Someone sent me Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens to read.

A woman is sitting in her garden. She’s having coffee and oranges. There’s fruit on the trees, and a cockatoo. Lovely, I thought. It all sounds very nice. But so what?

I struggled through the poem until…

Death is what?

I have experienced plenty of beauty in my life. It was all very nice, but what does death have to do with it? Does death create beauty? Would we still have beauty if we did not have death? Why can’t we have mystic beauty forever?

I had to start over to find the answers.

Our lady is sitting in her garden on a Sunday morning, when she is supposed to be in church. She is enjoying the beauty and her dreams, until the dark dreams start to creep in.

What is that old catastrophe? It’s death, isn’t it? Death is coming.

At first, she is afraid and mourns the things that will be lost when she leaves this life behind. Her delightful garden. Her cockatoo.

Christians tell us life is just a brief preamble while we wait for everlasting life in heaven. But how do we know heaven is coming? We have no evidence for it. People talk about it, and we can dream about it. But how do we know?

The narrator reminds us there is plenty of beauty to cherish here on Earth, without thoughts of heaven. Plenty of natural beauty. Plenty of ripe fruit.

Would we want life to be all delightful, all the time? Heaven is supposed to be always joyful, but I expect it would get boring without the ups and downs that we experience down here on Earth. We need some bad to highlight the good.

Would we even recognise the good without the bad to contrast with it? Do they even have bad in heaven? Or is it just good that goes on forever and ever?

Just imagine. You wake up on a Sunday morning, and there’s coffee and oranges, and then the same thing the next day. And the day after that. And this will go on forever because you are immortal now.

We need to experience the ups and downs to really appreciate the ups. It will soon get boring if every day is filled with sunshine.

Lao Tzu had something to say about this.

A first reading of Lao Tzu says that perhaps if we get rid of beauty, it will save us from the negative emotions that come with ugliness. But do we really want to get rid of beauty?

This takes us back to the lines that helped me understand what Sunday Morning is all about.

We can’t appreciate the good without some bad to contrast with it, and death is the worst bad of all. The promise of death encourages us to cherish life with all its beauty. Without death to focus our desires, the beauty will lose its charm.

Most of us would probably agree that dying is the worst thing that can happen to us. Being alive is always better than being dead.

But wait! While death is pretty bad, it’s not as bad as being tortured. You probably don’t want to watch your children get murdered either. Maybe dying is not the worst thing that can happen.

Dying is not the same as being dead, though. You are still alive while you are dying. Dying can drag on and on, bringing pain while your organs shut down. Once you are dead, your pain will be gone — but your pleasures will be gone, too. You won’t have any awareness of being dead, and you will be dead forever (Belshaw). But before you have to die, you have to live, and that’s where we’ll start.

How long do you want to live?

Dying young is the saddest time to die. Someone who has been around a long time will usually be more prepared to die than someone who just turned twenty. But how long will be long enough?

Philosopher Bernard Williams says that most of us would prefer to live forever. Some people would be happy to just sit and look out of the window for an infinity of years, and Williams calls this just living. But while just living is good enough for many, the rest of us need more excitement to make life worthwhile. But how much excitement?

Imagine you are Eric Clapton and you are pretty good at playing the guitar. You know quite a few rock songs and can play them well. If you practice for a few more decades, maybe you can learn to play all the songs. But eventually, you’ll get bored with playing the guitar. Maybe you can learn something else? Try the piano? Drums? They’ll all get boring after infinite days. Painting? Science? Cooking? Visiting Polynesian Islands? The list is finite, and you’ll eventually be bored with all of them. You’ll end up just living, and who wants nothing but just living for the rest of time?

Williams says we pursue some desires, like eating when we are hungry or sleeping when we are tired, just to stay alive. Other desires, like raising a child or achieving a lifelong ambition, give our lives meaning. But when we are done with all those, living forever doesn’t sound so appealing. Satisfying the same desires forever is no longer desirable.

The arguments so far are hypothetical. We don’t really have the option of living forever to satisfy our desires. In the real world, we have our three score years and ten —and maybe just a little bit more — but is that long enough? Learning the guitar and raising those grandchildren fits into an average lifetime. You could even visit Tahiti or live in Manhattan, too. But once you get past eighty, visiting Tahiti seems less appealing, and eventually, just living will be all that fills your days.

