Confessions of a Lapsed Atheist
Aug. 25th, 2004 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojI started to reply to an entry about faith by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jenniferjames in private, but by the time I was done, I had a huge monstrous e-mail on my hands and it had gone way beyond what I meant to send to her. I guess there was a lot inside me, trying to get out. So at the risk of alienating even more people, here it is:
***
I. Background
I said tojenniferjames on her lj that my own musings about faith are not meant as a general put-down towards people of faith. Maybe a background thingy would be helpful here.
I was raised mostly atheist. My father had little or no respect for belief of any kind. My mother did, but although we usually lived on a different continent than my father, he had a very strong presence, so the bulk of my upbringing was staunchly atheist. And when I say he had little or no respect for belief, that's putting it mildly. To him, it was obvious that there was nobody Up There, no Creator, no life after death, no God, no soul, etc etc. He honestly believed, and would say at the drop of a hat, that anybody who believed in a higher power/being must be brain dead or crazy.
And I have to say, on a purely logical level, I still agree with what I was taught as a child. Humans have held such a huge variety of contradictory beliefs throughout history. The world was fashioned by a god of pottery; no, it was vomited from a god's mouth; no, the Earth Mother was impregnated by the Sun Father and gave birth to all creatures and humans; no, God created Heaven and Earth in six days; etc. As for afterlife, we've believed that the dead go on to heaven, or hell, or purgatory, or Valhalla if they were good warriors, or another (human) life, or another (human or nonhuman) life, or the Celestial Bureaucracy, or sail to the next life only if their earthly body is carefully preserved, etc etc.
When I look at all of that, it's hard (for me) not to feel that since not all of the above can be true, maybe they're all delusions of some sort.
My mother didn't say much about her beliefs, other than to state that she didn't belong to any religion and to occasionally put down organized religions when they showed blatant hypocrisy, small-mindedness, hatred, etc. However, she also occasionally pointed out things that were hard to explain without recourse to a higher power. Priests and nuns risking their lives to help political prisoners in Chile. People surviving incredible hardships like the Holocaust through the strength of their faith. Sunsets. Babies. Poetry. You get the point.
I did grow up with a healthy respect for the teachings of Christ, whether he was the son of God or not. My father told me once that he and my mother tried "to be good Christians, without believing in Christ." I took that as my motto for a long, long time - and perhaps it still is my motto, who knows. My sigfile on my yahoo mail right now says, "If his words hold wisdom, and his philosophy is honourable... what does it matter if he returns? What is important is that we follow his teachings. Perhaps the words are more important than the man."
The quote is from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the person spoken of is Kahless (the Klingon prophet) and not Christ, but the sentiment is true to what I believe about Christ as well.
***
II. Me and Religion
I've always wondered what it must be like to wholeheartedly believe in anything. I've always been on the outside, looking in. I've sung in choirs in churches, even belonged to St. Mary's Cathedral Choir in Kingston for a while, listened to sermons and prayers in churches, public events, weddings and funerals. I stand next to people who obviously feel something while all of this is going on... and mostly feel absolutely nothing, myself. Nothing spiritual, that is. Singing in Christmas concerts and singing Negro Spirituals are what bring me closest to belief of any kind. Every year that I'm involved in Christmas concerts, it seems to me that that much love and devotion to Christ and God can't be wrong. That much beauty can't come from nowhere. There has to be somebody inspiring it, and giving it back.
And then the concerts are over, and I go back to doubt.
This sounds somewhat sad and forlorn, and it's really not. I'm interested in faith, and I wonder about it, and I often think it would be nice to feel reassurance of the otherworldly kind, but I really don't normally feel like I'm missing anything. I love my family, I have deep moral and ethical beliefs, I am (mostly) happy with my life, and all (mostly) without God. My curiosity about faith is more of an intellectual and sociological than a personal nature.
I mean, faith can be a force for so much good. Christmas music and spirituals aside, there's also all that my mother pointed out to me as a child, and much more.
Unfortunately, faith can also be used for hideous ends, and can justify all sorts of things. Homophobia, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, child abuse, genocide, terrorism, environmental devastation, wars, etc - all have been fuelled by faith. I know that many of the antidotes to all of the above have been fuelled by faith as well. But when it comes to faith, the good guys don't always win. It's even hard to tell sometimes who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys. Abortion, for example: are the good guys those who staunchly (and sometimes at great risk to themselves) defend a woman's god-given right to control her own body? Or those who risk their own lives to protect those of the unborn? I've heard both sides claim the support of God for their positions.
