"The Death of Socrates" and Atheism for Lent

 

(The Death of Socrates : Jacques Louis David: 1787) 

"In this landmark of Neoclassical painting from the years immediately preceding the French Revolution, David took up a classical story of resisting unjust authority in a sparse, frieze-like composition. The Greek philosopher Socrates (469–399 B.C.) was convicted of impiety by the Athenian courts; rather than renounce his beliefs, he died willingly, discoursing on the immortality of the soul before drinking poisonous hemlock. Through a network of carefully articulated gestures and expressions, David’s figures act out the last moments of Socrates’s life. He is about to grasp the cup of hemlock, offered by a disciple who cannot bear to witness the act. David consulted antiquarian scholars in his pursuit of an archeologically exacting image, including details of furniture and clothing; his inclusion of Plato at the foot of the bed, however, deliberately references not someone present at Socrates’s death but, rather, the author whose text, had preserved this ancient story into modern times."

(Taken from metmuseum.org)

There must be something poetic about "The Death of Socrates" opening up the season of "Atheism for Lent".  It is a week before Ash Wednesday and I am excited about Atheism for Lent.  This will be the second year and will most likely be a very different experience for me. Last year was transitional for me and the season ended in a Good Friday where I laid to rest a long time friend. That's right... I buried Jesus.   Good Friday didn't meet Easter last year for me, for the first time in 53 years.  

This year... I am walking into Lent with not many expectations.  It will be a new journey for me and one I am willing to see unfold with all it's surprises.  I decided to prepare myself with an introductory course on "The Philosophy of Religion" from the online education platform called "Wondrium".   The goal of the instructor was that I would come away with "not being told what to think, but encouraged to think."  I wish I had more of those experiences when my time was freed up to do nothing but learn.  Oh how I might have enjoyed education more if it was about the freedom to explore and think and question and process.  Now in my mid fifties, I have the opportunity and I feel like a sponge.  I want to soak it all in.  

I think the last year has given me more of a sense of peace with my place and space in life.  I am less anxious about what others feel, but still grieving a loss.  Last year was about letting go.  Maybe this year is about learning contentment with open and empty.  Maybe I don't have to find a replacement for the loss.  Maybe I just get to find a friend of the space left behind.  

It seems that Socrates didn't go out fighting... the story seems rather peaceful, a surrender of sorts.  Not surrendering his convictions, for they were still precious to him, but surrendering his need to exist because the cost to exist was too high.  His convictions would live on long after he died.  Maybe to him, that mattered more than his earthly existence.  

I think the poetic part is his exit.  He was able to lay down his life, instead of having it violently ripped from him.  Not many had that freedom.  

“If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.”

― Socrates

Is it right to punish someone for telling the truth?

A Letter to a Father by John W. James: co-author of "The Grief Recovery Handbook"

"Dad, I was just listening to my son, who I adore more than I can say. He is one of the grandchildren you never got to meet.

As he told me the truth about an event with a ball and a window, I stopped listening to him and started preparing his punishment. But that didn’t feel right to me. So I have been doing some soul searching. I have just had a revelation—that by the time I was his age, I had long since stopped telling you the truth. Every time I told you the truth, you punished me, and you punished me hard and hurtfully.

Dad, I do not want my son to associate truth with punishment. I have to break the cycle set up by what you did to me. I have to forgive you for hurting me every time I told you the truth. I forgive you so I can be free to do things differently with my son. I forgive you so I can be totally free to tell the truth and live the truth and encourage my son to do the same.

I have to go now. I love you. Good-bye Dad."

* * * 

Today is one month before the beginning of Lent.  I am planning to go through another season of Lent with Peter Rollins and Friends in the "Atheism for Lent" course.  Peter says he revamped the course, so I am looking forward to a new experience.  