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

— Psalm 90, KJV

Epicurus says we should not fear death because we won’t even be there. Lucretius, too, asks: if we aren’t afraid of the time before we were born, why should we be afraid of the time after we die? What is there to be afraid of?

These arguments from Epicurus and Lucretius say we should not be afraid of death, but they say nothing about how much we can enjoy being alive. Even if being dead isn’t so bad, we’ll miss out on the things that make us happy.

The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.
— Audrey Hepburn

But being happy doesn’t last forever. As we get older, our ability to enjoy life’s pleasures declines. We get sick and endure pain. Our bones get weak, and our senses fade. Eventually we might decide that dying wouldn’t be so bad (Williams). But how do we balance the good things against the bad things? How should we choose when to die?

Thomas Nagel has a little thought experiment for us. Imagine that every Monday, after your cup of coffee, you are given a choice: you can live one more week, or you can die painlessly in a few minutes. Nagel says he would always choose to live another week. What would you choose? Would you make the same choice forever?

According to Williams, it’s nearly always too early or too late to die. The simplest solution is to do nothing and just accept the day that death arrives. If we are lucky, we’ll die just before it becomes unpleasant to stay alive. Tacitus had something to say about that.

Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis.

[You were truly lucky, Agricola, not only in the brilliance of your life, but also in the timing of your death.]

— Tacitus

But what if you are not lucky?

We’ve talked about those who die in their 20s — non vero felix! — but what about those who live to eighty or ninety? I expect it’s always too early for some — many will want to watch their grandchildren grow, or walk in the park with an elderly sweetheart — but what about when that is all over?

Just living will be enough for some, but not for me. I have my early death booked already, even if I haven’t picked a date yet. Whether that involves a trip to Switzerland, some opium poppies or an uninvited visitor in my brain, I’d prefer an early departure to just living.

Betty said she prayed today
For the sky to blow away
Or maybe stay
She wasn’t sure

— Nick Drake

People die in many different ways. Which way would you choose, if you could choose? The easiest option is to live until you are 90 and then let nature take you away — but that’s not what I would choose for myself.

Many would rather die suddenly, with no expectation that the end is coming. Maybe you are flying over the Alps, and the captain announces that you are going to crash. You have a little time to say your prayers. You can even call your wife and tell her you love her, but you won’t be coming home. Even better, perhaps the plane explodes before you even know what’s going on. You have no time to regret all the things you haven’t done yet, and no time to be afraid of the death that will take you away. You are just gone. If this one’s your favourite, you could learn rock climbing or white water kayaking.

Too many people have to face a horrible disease that keeps them around for a few days… or months… or years. Or maybe the disease is not so horrible; it’s fatal, but without the excruciating pain. You don’t know exactly when death is coming, but you know it is coming, and you have time to teach your family to pay the electricity bill, test the smoke alarms and organise their taxes. You’ll have lots of hugs and kisses before you go, and you’ll eventually drift off into sleep and won’t wake up. This one sounds good to me. This is the one I would choose.

But what if that horrible disease really is horrible? Lots of pain. Drooling. Anal leakage. You’ll suffer in bed for weeks and months while your wife and family take care of your bedsores and change your bedpan. When you finally reach the end, you will choke until you choke your last breath. Most of us wouldn’t want anyone to die like this, unless they are one of those politicians in the House of Lords who blocked the Assisted Dying Bill.

Dying might go on for a while, but dying only happens while we are still alive. When we are dead, it’s all over. Assuming there is no afterlife, there is nothing more. There are no memories, no hopes, no pains, and no dreams. We won’t even be aware that we are dead.

Belshare shares a fairy tale where two young lovers enjoy a candlelit dinner. Jazz band, Champagne, oysters. A first kiss. After their romantic rendezvous, they drive home, but the young lady loses control of her car and hits a bridge. She is killed instantly before she is even aware of what has happened. She dies without pain, and she experiences no fear.

The young lady’s death brings sadness to her family and friends. Relatives bring flowers to her funeral, and her lover sheds many tears. However, the young lady knows nothing of her death. Did anything bad happen to her?

Most of us will say, “Of course! She had her full life ahead of her. And now she is gone.” Isn’t that obviously bad?