So, I'm curious. Contrary to what my father taught me, most intelligent people do believe in something beyond the concrete. How can that be? What does that feel like? What does it mean, that most human beings believe in something? Is faith (or at least some belief) necessary to human beings, to human society?
I've thought about it off and on for most of my life, asked questions and observed and thought some more. And when I started writing fanfic, faith was one of the things I wrote about a lot. One of the first characters I latched on to was Rey Curtis from Law & Order. I tend to be drawn to characters who I would probably avoid like the plague if they were real people I had to work with. Rey, much as I love the guy, fills that requirement admirably. But the one thing that really drew me to him was the fact that he was so unapologetic about his religious beliefs. Remember, I was raised to think that nobody with half a brain could possibly believe. So here's this intelligent, educated, fairly down-to-earth guy, who staunchly believes all sorts of things that make no logical sense whatsoever. How can that be? I've spent acres and acres of fanfic exploring that.
Another character I really latched on to was Jack McCoy, who has been shown to have a fairly complex attitude towards faith. He's practical, unsentimental, ruthlessly logical... and yet there are chinks in the logical armour, places where the logic doesn't quite gel with the emotional reaction of a man raised by Jesuits. Yes, I know it's due to the fact that the writers of Law & Order have no character Bible and don't remember from one episode to the next whether a character even has kids or not, but still. It's intriguing. It's real. It's something that's there not just on TV and in fanfic, but in real people as well. And it's something I've tried to explore.
***
III. Why the crisis of faith now?
I wrote tojenniferjames as a comment to her entry that
My own difficulties with belief right now are a personal thing, composed of all sorts of elements: personal mourning, examples of un-Christian acts by supposed Christians, world events, family interactions, lifelong ambivalence, etc. If any of this has hurt you or made you feel that I'm belittling your beliefs, I'm truly sorry.
My mother's death and her funeral have hit me pretty hard in terms of faith. I had always assumed that if I ever had to deal with the death of someone close to me, I'd probably finally admit that I believed in a higher power. Instead, I feel myself almost forcibly driven back to my atheist roots. Religion and faith have surrounded me and sometimes been literally shoved at me, in all manner of ways, great and small, since my mother's death.
Eg #1: about an hour after she died, Justin said something to the palliative care doctor who was there, and she told him, "Well, you don't have to worry about her any more - your Grandma's in Heaven now."
Justin isn't being raised Christian. Chris, who's raising them both Buddhist with my consent but without my active participation, has told him that Grandma has gone on to her next life. So Justin didn't have much of an idea of what the doctor meant by "gone to Heaven". And it never occurred to her to doubt that he wouldn't understand her or agree with her.
Eg #2: Chris has not shoved Buddhism at me, but I do feel a little lonely in a house where the other three members comfort themselves with thinking they'll probably meet her again in another life, or that even if they don't, at least she's not totally gone. I don't feel that assurance. A very large and steadily growing part of me truly believes that all that is left of her are pictures, stories, memories, and an urn full of ashes waiting for me to decide what to do with them at the McGarry Funeral Home.
Eg #3: My father forwarded me an e-mail from a friend of my mother's, with the subject line "Julia's rebirth." My father was the one who was mourning the loss of one of his closest friends - but some guy who was friends with her twenty years ago responded to the news of her death by telling him she wasn't really dead. Whether he meant it as a comfort or not... it just seemed disrespectful, to me.
Eg #4: There are many, many other examples like the above, but the minister at my mom's funeral was the person who shoved the hardest. I think I could have accepted the overly Christianity-filled sermon with some equanimity, had he not directed a section of it to me, personally. Maybe I should transcribe it, but I don't have the heart to listen to it right now. Suffice it to say that I was (and am) somewhat repelled, that a person who had been told "the deceased was not religious" and "I am not religious" should have taken the opportunity of her funeral to shove his religious beliefs at me.
I didn't feel all that much about it at the time. Now, I feel like... well, if that was meant to bring me into the fold, and it's had this profound an effect the other way... what does that mean? I know that supposedly, God works in mysterious ways. But this is beyond mysterious, it's bizarre. Could God have wanted me to be targeted at the funeral for my mother, in a way that would repel me deeply, instead of comforting me?