This whole blog started with my desire for authenticity.  I wanted to be "real".  Another word that I struggle with may also fit.  I want to tell the "truth" about me.  This week, I've been reading a book called "The Grief Recovery Handbook".  One of the authors shared a story about his son and a baseball through a neighbour's window.  His son opted to tell his dad the truth of what happened, instead of covering it up and lying about it.  John admitted that part way through his son's confession, he stopped listening to his son and started planning a punishment for the broken window.  He later remembered that his dad would punish him when he told the truth.  The letter to his dad reveals a revelation to John that I am equally amazed at and doubt as a viable life lesson.  

When does telling the truth ever give us a free pass from the consequences of our actions?  

I have admired parents who in the moment of hearing their children's confessions, accept the truth as the end of the story.  No punishment or further consequences are required after an honest confession is given.  But is it at all preparing the child for the real world... where truth doesn't excuse the consequences?  

Let's take my whole deconversion experience.  There are moments that I feel punished for being honest.  Those moments lead me to wonder if lying about my spiritual status would have been better; less heart breaking for others.  For a social Enneagram 4, it is punishment when something I've done hurts someone else.  

I started this blog last year to honestly process my thoughts in conjunction with the reading material I was getting in the "Atheism for Lent" course.  But over the course of the year, I have shared my story and seen sadness in people's eyes, or imagined it, if I didn't see it.  I have doubted myself and my actions.  Maybe lying would have been more loving.  

I don't know if I'm convinced yet.  I have to say that for the most part, the people that are closest to me haven't abandoned me.  (a big Enneagram 4 fear).  I have been pretty blessed or lucky (however you want to describe it) to have amazing people in my life.  But there have been a few that I feel like lying, not being forthright and honest, is preferable.  Bursting their bubble seems cruel.  Especially when their bubble is what keeps them breathing.  

I've heard a lot of stories from people who have had it a lot worse than me.  People lose families and friends and marriages break up.  

This year, I want to see "Shame" take a back seat to "Integrity".  I want to feel good about myself, just the way I am.  I have shed some religious weight over the years and I am tired of feeling less about myself because of the fear of disappointing others.  

I don't want to be punished for telling the truth, or being honest, or telling my story.  I want to be valued for being me.  Maybe it's a long shot.  I live in a world filled with people who value certainty more than diversity.  I look at others and see their foundations and what keeps them functioning in a very broken world.  When I admit that I don't have the same foundations, what choices do they have? 

1. Fear for my life, because I am not following the "narrow way" they subscribe to.

2. Fear that their foundation might be faulty, if I can live without it.  

3. Abandon our relationship so they don't have to think of the first two options. 

4. Wonder if maybe there is room for more than one way to navigate life

5. Embrace me and find some common ground

I started this blog post off with a quote from Mahatma Ghandi.  He would be on my top ten list of inspirations of all time.  He was all about finding common ground with others that didn't subscribe to his belief system.  He was about finding the truth and being passionate about expressing his convictions. I admire people like that... but it cost him his life.  

Truth is still a troubling subject for me.  I don't like the word.  It gets confused with opinion and interpretation. I will end this post with a quote that intrigues me.  I don't know if it is "true"... but what if it was?  How would that change things for me?  

How was "Atheism for Lent"?

I still don't know if I want a God.  That label still holds baggage for me.  But if I did.  I would like a God I could hug.   (from Day 33)

I got a text today... "How was Atheism for Lent"?

I published a blog with 45 posts during my journey, all I could think of was... how do I sum up a response in a text?  

I decided to go through all my posts... all 45 of them, and get something from my words that could help to answer that question.  So if reading the whole blog is too much... this is the Reader's Digest Version.  

These are my words (with the exception of three quotes that I put in italics)  This is the closest I get to offering a collection of Ruby Neumann quotes.  

(for access to the post for each day, click on the Day # and it will forward you to the whole post) 

Day 1:  When the darkness is there, when the blackness is visible from my earthly vantage point... No clouds, no smoke screen... just the vastness of space... I see light.  I seen the stars or the moon.  The darkness in its purest form invites me back to light, and yet still lets me rest in the shadows of the night.  How beautiful is that.

Day 2: What happens when someone I love opens up their computer and reads the words I have penned in my space?  Does the magic end?  Will I be condemned instead of being loved?  Is their love really that conditional and incapable of embracing me in my rawness?