Epicurus and Lucretius argued that death isn’t bad for us after all, and we shouldn’t be afraid of it. They both believed the world is made of particles (long before scientists discovered atoms) and after we are dead, we go back to being particles once more. Being dead means nothing to us because we no longer exist. If Epicurus and Lucretius are correct, it’s wrong to say that this young woman is harmed in any way. She had no fear or anxiety, and she did not suffer at all. Her family mourns her death, but she knows nothing about any of this (Belshaw).

What obligations does the deceased’s family have? Before you die, you tell your family, “When I die, I’d like to be buried on the edge of the woodland in a cotton shroud with a small choir singing English folk songs.” Your family promises to satisfy your wishes, but what happens if they break their promise? Who will be hurt? Keeping the promise pleases no one, and breaking the promise hurts no one, either.

You should make those plans anyway, even if your wishes might not be followed. If your family decides to ignore your wishes and sends your body for cremation, there’ll be no one to be bothered. But if your family does decide to celebrate your life, they won’t have the burden of worrying how. They’ll just have to buy that cotton shroud. Extra bonus: if they follow your wishes, you won’t end up in an expensive mahogany coffin with a plush velvet interior that costs twelve thousand dollars.

C.S. Lewis wrote about the death of his wife in his memoir, A Grief Observed, and I have often wondered whether mourning is easier for Christians who believe in an afterlife. Is it easier to accept the death of a loved one if you are sure that you will meet again? Lewis says it is not.

A Grief Observed begins with the unbearable pain that came from losing his wife (he refers to her as H.), then takes us through his changing emotions as he comes to accept her death: still suffering in each phase of grief, but suffering in a different way.

By the end of the book, Lewis still feels her absence — “like the sky, spread over everything” — but where once he felt that he shared his body with his lost lover, now his body is just an empty home.

He takes us through the stages of their loss — through dying, death and mourning. Even when H. is dying of cancer, they still share the joy of living together; their joy continues to flow even when all hope of living is gone. After she passes away, Lewis contrasts the joy of living with the grief of being without her. According to Lewis, the one who survives will never understand what it is like to be the one who dies — this much is true. But he also asserts that it will always be worse for the one who dies, but I think he has this wrong. In the tragedy he describes, where the lovers have time to prepare, it is so much harder for the survivor to understand what it will be like to live alone, while the other has nothing to do but die. It is harder for those who will grieve.

But that grief does not stay the same forever.

What does it matter how this grief of mine evolves or what I do with it? What does it matter how I remember her or whether I remember her at all? […]

Already, less than a month after her death, I can feel the slow, insidious beginning of a process that will make the H. I think of into a more and more imaginary woman. […]

But won’t the composition inevitably become more and more my own? The reality is no longer there to check me, to pull me up short. […]

What pitiable cant to say ‘She will live forever in my memory!’ Live? That is exactly what she won’t do. […]

What does it matter how I remember her or whether I remember her at all?

— C.S. Lewis

Lewis’ mourning begins with a cry that his pathway to God was shut and bolted by his loss, but later, he wonders if it was his own need for grief that slammed it closed. This might be true, too, for those who need help from their family — While our grief is fresh, we have to suffer it alone, and we have to re-learn how to ask for help.

Most of us don’t understand what a complex business it is to die. The agony of preparing to die can be hard, but it’s harder for those who will be left behind. In addition to visits to the hospital, your family has to learn to pay the bills and figure out where the money is hidden. Of course, if you die suddenly, you have none of this to deal with. But if you know what’s coming, you can be ready, and you can share your ability to know the future with your family, so that they can know, too.

Then you can share in the joy of living.

• Christopher Belshaw (2005). 10 good questions about life and death.
• Bernard Williams (1973). Problems of the Self.
• The Holy Bible: King James Version.
• Lucretius (Ancient Rome). De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things).
• Epicurus (Ancient Greece). Letter to Menoeceus.
• Thomas Nagel (1970). The Possibility of Altruism.
• Tacitus (Ancient Rome). Agricola.
• Nick Drake (1969). Riverman.
• C.S. Lewis. (1961). A Grief Observed.

If you enjoyed this post, maybe share it with a friend?

My friend told me “That’s really not the point. It’s not about who knows him. It’s about being there.” He sent me a link to an essay on the Internet called ‘Always go to the funeral’. It’s an amazing essay and it changed my mind about a lot of things to do with religion.

Here’s a little snippet.

