Saturday, February 28, 2009

why i dislike lent

Ok... so normally I try to be live and let live with organized religion. It's no secret that I don't agree with Catholicism on many many things, but I try not to complain about those things to people who actually believe in them. It's not my job to proselytize. and to be fair, the start of my phenomenology (which is starting today, tomorrow, or monday) is that people are god-seeking beings. One way or another, I think we as humans have this problem with able to understand that the world existed before us and will exist after us and we can't handle the thought of non-existence. And so we seek for something eternal. Some explanation. some something that's grater than ourselves. SO we find god or religion or sports teams (seriously... it's the only reason i can understand why people watch baseball--because of the stats. So they can say "my grandfather saw joe dimagio play when he was in the war." That's true, by the way; my grandfather did see joe dimagio play. But anyway, baseball is real real boring. So that's the only reason I can understand for its almost hallowed state it holds for so many peopl). Anyway, Lent is one thing that I just can't handle and I tend to trash talk a lot. but i have a reason.

If you don't know, lent is the season from Ash Wednesday(the day after mardi gras) to Easter. And its a time for solemnity and spirituality and sacrifice. and all that's fine. But it's also when millions of Catholics decide to "give something up for lent" and stop eating meat on fridays as (a sacrifice). This right here is where my problems start to arise. In 1994, I remember one friday night during lent I was hanging out with some friends and we decided to go get some food at Burger king. I was still eating meat at the time, and we all ordered Whoppers. And I remember it being good. really good. then, later in the evening tho, I remember all of a sudden feeling terrible. I just realized that I had eaten meat on a friday during lent. and I was ashamed. I felt like I'd done something really wrong. Honestly. I was afraid I had sinned. Scarred. really scarred. Then, a few minutes later, I thought to myself: wait, this is dumb. Any religion that tells you that you've done something wrong (and trust me, I went to school with nuns and they would tell me i had sinned) and makes you feel afraid because you eat meat on a friday during a 40 day period in the year is bunk. If 'god' is supposed to be omni-benevolent and understand humans more than humans understand themselves, then he can understand our human failings as well. but catholicism doesn't really believe in an omni benevolent god. nope. catholic school teaches you that every sin is punished by god and you have to seek forgiveness or screwed you are. and by screwed, i mean, get too many of those, and its an eternity of burning torment. sucks.... anyway, that 1994 burger from burger king was actually when i started losing my religion. or perhaps it was start toward hell, right? interesting.

anyway... if I still believed and practiced catholicism, i always wonder if during lent, i should actually eat meat as a sacrifice on fridays. after all, i've been a veggie for about 10 years now... i dont sacrifice anything by not eating meat. thankfully, i dont have to worry about that. I'm pretty sure I won't be magically believing anytime soon.

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