The fact is, it hurt. I was (and am) feeling a loss bigger than any I've ever had to deal with. I am my mother's only child, and she was a single parent. It was literally just her and me for most of my childhood. Now my childhood, mostly, is gone - there is nobody who remembers it but me. In-jokes between the two of us are gone. Stories where I was never sure of all the details - now I'll never know them. Parts of my childhood that I'd forgotten, but that I assumed would turn up at some point during my boys' lives (ie, my mother saying "Don't worry, Daniel, your mother also had a lot of trouble learning to tie her shoelaces") will never surface again. Stories about my mother's childhood and her life, her marriage to my father, her parents, her experiences in Chile during the coup, as a foreigner in Morocco, as an immigrant in Canada - that's all gone.
In the midst of this loss, during her funeral, I was offered not a caring, "if you remember her, she'll be with you," or a gentle "think of how lucky you were to have her there for as long as you did," but an unwanted lesson in the Christian belief system. "If you don't believe in Christ, how can you possibly deal with her death? What other comfort could you possibly have?"
I don't believe. At least, not wholeheartedly. So, according to the man who performed her funeral service, there is no comfort, no recovery, nothing positive to be gained from her existence in my life.
I know, he's one man, and he shouldn't affect me this deeply, especially since I do have my own Godless ways of dealing with her loss. But the fact is that he's one man who had a position of some authority at a very vulnerable point in my life, and it's just not that easy to shrug off the pain that his words caused then, and still cause now.
I was going to wrap this up with my observations re. oppression/silencing of persons of belief v. persons of non-belief, but that grew to be its own monster entry and feh. Later. Tomorrow, maybe. Right now I'm going to bed.
(and at this point lj died on me last night, so I'm posting in the morning instead)
jenniferjames in private, but by the time I was done, I had a huge monstrous e-mail on my hands and it had gone way beyond what I meant to send to her. I guess there was a lot inside me, trying to get out. So at the risk of alienating even more people, here it is:I. Background
I said to
jenniferjames on her lj that my own musings about faith are not meant as a general put-down towards people of faith. Maybe a background thingy would be helpful here.I was raised mostly atheist. My father had little or no respect for belief of any kind. My mother did, but although we usually lived on a different continent than my father, he had a very strong presence, so the bulk of my upbringing was staunchly atheist. And when I say he had little or no respect for belief, that's putting it mildly. To him, it was obvious that there was nobody Up There, no Creator, no life after death, no God, no soul, etc etc. He honestly believed, and would say at the drop of a hat, that anybody who believed in a higher power/being must be brain dead or crazy.
And I have to say, on a purely logical level, I still agree with what I was taught as a child. Humans have held such a huge variety of contradictory beliefs throughout history. The world was fashioned by a god of pottery; no, it was vomited from a god's mouth; no, the Earth Mother was impregnated by the Sun Father and gave birth to all creatures and humans; no, God created Heaven and Earth in six days; etc. As for afterlife, we've believed that the dead go on to heaven, or hell, or purgatory, or Valhalla if they were good warriors, or another (human) life, or another (human or nonhuman) life, or the Celestial Bureaucracy, or sail to the next life only if their earthly body is carefully preserved, etc etc.
When I look at all of that, it's hard (for me) not to feel that since not all of the above can be true, maybe they're all delusions of some sort.
My mother didn't say much about her beliefs, other than to state that she didn't belong to any religion and to occasionally put down organized religions when they showed blatant hypocrisy, small-mindedness, hatred, etc. However, she also occasionally pointed out things that were hard to explain without recourse to a higher power. Priests and nuns risking their lives to help political prisoners in Chile. People surviving incredible hardships like the Holocaust through the strength of their faith. Sunsets. Babies. Poetry. You get the point.
I did grow up with a healthy respect for the teachings of Christ, whether he was the son of God or not. My father told me once that he and my mother tried "to be good Christians, without believing in Christ." I took that as my motto for a long, long time - and perhaps it still is my motto, who knows. My sigfile on my yahoo mail right now says, "If his words hold wisdom, and his philosophy is honourable... what does it matter if he returns? What is important is that we follow his teachings. Perhaps the words are more important than the man."
The quote is from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the person spoken of is Kahless (the Klingon prophet) and not Christ, but the sentiment is true to what I believe about Christ as well.