On a cold April night three years ago, my father died a quiet death from cancer. His funeral was on a Wednesday, middle of the workweek. I had been numb for days when, for some reason, during the funeral, I turned and looked back at the folks in the church. The memory of it still takes my breath away. The most human, powerful and humbling thing I’ve ever seen was a church at 3:00 on a Wednesday full of inconvenienced people who believe in going to the funeral.

http://thisibelieve.org/essay/8/

Among my circle of friends, we have adopted this rule and have a little ceremony when someone dies, that goes like this.

“Are you going to the funeral?”
“What’s the first rule of funerals?”
“Always go the funeral.”
“See you there!”

Now it’s my turn.

My Dad died last week and I am so very, very sad. We now have a big family debate about how to honour his passing. Dad fulfilled a long-standing dream to retire to Spain (actually, he always said Portugal, but Spain is right there next door) and, after decades away, my family is worried that there is no one left who remembers him to join us as we say goodbye. There’s also a bit of a debate as to whether a Christian memorial service is appropriate for a man who did not have a religious bone, vein or gristle in his body.

The Spaniards were very efficient with the cremation and there was no service. But now we want to do something with a bit more significance and the choices at hand are:

1. Scatter ashes in Footscray Meadows – the scene of many a childhood memory.  Dad taught me to fish there. My brother climbed a tree with me to show me eggs in a bird’s nest. Most of my early misdeeds were there. It’s the first place I ever tried to cycle across a river. I have very fond memories of Footscray Meadows.
2. Memorial service at the church in Rectory Lane. It’s the only church I really know well. My Dad was married there (the first time around) and I was christened there along with my brothers and sisters. My grandmother was buried there a couple of years back.

The nub of the debate is whether it is inappropriate — disrespectful, even — to a man who was not so much an atheist as a never-really-gave-religion-any-thought-eist to give him a memorial service in a church. Here’s my response.

I am the biggest atheist I know but I think the one thing that religions do well is a funeral. Secular funerals feel kind of empty to me — like they are missing the point. I think the best kind of funeral connects you with two thousand years of western tradition and then sends you to the pub where you drink Guinness and laugh about the awful couch that your parents had in the 1970s and the good times that you shared and then you cry about the loss that you all feel. That’s a funeral. Scattering ashes in a park is not quite the same for me.

My sister Carol researched our family tree a few years back. She traced our heritage back many generations – back into the 16th century – and discovered that no one in our family moved more than two or three miles from Footscray in all those centuries. But in a generation or two we have scattered to the four winds. I have cousins all over England and Northern Ireland and in France and Australia and the Clown Family made it all the way to California. My dad’s family was not from Footscray though. His family was from way, way north — about 4 or 5 miles north — in Eltham.

So, is it appropriate to give a decidedly non-Christian from Eltham a Christian memorial service in Footscray where all his children were born and christened? I can’t think of anything more appropriate.

My sister is a bit worried that it’ll be just us there in that church – four sad children remembering the life of a very special man and the very special lady who took care of him during his most vulnerable days. If it’s just us, it’ll be wonderful. But I’m willing to bet that there will be more than a handful of folks who remember us and are willing to fill the empty pews behind us. I hope you’ll read that essay and remember the edict: Always go to the funeral. I’ll buy you a Guinness if you come. You can buy me one too.

I’ll never forget the moment — at my nephews’ christening — where my sister and I had to renounce Satan and all his works and we snuck a glance at each other and my sister said something like “This is the bit where we get struck by lightning or arrested for perjury”.  But I feel very grateful for the privilege of being a godfather even if neither I nor my godsons believe in God. Religious ceremonies are not about religion, they are about ceremony and tradition and the Church of England does those particularly well.

That little church in Footscray is like a Tardis for me. Sitting in those pews transports me back through my memories and even further back into the memories of so many centuries past.

I shared some of these thoughts once before in Don’t Break the Chain. I imagine a chain of tradition and mythology stretching back for a thousand years and we shouldn’t be the ones to break it. It’s too precious.

One of the occasional duties of a 10-year-old at my school was Hymn Sheet Monitor. There were two monitors to each hymn sheet contraption and, when the music teacher said ‘Hymn number 127’, one of the monitors would undo the rope from the cleat and lower the contraption from the ceiling. The other monitor would then rummage through the giant (to a 10-year-old) sheets of paper looking for hymn number 127. After lots of searching and then hefting of hundreds of sheets – each bigger than a 10-year-old – the first monitor would heave on the rope to return the contraption to the ceiling and then hang on with all his strength while the other monitor belayed the rope to the cleat.

