The People Journal

Atheism for Lent – They know not what they do

Posted by: Jim Mondry

Monday, March 21st, 2011 at 9:52 pm

Do you know why you perform the religious acts that you do? I have been at churches for many years that spend most sermons explaining the religious significance behind all of the various practices that the denomination performs. To suggest that there is anyone who doesn’t understand the significance of a monetary offering, or why the Eucharist is celebrated, would sound out-right ignorant.

There are four parallels that Freud sees between Religious Practices and Neurotic Ceremonials:

1) The compulsive character of the practice (i.e. the individual exhibits a conscientiousness of the practice, and there exists an anxiety accompanying any deviations, neglect or interruption in their performance)

2) Isolation of the act from other activities, making it easy to conceal from others (leaves the social behaviour unaffected).

3) The acts are symbolically meaningful, even in the details

4) Those who perform a given act in either case do so without understanding its meaning, or at any rate its chief meaning.

What struck me about this, was how true this is about my faith. Points two and three are fairly obvious, but one and four have something for me to personally explore. For a number of years, I’ve struggled with going to church. At times it’s been a real effort to drag myself out, as I really have not wanted to go. This has often been due to a wide variety of reasons, but when even I have “skipped out”, I have often had a sense of guilt. Usually if I skip one week, it’s a great feeling of freedom (picture “Homer the Heretic“), but if it goes on too long, I have a strong feeling of guilt around not going. I’m great at rationalizing that guilt – I worry that not going to church will negatively affect my spiritual life, I worry it will affect my relation to God, I worry that I may never want to go back, etc.

I’ll be honest, in that I think there is something else going on inside my head, rather than a true worry about my faith or anything so noble. How much of our Christian practices are based on a desire to be part of a community? How much is out of a desire to be obedient to our parents? (I cherry picked questions that applied to me, there are many other questionable reasons to perform religious acts)

I think personally, I worry more subconsciously about not going to church for the absense of a community to be part of. Most of my life, my friends and community have been created through faith groups. I’ve had school friends and work friends, but consistently my closest friends have been through my church. If I stopped going to church, how would I meet people to connect with? This has been such an important part of my social identity for so many years, to abandon it now would be quite traumatic.

I wonder, if somehow as a child the idea of being obedient to my parents through going to church still stands? I found odd ways to rebel as a child, but for the most part I mostly sought my parents approval through doing what was asked (though not often in a positive sense). I wonder how much of that still is affecting my decision making? What is more likely is that my relationship with my parents (one of obedience out of a desire for approval) has be transfered to “my heavenly father”, so I have the same perspective on obedience - if I don’t obey (in this instance go to church), I won’t have God’s approval. Guilt has been a driving factor in my obedience both to my parents, and in my Christian life (which is why I think Roland’s idea of “Beyond Guilt” is so profound).

What is the spiritual act that you struggle most with doing, but can’t bring yourself to give up (and tithes/offerings don’t count)? If you look at yourself honestly, why do you keep doing it? As human’s we’re great at rationalizing things, but not so good at looking underneith.

For the record, I’m not saying that I should give up going to church, but I think its important to consider that there may be negitive reasons holding me hostage. I wonder if I was able to get past those, what it would look like for me to attend?