II. Me and Religion
I've always wondered what it must be like to wholeheartedly believe in anything. I've always been on the outside, looking in. I've sung in choirs in churches, even belonged to St. Mary's Cathedral Choir in Kingston for a while, listened to sermons and prayers in churches, public events, weddings and funerals. I stand next to people who obviously feel something while all of this is going on... and mostly feel absolutely nothing, myself. Nothing spiritual, that is. Singing in Christmas concerts and singing Negro Spirituals are what bring me closest to belief of any kind. Every year that I'm involved in Christmas concerts, it seems to me that that much love and devotion to Christ and God can't be wrong. That much beauty can't come from nowhere. There has to be somebody inspiring it, and giving it back.
And then the concerts are over, and I go back to doubt.
This sounds somewhat sad and forlorn, and it's really not. I'm interested in faith, and I wonder about it, and I often think it would be nice to feel reassurance of the otherworldly kind, but I really don't normally feel like I'm missing anything. I love my family, I have deep moral and ethical beliefs, I am (mostly) happy with my life, and all (mostly) without God. My curiosity about faith is more of an intellectual and sociological than a personal nature.
I mean, faith can be a force for so much good. Christmas music and spirituals aside, there's also all that my mother pointed out to me as a child, and much more.
Unfortunately, faith can also be used for hideous ends, and can justify all sorts of things. Homophobia, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, child abuse, genocide, terrorism, environmental devastation, wars, etc - all have been fuelled by faith. I know that many of the antidotes to all of the above have been fuelled by faith as well. But when it comes to faith, the good guys don't always win. It's even hard to tell sometimes who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys. Abortion, for example: are the good guys those who staunchly (and sometimes at great risk to themselves) defend a woman's god-given right to control her own body? Or those who risk their own lives to protect those of the unborn? I've heard both sides claim the support of God for their positions.
So, I'm curious. Contrary to what my father taught me, most intelligent people do believe in something beyond the concrete. How can that be? What does that feel like? What does it mean, that most human beings believe in something? Is faith (or at least some belief) necessary to human beings, to human society?
I've thought about it off and on for most of my life, asked questions and observed and thought some more. And when I started writing fanfic, faith was one of the things I wrote about a lot. One of the first characters I latched on to was Rey Curtis from Law & Order. I tend to be drawn to characters who I would probably avoid like the plague if they were real people I had to work with. Rey, much as I love the guy, fills that requirement admirably. But the one thing that really drew me to him was the fact that he was so unapologetic about his religious beliefs. Remember, I was raised to think that nobody with half a brain could possibly believe. So here's this intelligent, educated, fairly down-to-earth guy, who staunchly believes all sorts of things that make no logical sense whatsoever. How can that be? I've spent acres and acres of fanfic exploring that.
Another character I really latched on to was Jack McCoy, who has been shown to have a fairly complex attitude towards faith. He's practical, unsentimental, ruthlessly logical... and yet there are chinks in the logical armour, places where the logic doesn't quite gel with the emotional reaction of a man raised by Jesuits. Yes, I know it's due to the fact that the writers of Law & Order have no character Bible and don't remember from one episode to the next whether a character even has kids or not, but still. It's intriguing. It's real. It's something that's there not just on TV and in fanfic, but in real people as well. And it's something I've tried to explore.
III. Why the crisis of faith now?
I wrote to
jenniferjames as a comment to her entry thatMy own difficulties with belief right now are a personal thing, composed of all sorts of elements: personal mourning, examples of un-Christian acts by supposed Christians, world events, family interactions, lifelong ambivalence, etc. If any of this has hurt you or made you feel that I'm belittling your beliefs, I'm truly sorry.
My mother's death and her funeral have hit me pretty hard in terms of faith. I had always assumed that if I ever had to deal with the death of someone close to me, I'd probably finally admit that I believed in a higher power. Instead, I feel myself almost forcibly driven back to my atheist roots. Religion and faith have surrounded me and sometimes been literally shoved at me, in all manner of ways, great and small, since my mother's death.
Eg #1: about an hour after she died, Justin said something to the palliative care doctor who was there, and she told him, "Well, you don't have to worry about her any more - your Grandma's in Heaven now."
Justin isn't being raised Christian. Chris, who's raising them both Buddhist with my consent but without my active participation, has told him that Grandma has gone on to her next life. So Justin didn't have much of an idea of what the doctor meant by "gone to Heaven". And it never occurred to her to doubt that he wouldn't understand her or agree with her.