Day 3: Today, I am grateful for fire.  It keeps my house warm in the cold winters.  Fire also gives me peaceful pleasure when I sit by the camp fire on the deck and watch the flames dance.  I take for granted that this is a gift that might have cost somebody something. In the bible stories... fire just was.  But in the story of Prometheus, I was given a character that sacrificed himself for my comfort and enjoyment.  That is why I don't forget that story. 

Day 4: I am not a stranger to the stories of WW2.  I grew up around three German Canadians, my Opa, my Oma and my Dad,  who had their own horror stories of the war.  Those were a different kind of horror.   But their stories didn't matter.  They were seen as the enemy even through they were abhorrent to regime in power that caused so much destruction and tyranny to their neighbours and their home.    

Day 5: In listening to Peter Rollins weekly talk for AFL2022 on Youtube, he encouraged us to read and listen without agreeing or disagreeing. I find it absolutely freeing to read a lot of literature that comes my way like that.  Just to read it and take it in without having any conclusions about the material. 

Day 6: One of the reasons I don't like the term God is that it is so vague. I also don't want to label the Creator of the Cosmos with a word that has been reduced to a common cuss world. (God, Jesus, Jesus Christ)... If we are going to discuss the possibility of something or someone that started this whole Universe... then it has to carry more weight than a swearword. 

Day 7: "Very few people in the world would have a God if care had not been taken to give them one."  I really need to digest this one.  

Day 8: But when it comes to approaching the game with some wisdom... it's not about changing Lucy's way of playing the game... it's about not playing the game with Lucy anymore.  

Day 9: Today, I heard the words of Charles Darwin.  I saw some of him left behind in his words, and I could connect.  His story is not unlike my own.  But I wonder if most don't know his story, because, like me, they didn't take the time to see him through and around his words.  This is what I am gaining in "Atheism for Lent".  I am getting a chance to see the people behind the words.  

Day 10: Today I am heavy with thought.  Bart Campolo has introduced me to Robert Ingersoll over and over again on the "Humanize Me" podcast. Ingersoll is a big influence for Bart and I can understand why.  There is so much depth in the dives of his thoughts.

Day 11: I have noticed that not too many people are asking me to reveal my inner soul with them.  Most just enjoy my presence on a social level and express that.  Much beyond that can get awkward.  I have been feeling the lack of the deep places in my relationships,  but I am seeing more clearly that its not always required to navigate life.  Aaahhhh the journey... 

Day 12:  Today,  I feel like I am flying in an airplane looking out the window, longing to be a bird... sad, but happy that at least I am up in the clouds.   I wonder if I am free.  Maybe being on the ground was free and being in this hollow metal tube pretending I'm a bird is not freedom, but captivity.  

Day 13: Maybe the best we have in life is the great "I don't know" and that is the journey.   What if... the "what if's" became more valuable as we lay aside certainty and absolute knowledge.  Our imagination becomes the springboard of the conversation and we can discover an amazing world, not bound by the need to have the answers. 

Day 14: The poet in me is excited at the idea that casting doubt on religion's factual foundations is indeed a beautiful thing.  The agnostic in me is thinking it is necessary for my sanity. The lover in me wonders at the timing and where Love fits into the dance.  But the child in me is frightened that doing so will be another invitation to abandonment.  

Day 15: I write and publish, if only on this obscure blog, to remind "Shame" that I know those lies, and I don't want to believe them anymore.  Love is real and Love wants to drive out Fear and Shame. I am whole. I am free.  I am intertwined with Love. 

Day 16: What kind of "God" inspired that risky graffiti venture?  What kind of pain was so horrid and oozed through that person that made them risk their life to paint those words on the bridge?  What kind of doctrine was painted in their mind that convinced them of that response?   

That painter could have written "God hates me" as a response to internal pain or self absorbed pain,  but that wasn't what was written.  "God Hates us ALL" and ALL was in all caps and underlined.  