Then the singing would commence.

The singing was fantastic. I remember one time, we had a visit from the Mayor of Bexley in all his mayoral robes and he pronounced that “he would always remember this as the singing school”.

We sang every one of those hymns. There were the hymns that everyone knows like What a Friend we have in Jesus and All Things Bright and Beautiful and Onward Christian Soldiers but there were also a few pop-songs-turned-hymns like Lord of the Dance, Morning has Broken and Any Dream Will Do from the Rice/Weber blockbuster and plenty of obscure songs that I have never heard before or since.

I was reminded of one of those obscure songs last week – my absolute favourite – when I read the most beautiful passage in the New Testament in Luke while camping at Sunset Beach.

36 And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. 37 And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, 38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

I loved that song. I wish I remembered all the words. I have the melody down on my harmonica but my memory, and Google, fail me for the lyrics.

Here’s what I remember:

Said Judas to Mary, “O what will you do
With your ointment so rich and so rare?”
“I’ll pour it all over the feet of the Lord
And I’ll wipe it away with my hair.”
She said.
“And I’ll wipe it away with my hair.”

Said Judas to Mary, “O think of the poor.
Think of the riches you can give to the poor
Something something something
If, your ointment, you sell it today.”
He said.
“If your ointment, you sell it today.”

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll think of the poor.
Tomorrow.” she said. “Not today.
For today I must think of my only true Lord.
For my Lord who is going away.”
She said.
“For my Lord who is going away.”

It’s funny how memory works – for that song to spring back into my mind so nearly complete after 30 years. I wish I remembered the rest.

It’s funny too how our collective memory works. So many of the most vivid, rich scenes spring from throwaway one-liners like

7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

and

11 And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.

The whole nativity is only 20 verses of Luke, less than that in Matthew and not covered at all in Mark and John. Matthew and Luke made those little bits up but, in 2000 years, we did the rest.

The discussion led to all kinds of ideas and eventually a business plan for Kev and Jeff’s House of Death. A big part of the funeral experience comes, I think, from the comforting traditions. Traditions are always difficult things to get going of course but, if enough of us put our heads together, maybe we could come up with a few.

Coincidently, Scott Adams is planning his funeral today, too. One of his readers suggested a sad clown for his funeral. Just sitting up front, moping, not saying anything. One idiot poster was surprised that an atheist would want a funeral at all as though atheists don’t believe in death or something. I had always hoped for one of those Tibetan jobbies with the long sticks and the vultures but Georgina is against it. Most likely I’ll end up with one of those gatherings where my best friends sit around and laugh and get drunk and tell stories like at the best funerals that I have attended.

Religious funerals have a built-in advantage over atheist funerals because they help explain the whole what-happens-next issue in a way that is comforting to children. I know what happens afterwards, but it would be nice to have a story to tell my five year old daughter – something that weaves in the Circle of Life with a generous helping of how extraordinarily lucky we are to experience life in the first place.

Julio, Fabienne and Morgane, our thoughts are with you.

Ever in search of new experiences, I went to church on my own for the first time ever.

Church-going folk always seem delighted to welcome non-church-going folk. That pleasing fact makes me smile down deep inside. I sat discreetly in the most out-of-the-way spot I could find and was all alone until an older lady came and sat in the same pew. You tend to stand out when you don’t know the whole stand-up/sit-down ritual and my pew companion noticed the newcomer right away and tried to make me welcome.

She went and found me a copy of the missal so I could follow along with the reading and she made sure I always found the right hymn number. She nodded knowingly when I didn’t go up to receive communion but politely excused herself so that she could. More touching still, a friend, who I know only casually and rarely, spotted me and trekked the whole length of the church to exchange peace-be-with-yous.

My favourite bit of going to church is usually the bish’s sermon. The bish at the chapel we attended in New York put on a remarkably fine performance week after week and I always enjoyed his sermons immensely. But last night’s was poor. Even the readings seemed starkly shorn of significance given how important Maundy Thursday is to the Christian calendar. But what the occasion lacked in it profundity, it made up in ceremony.