Eg #2: Chris has not shoved Buddhism at me, but I do feel a little lonely in a house where the other three members comfort themselves with thinking they'll probably meet her again in another life, or that even if they don't, at least she's not totally gone. I don't feel that assurance. A very large and steadily growing part of me truly believes that all that is left of her are pictures, stories, memories, and an urn full of ashes waiting for me to decide what to do with them at the McGarry Funeral Home.
Eg #3: My father forwarded me an e-mail from a friend of my mother's, with the subject line "Julia's rebirth." My father was the one who was mourning the loss of one of his closest friends - but some guy who was friends with her twenty years ago responded to the news of her death by telling him she wasn't really dead. Whether he meant it as a comfort or not... it just seemed disrespectful, to me.
Eg #4: There are many, many other examples like the above, but the minister at my mom's funeral was the person who shoved the hardest. I think I could have accepted the overly Christianity-filled sermon with some equanimity, had he not directed a section of it to me, personally. Maybe I should transcribe it, but I don't have the heart to listen to it right now. Suffice it to say that I was (and am) somewhat repelled, that a person who had been told "the deceased was not religious" and "I am not religious" should have taken the opportunity of her funeral to shove his religious beliefs at me.
I didn't feel all that much about it at the time. Now, I feel like... well, if that was meant to bring me into the fold, and it's had this profound an effect the other way... what does that mean? I know that supposedly, God works in mysterious ways. But this is beyond mysterious, it's bizarre. Could God have wanted me to be targeted at the funeral for my mother, in a way that would repel me deeply, instead of comforting me?
The fact is, it hurt. I was (and am) feeling a loss bigger than any I've ever had to deal with. I am my mother's only child, and she was a single parent. It was literally just her and me for most of my childhood. Now my childhood, mostly, is gone - there is nobody who remembers it but me. In-jokes between the two of us are gone. Stories where I was never sure of all the details - now I'll never know them. Parts of my childhood that I'd forgotten, but that I assumed would turn up at some point during my boys' lives (ie, my mother saying "Don't worry, Daniel, your mother also had a lot of trouble learning to tie her shoelaces") will never surface again. Stories about my mother's childhood and her life, her marriage to my father, her parents, her experiences in Chile during the coup, as a foreigner in Morocco, as an immigrant in Canada - that's all gone.
In the midst of this loss, during her funeral, I was offered not a caring, "if you remember her, she'll be with you," or a gentle "think of how lucky you were to have her there for as long as you did," but an unwanted lesson in the Christian belief system. "If you don't believe in Christ, how can you possibly deal with her death? What other comfort could you possibly have?"
I don't believe. At least, not wholeheartedly. So, according to the man who performed her funeral service, there is no comfort, no recovery, nothing positive to be gained from her existence in my life.
I know, he's one man, and he shouldn't affect me this deeply, especially since I do have my own Godless ways of dealing with her loss. But the fact is that he's one man who had a position of some authority at a very vulnerable point in my life, and it's just not that easy to shrug off the pain that his words caused then, and still cause now.
I was going to wrap this up with my observations re. oppression/silencing of persons of belief v. persons of non-belief, but that grew to be its own monster entry and feh. Later. Tomorrow, maybe. Right now I'm going to bed.
(and at this point lj died on me last night, so I'm posting in the morning instead)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 05:38 am (UTC)When I titled my entry, "Oh ye of little faith", I was referring to myself. IF I have faith as I say I do, why do I fear speaking out in discussions of belief? Why do I fear rejection, or ridicule or even loss of friendship? How can being popular and well liked possibly be more important than having the courage to take what might be viewed as an unpopular stand? And why should it matter so much to me that people think my beliefs are foolish?
Turning things into a blame game was a way of trying to shift responsibility for things I'd rather not deal with. I understand now that these are questions nobody can answer for me BUT ME.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 02:07 pm (UTC)I don't think you had much to do with it - this is just a tough time overall. Apology accepted, but not necessary.
Normally I'd let a friend going through a rough time know that I was praying for them, but that doesn't seem appropriate.
I don't mind when people say they're praying for me - in fact, I'm touched by their concern. It's only when I'm told that I need to pray that I start to feel somewhat disrespected. On the same vein, "I believe your mother is in Heaven" feels very different from, "You can take comfort from the fact that your mother is in Heaven." The one expresses a personal belief. The other pushes that belief at me.
How can being popular and well liked possibly be more important than having the courage to take what might be viewed as an unpopular stand?
IMHO it matters to all of us, whether we know it or not - it's only that sometimes we have to go beyond that and stand for what we believe in, whether it makes us popular or not.