Day 17: I am not feeling much of anything except peace.  Maybe this story is allowing me to see that had I still embraced a controlling God narrative, then I couldn't embrace the beauty amid the chance of this story.  There is no normal.  There is only beauty.  

Day 18: As I travel through this Lenten period, I have no goal but enlightenment.  I long to shed light (awareness) into those areas of my world that have been dominated by the shadows.  I don't want to be that person that is fearful of the unknown because of where it will take me.  I want to be encouraged and challenged by that which I have avoided my whole life.  

Day 19: I have been harvesting quotes from some of these great minds, because I don't think I will get to read their books.  Authors like Feuerbach, Ingersoll, Kierkegaard all are inspiring me, but to invest more time and energy in reading them all... well, I don't know if I can... so I will collect the best thoughts and peruse them from time to time.  

Day 20: I don't want to take away a person's faith and belief if that is their lens to see the world and be a better person... but to add to that... now that would be something worth wishing for.  Then maybe I wouldn't be so scared of thinking anymore.  

Day 21: I don't know when real flowers die.  Do they die when they wither or do they die when they are cut?  Good question.  

Day 22:  Today I will let Pete and Joe dominate this post.  I am weak and sick and tired and have little energy to contribute to this forty day commitment to write something.  All I can say.... beautiful song, Joe! 

Day 23: I let another day go by with a body lacking energy to expound on this... so I will let Emma and Peter do the talking once again.  I have included segments of Emma's essay... these snippets are what moved me the most in the reading.  

Day 24: I got "How (Not) To Speak of God" today.  I started reading it.  It might be a lot of stuff I have already read in the other books, but it is Pete's first. 

I actually got the book based on Brian McLaren's raving forward.  With him speaking so highly of it, it was a no brainer for me.  I didn't have it accessible on my Ibooks, so Manfred ordered from Amazon for me.  It's my birthday present.  

I found an interesting quote:  

"Just because you're offended, doesn't make you right." 

Day 25: Thank you Friedrich, for some amazing wisdom.  

I downloaded a collection of quotes from the internet, and selected some that I either resonate with, or am challenged by, or need to seriously reflect further on.  That doesn't mean that I agree or disagree with any or all of them.  I like that I don't have to agree or disagree in order to gain from someone's wisdom.

Day 26: Only one thought today:   "One man's meat is another man's poison."

Day 27:  Had I known that I'd be in too much pain today to write, I just might have listened to that voice inside.  "No one is going to read this.  No one is going to care.  No one will know what boils in the heart of you."

Day 28: This reminded me of the average church service.  People gather around the celebration of someone who they don't see and can't hear.  That person is in attendance... at least that is what they have been told.  But there is no real evidence of that.  There maybe moments when they think that someone is communicating to them, but then others are clueless. 

Day 29: Well.  this is called Authentic Lent.  I am at day 29 and authentically have reached my maximum potential for intake on this course.  I am tired, worn out, sick, and my brain isn't processing the great stuff like I had hoped.  But I will keep going until the end and will find something of value.   

Day 30: Ten days left and I don't know what to write about.  These last two weeks have been draining on me physically.  My brain started out okay with AFL material, but I am over whelmed and feeling like I did when I was taking Computer Programming at NAIT.  I feel like I got in over my head.  

Day 31: I think I live in a world that has a balance issue. When one side is over weighted, the response is to overweight the opposite side in order to create balance.  Maybe that has to happen because we don't know how to ditch the baggage overweighting us in the first place.  So then it becomes the other's responsibility to offset the balance by extra baggage on their end, tipping the scale in their favour.  Then the original overweighted side adds more weight to offset their lack and it goes on and on.  No one learns how to ditch the baggage and even out the scales.  

Day 32: If I can aim to be like Mother Teresa... like what she did overrode her struggles with her belief and faith... I will be alright.  She didn't let her doubts and disbeliefs slow her down.  She did what she did for as long as she could do it.  Her values gave her direction when her faith couldn't.  

Day 33: For me, Aslan is not human and that is his redeeming feature.  He is strength, wisdom, life and love.  In Aslan, I see the Creator beyond that which I can limit in my imagination.  That is the beauty.  I can float with my wonder and not have to be concerned with proving texts.  I can take the story and become wrapped in it.  How precious is that.  