I got to witness the foot-washing thing – another first for me. Perhaps because of the Judas and Mary song, I found the whole ceremony strangely intimate which, I guess, is the point. Even the unfamiliar parts of the ceremony are oddly familiar – like walking down Fifth Avenue for the first time and realizing you have been there a thousand times before. The only bit that seemed distinctly odd was the lap of the church that we did at the end. Not sure what that was about.

I have now been to the Catholic Church many, many more times than I have been to the church of my childhood but the Book of Common Prayer still seems familiar and the catholic liturgy foreign. I can now predict when they will “Bring forth the Holy Condiments” or whatever is in those little bottles but I still don’t know all the call-and-response bits or when I am supposed to be standing or sitting.

Ethical dilemmas abound. How can I be true to my own beliefs without causing offence? Which parts of the ceremony signify 2000 years of tradition and which signify a sacred vow that I’d rather not take lightly?

Singing hymns? Easy! I love hymns. I love singing. I sing.

I skip the spectacles-testicles-watch-and-wallet stuff because it seems to have more meaning than I want to convey. Neither do I bow to the altar when I cross the aisle.

The Lord’s Prayer is trickier. It comes from a favourite passage in Matthew and transports me instantly back to assembly at Sidcup Hill Primary School but it says more than I want to say out loud in church. Not to mention that the Roman Catholic version misses out the best lines.

I would’ve liked the rest of the Clown family to come with me. Mrs Clown was going to come but changed her mind (leaving me with no money for the collection plate )  luckily there was no collection for some reason).

The smallest Clown child loves ceremony (she made us celebrate our anniversary this year) but was doing something more important and I didn’t want to push it. Other child thinks it violates the Laws of Reason for an atheist to go to church – a not uncommon reaction, sadly.

So why did I go? Why did I suddenly choose to go yesterday? It may have been a reaction to a just published study showing an abrupt  increase in the number of non-believers – up 10% in two decades.

Europe seems to be doing a better job of transitioning from fervent belief to ceremonial deism. In Sweden, a large majority of the population is atheist but a similar number are members of the Church of Sweden. The proportions are probably not so different in England, Spain, France and Italy, all nominally religious countries but far more secular than America in practice. Europeans stopped believing but continued following the traditions and teaching the mythology. That’s a good place to be.  Even myths have meaning.

In America, however, the gulf between belief and disbelief is too wide to straddle and once you cross that gulf you leave the other side behind. You either got faith or you got unbelief and there ain’t no neutral ground.

In the neutral ground of Europe, my kids would take part in nativity plays in school and sing songs of the risen Christ. Over here, if you want to expose your kids to religion, you have to hand them over to True Believers like the dudes teaching bible class at my littlest’s school; telling the story of Moses in the Bulrushes as though it were true and making it clear to them the horrible consequences of any doubts they might harbour. Their literal belief seems to blind them to the true meaning of their mythology.

I see myself as a tiny, weak link in a chain stretching back to the beginnings of western civilization. The chain is stretched taut in America. Five years ago, I feared the revivalist fervour flooding out of the South but, with hindsight, I now see that period as a last ditch attempt to hold back the tide of secularism. Europe has found a way to make the transition gracefully. If America does not, the chain will break.

STOP PRESS

By a pleasant coincidence Judith Warner in the Times has a This I Believe article describing a similar experience with her family’s Passover experience.

I am Jewish. But for nine years, from age 5 to 13, I attended an Episcopal school, went to chapel, sang in the choir. To this day, in good moods, my mind fills with hymns, and on a certain kind of spring day, a day that’s full of promise and hope, I see sunshine streaming in through stained glass windows, graceful specks suspended in the light over highly polished wood pews.

I would never call myself a Christian. But if you begin the Lord’s Prayer, I will join in, with feeling.

I enjoyed Judith’s story even more than I enjoyed writing my own.

I went down to the chapel and there was an old, old priest in there. As old as Methuselah. I was frantic and I couldn’t get the words out.

That old priest held both of my hands in his and the words he spoke were like the wisdom of the ages. They slowed the whole world down and we all made it through another day.

However, if you found a pocket watch at the end of your garden, you would not suppose that it resulted from natural causes. You would assume that the watch’s intricate design could only have been produced by a designer (Paley, 1803).

This is the argument from design advanced by William Paley in 1803. It can be summarised like this:

Evidence of design is evidence of a designer.