You don't strike me as a person who shies away from expressing what may be seen as unpopular views. I disagreed with, but very much respected, your post to the effect that you believe marriage should be reserved for heterosexual couples. At a time and place where most of us were loudly and frequently expressing the exact opposite POV, your courage was remarkable, and it made me respect you all the more.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 04:59 pm (UTC)There have been times when I questioned the wisdom of speaking out on that subject. I think my lingering doubts about it are part of the reason I hesitate to express what would, in all likelihood, be yet another unpopular view. But I guess when it's all said and done, I just need to have faith that the people who've taken the time to truly know me understand where I'm coming from.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 05:54 am (UTC)I'm sorry about your mother's loss. I really can't conceive of not having my mother around, but I realize that it will most likely be something I have to deal with some point in my life. While no one said it to you at the funeral, I hope you don't mind my saying not that your mom is in Heaven smiling down, but rather that she will always be with you. Okay, corny, yes, but as long as someone remembers her, she can't truly die. It may hurt for an extremely long time to remember her, but there may come a time when it doesn't hurt so much. Wherever she is, whether her soul has evaporated into the air, or if she's on some other plane of existance that'll make some weirdo religious people happy, she was a precious gift to you.
They seriously shouldn't have said that to you. That preacher guy sucks massive donkey balls.
Rey
Yeah, you make some very good points. Not only is this guy a logical guy who will use technology to his advantage, but check out that total crisis of faith in AFTERSHOCK. I mean, dude, if ever there were a time for a character to grow, that was definitely it. Okay, not sure if the writers did an extremely good job of it, but I thought it was a very interesting curve ball to see lobbed at our man Rey.
Jack
Have you seen the number of eps where Jack's attacked religion? Yes, he was raised in the Jesuit faith, but he also acts like they did something to him, like Jamie teasingly implies in one episode where Jack has to try a person who makes some kind of religious claim as a defense for murder (I can't remember which ep it was! Ack!).
Still, throughout Jack's run on the show, he has been very much a character that seems to have a very flexible code of ethics, despite the fact that he's getting older with each passing season. He still bends the rules like a pro, but one thing you can be sure to count on is the fact that if religion enters the equation, he's gonna fight tooth and nail against it.
Just some thoughts. Squee!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 02:21 pm (UTC)That's... a quirky way of putting it, but it strikes a chord with me ;)
That preacher guy sucks massive donkey balls.
LOL!! Oh, I feel so wrong for laughing at a man of the cloth, and I wouldn't have put it that, uh, colourfully, but... yeah.
Okay, not sure if the writers did an extremely good job of it, but I thought it was a very interesting curve ball to see lobbed at our man Rey.
Yeah, me too. I think Rey is probably one of the only characters that were actually allowed to grow over the seasons. Season 9 Rey is very different from Season 6 Rey. Too bad most other characters seem suspended in amber or something.
Have you seen the number of eps where Jack's attacked religion?
Oh, absolutely - I think Serena said once, "What did those nuns do to you?"
But he also shows himself to be at least somewhat ambivalent many times. Thrill, for example, where the only way he can get a guy is to use a taped religious confession. He's very torn about whether to do it or not. Adam says something like, "You're the last person I would've expected to have a problem with this," and he replies, "Nobody's more surprised than me."
And later, Rey asks him not to use the confession and Jack replies, "Why, because it offends your religious convictions... and even my own?"
In the same scene, Rey says, "You're Catholic," and he replies, "Not when I'm at work," instead of "Hell, no!"
There's a lot of subtlety there. It shows up in a few other eps, like The Collar and Disciple, but I don't have those on tape so I can't call up the quotes from memory.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 02:27 pm (UTC)Point of fact from the resident former Catholic and unofficial go-to person for these things:
Ain't no such thing. Jesuits are a Catholic order, not a separate sect. More learned (at least officially) than other orders, perhaps, but they have no beliefs that are particular to their order. They tend to be more intellectual, and they are (or at least were, I'm not sure what the protocol is now) particularly involved in the study of law, both temporal and ecclesiastical.
I don't believe they are officially considered a teaching order (as are the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who taught me during most of my years at school) they do staff many Catholic universities, and boys' schools. When my father attended Saint Louis University, and later law school at the same uni, he was taught by Jesuits at both colleges. Jack probably had a similar connection. And if you were taught by Jesuits, you have had a minimum four years of Latin, and at least two of Greek...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 02:31 pm (UTC)...and as Jack says, "When you're raised by Jesuits, you grow up either obedient or impertinent."