I still don't know if I want a God.  That label still holds baggage for me.  But if I did.  I would like a God I could hug.  

Day 34: I find that the more I distance myself from the need to believe, I find that I can embrace the joy and spirit that still attracts me to the music.  I understand that the musicians and vocalists still need to embrace the words, and that is okay.  That is their journey.  I'm just excited that I don't have to let go of the whole song, just because the words don't make sense to me anymore.  

Day 35: Maybe some where along the journey, we have become frustrated with the elusive answers, and we have settled on explanations of the unknown instead.  We only see the unknown or unknowable or the unknowing... and it isn't satisfying us, so we use mystery as an answer and a conclusion.  But maybe there was never meant to be an answer or a conclusion.  

Day 36: I tread lightly on the claim of truth now.  I am not being a coward;  I am just putting my relationships ahead of my own need to be right.  I am letting Love override Truth.  What is Truth without Love?  And then when Love is there, is there a need for claiming what I have is Truth?  What if Love is enough.  Love and my opinion if I need to say anything.  Everything else seems arrogant to me.  

Day 37: If God is that which man has created to explain life, then maybe there is a hope that God can be seen, even as low as the bathroom floor.  But if that which gave her breath, breathes in her and through her... then that very breath exhausts itself on the bathroom tiles and waits to be taken in again.  In, Out... that is how breath works.  Not something high above looking over her, but in and out as she labours to breathe.  Not only that which gives her breath... but Breath itself.  

Day 38: Is the Resurrection all that makes Jesus matter? Was his life worth nothing if the Resurrection can't be proved?

Day 39: I am still going to say that I am 2000 years past the story and that is a long time to hang on to something that is life changing for me now.  I don't think I am able to envision a Creator that is going to be limited to a revelation from 30 CE and expect it to hold through millennia without getting twisted, marred and seriously out of date.

Day 40: I am officially christening the Sunday before Easter as Poplar Sunday.  I know there aren't leaves on the trees yet, but in the spirit of recreating a story in this time and space, poplar is what I have to offer.  

Day 41: This journey through Atheism for Lent has been enriching for me.  I have been given a look inside the windows of many a soul and have found more beauty in the empty hearts.  Empty hearts always have room for others.  

Day 42: I think these six weeks have been about letting go of a lot of things.  Maybe letting go of toxic relationships, maybe letting go of expectations, maybe letting go of the need to be right all the time, or even right most of the time.  

Day 43: Leading up to Good Friday, I am asked to remember that someone died.  Instead of pretending that this tragedy didn't happen or pretending that it happened but there would be a miraculous event to end my sadness... I am letting go.  I am unplugging the machines, I am facing reality.  I am going to find some flowers to lay at the grave of Jesus.

Day 44: If foot washing was an act of love back in 30 CE, is it still an act of love now and if not... why is it being done.  Oh yeah... ritual?  

Day 45: Atheism for Lent is over.  We finished our time together with a funeral of a very different flavour.  There were readings and music.  There was a time for silence and a time for shared sorrow.  There was beauty in all of it.  

DAY 45: Good Friday: "Being the Resurrection"

Atheism for Lent is over.  We finished our time together with a funeral of a very different flavour.  There were readings and music.  There was a time for silence and a time for shared sorrow.  There was beauty in all of it.  

Pete ended it off with this parable from his book "The Orthodox Heretic"  that was the most profound of all.  I want to share it here as the last message for this blog.   

"Being the Resurrection" From "The Orthodox Heretic" 

Peter Rollins 

Late that evening a group of unknown disciples packed their few belongings and left for a distant shore, for they could not bear to stay another moment in the place where their Messiah had just been crucified. Weighed down with sorrow, they left that place, never to return. Instead they travelled a great distance in search of a land that they could call home. After months of difficult travel, they finally happened upon an isolated area that was ideal for setting up a new community. Here they found fertile ground, clean water, and a nearby forest from which to harvest material needed to build shelters. So they settled there, founding a community far from Jerusalem, a community where they vowed to keep the memory of Christ alive and live in simplicity, love, and forgiveness, just as he had taught them.