Looking around the natural world, we see evidence of design everywhere. We see design in a baby’s smile, in the intricacy of the human eye and in the beauty of a peacock’s tale. For Paley, the evidence of design in nature convinced him that nature has a designer and that designer is God. It’s a very persuasive argument.

Charles Darwin, in The Origin of the Species (Darwin, 1859), showed that much of the apparent design in nature can be explained by evolution. For example, Darwin showed how a primitive eye can evolve into a complex eye, no designer required. But more modern arguments from design offer examples of complexity in nature that evolutionary scientists have not yet explained.

For example, Stephen Meyer claims that complex molecules like DNA cannot be explained by evolution because evolution requires DNA to work its magic (Meyer, 2009). DNA itself requires a different explanation. Michael Behe says that some features of our anatomy — such as the flagella of bacteria or the blood clotting systems of mammals — are irreducibly complex and could not have evolved because there was no useful precursor to evolve from (Behe, 1996). According to Behe and Meyer, these features are evidence of design and must have had a designer.

Whether you are persuaded by the argument from design will depend on many factors but, whether you are finally persuaded or not, the argument is compelling.

Other arguments for God are less compelling. For example, St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109) offered an argument that goes like this:

God is a being greater than which none can be imagined.
God exists as an idea in the mind.
A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
If God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
Therefore, God exists.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Anselm’s argument is famously hard to refute and I won’t attempt to refute it here but my question is this: What’s the point?

Is there anyone in the history of Christianity who contemplated Anselm’s Proof and said ‘Oh, yeah. I wasn’t sure before but now I am. God exists and Anselm has proved it.’

Who is the proof for?

William Lane Craig offers an updated version of another ancient proof for God. This argument comes from Islamic theology and, in its updated form, goes like this:

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

(Craig, 1979)

So far, so good but then Craig adds another premise and a dramatic conclusion.

If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.

Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful.

(Craig, 1979)

Again, I have no desire to refute Craig’s argument but I feel obliged to ask why he finds this proof useful and who he thinks will be persuaded by it.

Christian friends of mine have told me that they believe in God because they have experienced evidence of God. Quite right. I would believe in God too, if I experienced evidence of God. But then, if I did experience evidence of God, I would not need Craig’s or Anselm’s arguments. Again, I wonder, who are those arguments for?

Are there people who have not experienced evidence of God but who are persuaded that a personal Creator of the universe exists because everything that exists has a cause and that personal creator is ‘timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful’?

I also struggle with the concept of Christian doubt.

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, said he sometimes has doubts about his belief in God. In an interview with the BBC, Welby said he doubted in “lots of different ways” (BBC, 2014).

There are moments, sure, when you think, ‘Is there a God?’ ‘Where is God?’

(Welby, 2014)

Doubt is a common theme in Christianity. The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church acknowledges that doubt is a possibility.

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief.

Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2088)

Many Christian apologists say that doubt is a natural part of faith.

Doubt is natural. But, all too often, we think of this as a bad thing for a Christian. Rather than run from it, use it to your advantage. Bring your doubts to God and seek answers to your doubts.

Christianity.com

I can’t imagine what it is like to doubt the existence of God after experiencing evidence of God. I can’t think of another area of my life where I experience a thing and then doubt whether I experienced the thing. I might misremember aspects of, say, a vacation — Did we go to Tenerife this year or last year? — but I don’t doubt the fact of going to Tenerife. If I met Joe Biden, I can’t imagine later doubting whether Joe Biden exists and I’m sure that if I experienced God, I’d remember it.

The canonical example of a Christian with doubt is St. Thomas who doubted the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”

So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

John 20:24-28

Even St. Thomas required evidence before he believed in the risen Christ. I’m willing to bet that Thomas did not doubt again after poking the risen Christ’s wounds. I started out by wondering who the proofs of God are meant to persuade. I suspect that they would not have persuaded St. Thomas and, after he was persuaded by evidence, the proofs became unnecessary.

It’s not my intention with this essay to encourage anyone to doubt their belief in God. If you have seen evidence of God, you should certainly believe in Him. But if you *have* seen evidence, you should not doubt.

When I came to America in the ‘90s, it was a bit of a shock to discover that almost everyone proclaimed their Christian identity proudly; hardly anyone I knew was openly atheist – this was in liberal Manhattan and Palo Alto. Especially, in New York, it was amazing to see how many people had ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday. I had NEVER seen that before.

