Lent that year.  There were some great voices that Pete introduced us to, like Jean Meslier, Robert Ingersoll, Marguerite Porte and Emma Goldman.  I learned and thought a lot during Lent 2022 thanks to these voices. 

Good Friday of  2022 was the day I "buried Jesus".  I needed it to be more of a death than a divorce then.  I needed to acknowledge that Jesus was alive for me for so many years, and now he was dead.  Even though, as the story goes,  he died 2000 years ago, I still needed to give him a funeral of sorts to lay that part of my life down.  I had a wooden cross formed with the name Jesus that my sister got me when she was in Guatemala.  Instead of throwing it away or giving it away like I did with other crosses in my house, I wrapped it in cheese cloth and buried it under my lilac bush.  I put a stone on top of it and that is where it lays to this day.  It is a reminder that what I had once had indeed been alive, if only in my mind.  (Easter came and went, and I didn't bring him back to life.  Boy,  that felt real instead of a fabricated ritual.) 

When Lent came around in 2023, I signed up again.  Pete Rollins had revamped the course and had entirely new material.  I figured maybe it would be a different experience (post a living Jesus)  and still worth investing in.  It was still challenging for me, and there are posts that remind me that it was almost a wash for me, but I hung in there and was introduced to some more voices that were helpful for my journey.  

Lent 2024 was a different experience again for me.  I went solo this time without Pete and Community to walk with me.  But this time, I got to choose the voices that I would listen to.  This time they were not whispering to me from the grave,  as had been for the most part in the last two years, but this time, I wanted living voices to teach and inspire me.  Lent started on Valentine's Day ended on my Birthday.  It was the best year yet.  

I want to continue with Authentic Lent and I hope as long as I do this blog that I can find different voices to walk along the journey with me.  Maybe there will be a different focus yet again.  I don't know what 2025 will bring me in the way of blog fodder.  But I am looking forward to it.  

For now, I want to have an ordered access to the last three years of great wisdom and inspiring videos.  I made an alphabetical list of all the blog entries that is available in the "Authentic Lent Index" in the sidebar of the blog.  There may only be a quote or smaller reference in a post, but I still wanted to give the voices credit for showing up where they do.  Some days it was just me rambling, so I put those posts at the end.  But for the most part, Authentic Lent has been about inviting other voices to walk me through forty-five days of authenticity and secular wisdom.  

Day 45: "Who are you, what have you sacrificed?"

 

I just finished watching and listening to the 2012 Arena performance of Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Jesus Christ Superstar".  This is how I started my birthday today.  My husband was still sleeping and I watched it in my office on my computer with head phones.  What's the saying?... "I still have goosebumps."  Wow.  What an incredible performance and the amazing vocals of Tim Minchin are what inspired me to add this to my birthday celebration.  

I am a big Tim Minchin fan... and he knocked this one out of the park.  He is joined by an amazing cast and amazing performances by Ben Forster as Jesus and Melanie C. as Mary Magdalene.  

I'm not a big opera fan, but I just added this to my collection of movie favourites.  

This is now my favourite Jesus movie.  Why?  Because the show ends and they don't bring him back to life.  There is no resurrection of Jesus... but Judas came back to life... or did he?  Very artistic and poetic justice.    This wouldn't do good in the marketing department of Christianity.  But this is art at it's best.  

A lot of lines stick out for me, but this one sticks out the most.  "Who are you, what have you sacrificed?"  Profound question.  Some would say not much... Matt Dillahunty commented that Jesus "had a bad weekend".  Was that really a sacrifice?  I guess we'll never really know.  We are all two thousand years past the story.  

* * * 

I wanted to conclude Authentic Lent with Tim, because of my planned watching of JSC... but also because I wanted to end it with music.  The deep dive into all the incredible minds has been great, but I need to let my mind rest and allow my body to move with the music.  I will conclude with some of my favourite Tim Minchin songs.  He has been an incredible influence both with music and with his intellect.  I think I will be watching JSC at least one more time today if not twice.  

The Good Book

Upright Piano Scene

Play it Safe

Carry you

The Aeroplane

Absence of You

Day 45: 2022 - "Good Friday - Being the Resurrection" 

Day 45: 2023 - "Bad Friday"