The members of this community lived in great solitude for over a hundred years, spending their days reflecting on the life of Jesus and attempting to remain faithful to his ways. And they did all this despite the overwhelming sorrow in their heart.

But their isolation was eventually broken when, early one morning, a small band of missionaries reached the settlement. These missionaries were amazed at the community they found. What was most startling to them was that these people had no knowledge of the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, for they had left Jerusalem before his return from the dead on the third day. WIthout hesitation, the missionaries gathered together all the community members and recounted what had occurred after the imprisonment and bloody crucifixion of their Lord.

That evening there was a great festival in the camp as people celebrated the news of the missionaries. Yet, as the night progressed, one of the missionaries noticed that the leader of the community was absent. This bothered the young man, so he set out to look for this respected elder. Eventually he found the community’s leader crouched low in a small hut on the fringe of the village, praying and weeping.

“Why are you in such sorrow?” asked the missionary in amazement. “Today is a time for great celebration.”

“It may indeed be a day for great celebration, but this is also a day of sorrow,” replied the elder, who remained crouched on the floor. “Since the founding of this community we have followed the ways taught to us by Christ. We pursued his ways faithfully even though it cost us dearly, and we remained resolute despite the belief that death had defeated him and would one day defeat us also.”

The elder slowly got to his feet and looked the missionary compassionately in the eyes.

“Each day we have forsaken our very lives for him because we judged him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of our being. But now, following your news, I am concerned that my children and my children’s children may follow him, not because of his radical life and supreme sacrifice, but selfishly, because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life.”

With this the elder turned and left the hut, making his way to the celebrations that could be heard dimly in the distance, leaving the missionary crouched on the floor.

Day 44: Go in Pieces and wash some feet?

Maundy Thursday is today.  What is Maundy?  I looked it up.  Something about a command to love and foot-washing.  I am wondering if foot-washing has any significance in an era where people wear shoes instead of sandals.  The whole idea of foot-washing back in Jesus' day was to clean the dirt and sweat on the feet acquired from walking in sandals.  

I have been a part of foot washing ceremonies before, but I don't remember them as an act of love.  I think that was the whole idea of the original foot washing story on the night before the crucifixion.  Jesus was showing love to his disciples and asking them to show love as a response.  Well in 30 CE... washing someone's feet was an act of love because it was something a servant did.  Is it really an act of love now, or just a ritual? 

I am all about updating our expressions.  I can think of more loving expressions than foot washing in 2022.  

If foot washing was an act of love back in 30 CE, is it still an act of love now and if not... why is it being done.  Oh yeah... ritual?  

So we have convinced people that those things which were loving 2000 years ago, are still loving today? In two thousand years, things change... maybe we can find something else to do to show love that means something to the person we are showing that love to.  Maybe we don't have to ask them to take off their socks and shoes today.  

That being said... when I was a child... I went barefoot everywhere... so I would get dirty feet.   My mom would give me a basin with warm soapy water and a wash cloth, so I could wash my feet.  Yep... two thousand years later... I'm washing my own feet.  But at least she gave me the water.  

I will end with today's reflection.  It is the last one, so it is appropriate... "Go in Pieces"  How beautiful is that!  

"The task has ended. Go in pieces. Our faith has been rear-ended, certainty amended, and something might be mended that we didn’t know was torn. And we are fire, bright, burning fire, turning from the higher places from which we fell, emptying ourselves into the hell in which we’ll find our loving and beloved brother, mother, sister, father, friend. And so friends, the task has ended. Go in pieces to see and feel your world."

Pádraig Ó Tuama

"The Catholic Church ends her services with the benediction ‘Go in Peace’. This poem by Ó Tuama was written as a closing benediction for Ikon. As you listen, you’ll hear how it affirms the fragmented nature of our existence. As such, I can think of no better way to end this journey." 

Peter Rollins