Why This Atheist is Observing Lent

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vlad-chituc/why-this-atheist-is-obser_b_2750047.html

Vlad ChitucNeuroscience Researcher, Blogger, Atheist

Posted: 02/23/2013 2:22 pm

This is my second year practicing Lent. It's not that I've recently converted to Catholicism, or that I'm only now reflecting on the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, fasting and resisting temptation from the Devil. I don't actually believe in much, if any, of that--I'm as much an atheist now as I've ever been. But I find something really compelling and human in the practice of Lent, and I think it's something a lot of other atheists, if they'd like, can find enrichment from.

Atheists talk an awful lot about abstract intellectual values like Logic or Reason, and, insofar as these words mean something above simply denoting vague and feel-good smart-person-signifiers that We have and They (believers) don't, these values are certainly important. But so many human failures, particularly my own, aren't failures of rationality or clear thinking. Rather, what seems to trip us up is a more human failing -- we lack the willpower, strength, or foresight to do what we already know is right.

There's not a person alive who doesn't know there's something they should be doing: eating healthier, giving more to charity, spending more time with family, not sleeping with your ex, and so on. What inspired me was eating vegan -- I knew, knew, that the exact same arguments I gave for not eating beef or chicken logically applied just as well to eating eggs and dairy. But the transition to a vegan diet is so much more difficult and daunting than the transition to a vegetarian one. So I decided, somewhat on a whim, to try out being a vegan for Lent last year.

It was hard, and I made a few missteps. Most importantly, I discovered just how difficult it is to eat, and otherwise live your life, deliberately. It's hard to notice how much of our living is automatic until, vegetable-in-mouth, you realize that, yes, ranch dip has dairy in it.

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[grantcart]

1. "Lentivus for the Rest of Us" Somebody get an aluminum pole.

[djean111]

2. He is not "observing Lent".

He is using a period of time earmarked by a religion in order to fine-tune his choice of diet.
Nothing wrong with that, but he is not observing anything but his vegan diet. On a whim.
I do get tetchy when anyone, atheist or not, refers to atheists en mass in reference to anything but not believing in a god.

[cbayer]

3. That irritates me as well, just as those that make blanket statements about theists

or christians do.

[skepticscott]

4. "vague and feel-good smart-person-signifiers"??

What a smarmy pile of horseshit. Yeah, dude..."Logic" and "reason" do actually mean something...much more in fact than the self-important title of "blogger" that you added to your self-promoting "byline".

Classic "I'm an atheist, but....." diatribe, full of phony self-deprecation and snarky sideswipes at atheists who he perceives as less enlightened than he is.

[trotsky]

8. It's a formula that plays remarkably well among liberal/moderate believers.

Someone who helps them with their triangulation attempts to portray Richard Dawkins (who admits he isn't absolutely sure that no god exists and promotes a scientific, rational approach to understanding the world) as the "same thing" as hysterical religious fundamentalists who fly planes into buildings, murder girls accused of adultery, or bomb abortion clinics.

If you can't portray those folks as the two "extremes," how else could you possibly place yourself right in the sensible middle?

[brooklynite]

5. So, why Lent?

Why not a New Year's Resolution? Or a summer change of pace?

Or just start doing what you think you should be doing whenever you have a chance?

[cbayer]

6. He seems to be drawn to the structure of this period

and perhaps he likes doing it when other people, possibly friends/family/co-workers are doing it as well.

He also speaks to the proscribed period playing a role.

[kwassa]

7. The hardest thing about being a vegan is finding good restaurant food.

I like trying new foods all the time, but finding good vegan options is really hard. There is lots of vegetarian cuisine in the world, vegan, not so much.

[cbayer]

9. I just heard a story on the radio about a vegan chef who won a national cupcake

contest. Do you know anything about her?

She talked extensively about the challenges, but it sounded like she was doing some great work.