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 08:40 pm (UTC)What a lovely way to put that. Yes, she was a precious gift - to many, many people, including myself.
That preacher guy sucks massive donkey balls.
LOL! I'm sorry I can't help picturing. hee hee.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 07:52 am (UTC)I can really relate to a lot of what you're saying here, although I was not raised an atheist--choosing atheism and then later agnosticism was a *choice* for me, a rebellion against what my parents wanted me to believe.
My agnostic grandfather supposedly made a deathbed conversion back to Christianity after many months of hospice care, and it was very frustrating for me to hear people go on and on about how wonderful that was at his funeral, because to me it seemed like a negating of who he'd been. I can only imagine how much harder it must have been for you to deal with what was going on at your mom's funeral and the time surrounding it.
These days, I get frustrated when some people express this huge relief that I've finally found "a spiritual path" in Buddhist practice, because it's not about any kind of spirit, it's about something that makes rational sense and that works. Thay doesn't even teach reincarnation, after all (although he does talk about some Christian concepts in a way that sometimes annoys me, even though he's talking about "the kingdom of heaven" as being a state of mindfulness anyone can achieve on this earth).
Eh, anyway, this is turning out to be more about me than I wanted it to be--just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in some of these thoughts and feelings.
*more hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 05:01 pm (UTC)I can imagine. How annoying.
I read a letter written by Carl Sagan's widow once, who said that contrary to everybody's wishes she would not tell everyone that he'd made a deathbed conversion and finally realized the error of his atheist ways. I found it sad that so many people had apparently pressured her to "end his story on a happy note" - as though living and dying as an atheist were somehow just not quite right. Yes, the man was brilliant, an excellent communicator, popularized astronomy for a whole generation, wrote countless successful books (fiction and non-fiction) and articles, etc etc... but he was an atheist. What a pity.
Did they ever stop to think that perhaps his atheism was part of who he was, and why he did/thought much of what he did and thought?
Would we try to negate somebody else's belief system - say, for example, Martin Luther King Jr - if it didn't quite fit into what we'd like? I'm sure many atheists would love to claim that MLK Jr. wasn't motivated by his profound faith, but by strictly rational observation that nonviolence was simply more efficient than violence in achieving societal gains. But that would negate pretty much everything that MLK was, and it would be unfair not only to him, but to people of faith everywhere.
I get frustrated when some people express this huge relief that I've finally found "a spiritual path" in Buddhist practice, because it's not about any kind of spirit, it's about something that makes rational sense and that works.
I always enjoy reading about Buddhism in your lj. I've noticed a lack of detail about the faith-based aspects of Buddhism, but it really seems as though the philosophy and practice of Buddhism in your daily life is something that brings you many positive things. The fact that it's not accompanied by religious belief in reincarnation shouldn't mean it's somehow less worthy, IMHO.
I find it disturbing that to many people it seems as though, if you don't believe in something spiritual, you can't possibly be a full human being. Like, you can't really love your fellow humans, feel there's some purpose to your life, appreciate the sunset, be a moral person, etc if you don't have God in your life. I'm pretty sure I do all of the above. Why am I somehow 'less' than a person who does all of the above because of God?
Anyway. Thanks for understanding - and thanks for hugs :)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 09:11 pm (UTC)Personally, I have seen faith carry my little sister through a terrible time after she was assaulted. It gave her strength, comfort, community. In search of such things, I also dabbled with churchgoing after seeing it's affect on her and through the encouragement of two boyfriends. Yet, when it came to my own crises, I didn't find any comfort there. Since then, however, my sister has dabbled in some New Age stuff and seems not to follow any particular faith. And I have still not found any answers for myself.
Julia's death is my first experience losing someone I knew and cared about. And, Jim, I have to tell you how proud I am of you and how you've handled everything. Personally, I don't think I handled or am handling things that well (and I can only barely begin to understand the scope of your loss). Maybe because I don't have a belief system for structure or comfort. But I do know that I will always carry my memories of Julia with me - part of who I am today is because of her influence. And I can see reflections of her when I look at you - and that is, as your mom would say, "fantastic".
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 06:23 am (UTC)See, to me this is far more comforting than being told that she's in heaven, because it's something I can grasp and believe. And it feels like it makes her life on this plane have meaning, whether there is another plane of existence or not.