Coming into what Andrew Sullivan called the Christianist era, the Bush years and immediately after the Iraq War, the public professions of piety seemed (to this atheist) to be multiplying. There was a brief period where it felt a little dangerous to be publicly atheist with Senators rushing to the steps of the Senate to say that this is a Christian nation “under God”, Prop 8 (banning gay marriage) passed in California, Karl Rove won the 2004 election for Team Red with a campaign to outlaw gay marriage and Texas was putting warning stickers on textbooks that taught evolution. At the time there was not a single openly atheist person in the Senate or Congress.

But then, all of a sudden, the rise in religious fervour stopped and the tide started to turn.

In my view, this was caused by several factors:

1. Among young people, there was a strong association building that Iraq War = Republican Party = Christians (remember when John 3:16 was stamped on guns headed for Iraq?). As the former became discredited, so did the latter.
2. The very public evolution wars were lost (remember the Dover evolution trial?). The Pastafarians won that one with their beer volcanos and their stripper factories. Meanwhile, the Republicans doubled down on creationism (Remember the GOP debate where only 1 out of 11 candidates put their hand up when asked if they believed in evolution?)
3. Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists. People laughed at the new atheists to think they would change anyone’s mind with their shallow intellectualism. But they didn’t have to change anyone’s mind. By 2005, there was a whole generation ready to reject the former pieties. They didn’t need to be told what to believe, they just had to be told that it was OK not to believe and that there were millions of others who believed the way they did. Once young people learned that it was OK to be atheist and that there were no social penalties for saying so, the relentless decline in religious belief was inevitable.

Coming back to England after 25 years over there, I experienced the same cultural shock in reverse. The decline continues – a study announced last week by Humanists UK showed that, for the first time, a majority of British people reject religion entirely and 42% say that religion should not be taught in schools – and yet religious and non-religious people still live happily side-by-side. We get along.

There are still minor culture war battles around things like assisted dying, bishops in the House of Lords and prayer in schools (daily prayer is still required by the 1944 Education Act) but battles over abortion and same-sex marriage are ancient history and no one in the church is eager to rekindle them.

The Benedict Option is a book by Rod Dreher who writes for The American Conservative. The Benedict Option provides a strategy for the survival of Christian communities in an increasingly hostile world. If I were hired by the Benedict Option strategy committee to provide enemy intelligence, I would advise that the place where Christianity in England has ended up is not a bad place to be. The decline in religious belief continues but there is no persecution and we mostly get along peacefully and amicably.

The religious battles of the 2000s in the USA backfired spectacularly and any victories were pyrrhic and temporary. If Roe vs Wade is ever overturned, the final defeat will be swift and overwhelming and permanent. The association between Christianity and the Republican Party in the minds of young people is fatal and every little win in the culture wars makes the journey towards peaceful coexistence more treacherous.

My advice to would-be Benedictines is to imagine the future life you want your future community to enjoy and travel purposely towards that. Leave the culture wars behind. They are lost.

I wish you safe travels and a fair wind.

One had been brought up in a religious environment and now rejects the whole shebang – she can’t understand why I am interested in Christian mythology at all. She wouldn’t even let me buy a children’s bible for our daughter because she still has bad memories of the nuns who ran her school. Another reported that their family, having walked away from their childhood beliefs wanted to get as far from them as possible. Still another suggested that I had fabricated my whole attitude just to be controversial.

For me growing up, the Church of England was like the kindly but eccentric old man who lived down the road. He had a whole bunch of fascinating stories and some of them may even have been true. Everyone knew him and liked him but no one took him very seriously. I have nothing but fond memories of him.

Perhaps, for people who were brought up with a more strict form of religion, a part of their identity is tied up in their religious beliefs. Maybe religion is like a strict aunt who tried to control their lives. When they finally break free from her controlling ways in adulthood, they have to let go completely and discard everything that might remind them of her.

I have often thought that these differences in attitude towards religion between Americans and Europeans (Malta doesn’t count as it’s pretty much a theocracy) can be attributed to the lack of religious education in schools in America. My son will never play the innkeeper in the school nativity play. My daughter will never sing Little Donkey in the Christmas pageant. They will never get to tease the RE teacher about some of the more way-out stories from the bible.

The only way my kids will get a religious education is if we sign them up for the whole package and that requires actually believing that the stories in the bible are true. That can’t be right.