Personally, I don't think I handled or am handling things that well
I'm sorry. If there anything I can do to help?
And I can see reflections of her when I look at you - and that is, as your mom would say, "fantastic".
I can almost hear her say that :) And it's a wonderful compliment to hear.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 03:06 pm (UTC)As for the funeral minister - giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he just doesn't have any mental scripts for funerals that aren't religious? It probably troubled him a great deal that you didn't have the comfort of Christ in this trying time and he honestly believed he was helping you cope by bringing Christ to you. Belief and logic chase each other around in a nasty circle, to the point where the most fervent chasers can't see anything outside the circle.
It's the same thing with cell phones. People swear by them, and try to get you to use one if you don't, telling you how convenient it is, assuming your life is just incomplete without one, and just can't fathom why you wouldn't be subscribing right away. It's never a matter of just accepting that you're not interested in having a cell phone, they just blithely assume you don't know what you're missing yet.
I'm having a reverse dilemma about religion from you right now. Being pregnant has me doing a lot of dwelling on parenting, and one thing that naturally arises is how to teach one's children about religion. I am not religious in the least, and while I've reached the maturity to say that it's good for some people and I would want my children to be aware of religion, I would not brainwash them into any particular brand during their impressionable years. However, my hubby is Catholic, and when we got married eight years ago, not planning to EVER have kids, I made the, at the time, empty promise to raise them Catholic, otherwise they would not let us get married. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get out of this one without hurting the hubby's and the families' feelings.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 07:51 pm (UTC)LOL!! Yeah, well, colour me narrow-minded, but I'd have to agree with you on that one ;)
Belief and logic chase each other around in a nasty circle, to the point where the most fervent chasers can't see anything outside the circle.
I may have to print this out to put next to my computer screen.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to get out of this one without hurting the hubby's and the families' feelings.
Oh, ouch. I don't envy your position right now. Religion and families... yeah, that can be somewhat touchy territory. Have you broached the topic yet, or are you still in the wondering stage?
Hope it works out OK.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 10:21 am (UTC)Frankly, first we have to get over the "why do you automatically assume the baby will have your last name?" argument! Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-27 06:01 pm (UTC)For us, that one ended on a draw ;)
Belief
Date: 2004-08-31 05:24 pm (UTC)I hope I am not double posting, but the post I was previewing and checking for spelling errors disappeared on me! Maybe God was trying to tell me something!
I wanted to tell you that I am so sorry you lost your Mom.
Adding to this discussion, I am an atheist. I am an atheist for the same reason people believe in God. It is intuitive and visceral. In the pit of my stomach, I KNOW there is no God and I have to live my life in accordance with that gut feeling. People who believe in God do so because they feel God in their "soul". They do not believe in God because of reason or logic. In the same way I am an atheist because of a gut feeling. Logic and reason have nothing to do with my decision.
I think it is possible to be an atheist or a religious person and still accept the experiences of others which lead them to different conclusions. If someone has experienced God, it would be wrong of them to pretend what they have experienced does not exist and it would be hard for them to live their life in a way that negates what they have experienced. And, as an atheist it is the same for me.
I can not tell a person they have not been reincarnated, they are in a better position to know than I am. But also, they cannot tell me that there is a God or karma or order in the universe when I have had experienced the LACK of such things.
I guess I am asking if it is just tilting at windmills to try and find a answer for everyone to accept, instead of accepting that we will never know and that people simply have to live their life in accordance with their souls or gut feelings.
Logic does not point to a lack of God, but neither does it point to the existence of God. It is a mystery like so much else of life.
As to the adage, "there are no atheist in fox holes," I must disagree. In my experience the epiphany that you are an atheist strikes you at just such times. Jeez, I am in the WORST situation I can be in and to top it all off, I just realized, I AM AN ATHEIST! LOL!
The grass is always greener on the other side. People with genuine faith, still have doubts from time to time, while atheists think their lives would be easier if they believed. I guess we have to chalk this one up to the human condition! ;)
Re: Belief
Date: 2004-08-31 07:26 pm (UTC)Yeah, I go with Option 2. I can't be convinced of what I have never experienced. And I have no need to convince others out of their experiences, even when their experiences seem to fly in the face of logic from where I'm sitting. If their beliefs help them to live happier/more serene/more productive lives, more power to them - as long as they don't shove their beliefs at me with the assumption that they will benefit me in the same way.