Spiritual Ahedonia - or Apathy
KarlLB
Shipmate
in Epiphanies
There's a thread about Atheism over in Purg, but I got thinking about how most of the people I know don't not attend church our of atheism, but out of lack of interest.
I have much sympathy with them these days. I'm not moved by religion. Prayer. Singing stuff. Hearing sermons. The liturgy. Any of it. I want it to be sort of true - well, some versions - I'd sooner God not exist than be the monster of Moses, Joshua, Augustine or Calvin.
So I pose - is it possible not to have the Religious Response gene (I don't necessarily mean a literal gene)? Is it possible for someone without it to nevertheless be drawn to religion, like someone who is unmoved by music but nonetheless wants to be a concert pianist? Is it fixed or changeable?
I have much sympathy with them these days. I'm not moved by religion. Prayer. Singing stuff. Hearing sermons. The liturgy. Any of it. I want it to be sort of true - well, some versions - I'd sooner God not exist than be the monster of Moses, Joshua, Augustine or Calvin.
So I pose - is it possible not to have the Religious Response gene (I don't necessarily mean a literal gene)? Is it possible for someone without it to nevertheless be drawn to religion, like someone who is unmoved by music but nonetheless wants to be a concert pianist? Is it fixed or changeable?
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I look at the church I still refer to as Our Place, trying to keep the rumour of God alive in a deprived backstreet urban parish, and sometimes think that only a couple of dozen people - good, faithful, Christian souls, I have no doubt - will really miss it when it eventually closes.
Whether or not anyone is drawn to religion whilst lacking the Religious Response gene, I couldn't say. There may well be some, of course, but the sort of Christianity peddled by the *intolerant old men* is unlikely to attract many others, apart from yet more intolerant old (or younger) men...
I can't find the direct quotation at the moment, but Blaise Pascal mentions this in his Pensées, and this is a paraphrase that Hitchens used on a regular basis: "...for those who are so made that they cannot believe..." [emphasis mine]. I'd couple with that the notion put forward by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr: "Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions."
One sometimes says she thinks there must be something in it as my brother-in-law and myself are reasonably bright and yet believe.
Outside of churchy circles I find most people I know are either blithely indifferent or actively dismissive.
But I love the parish community I belong to and I admire the way so many members are active in the community on green issues, helping the poor etc. All driven by the gospel. And I love the Liturgy for its beauty and balance. And I love the music I make there.
My apathy involves not really being that bothered that I believe almost nothing that we celebrate on Sunday mornings. What will be will be.
The Desert Fathers (and Mothers?) noted this. Was it 'acedie' they called it?
I have no idea what the answer is to this one. It can happen to each and everyone of us. I get what @ChastMastr says about acts of the will rather than being led by emotions.
That's another ascetic Desert Fathers and Patristic thing.
I don't mean to be flippant but I am raising a serious point ( I think).
Even if we aren't involved in religion in terms of ritual, organisation or group identity, our understanding and 'take' on the 'fundamental questions' are inevitably going to be influenced by whichever religious tradition we've been a part of or have imbibed in the past.
It doesn't literally mean that God is 'bothered' or irritated by this.
To 'bother' someone in some forms of slang or colloquial parlance means to continually harp on at them or seek their attention.
It's a bit like saying that a dog 'worries' away at a bone. It doesn't mean that the dog suffers anxiety simply that the dog won't leave the bone alone.
@Timothy the Obscure of course and much as I love the Quakers in their case they replace all those things you mention with their own personal equivalents...
Such as making a ritual out of not having ritual, or not having religious professionals, experts or authority but investing all that in their own committee structures or personal opinions 😉.
Ok, I'm teasing to some extent.
I knew a vicar once who was challenged quite aggressively by an earnest young Friend on a train. The Quaker was incensed at the sight of his dog-collar, learned forward and launched into an almost 17th century sounding diatribe about how he clearly lorded it over his parishioners to the extent that they could not think for themselves but hung on his every word and pronouncement and obeyed his every whim.
'How I wish that were the case,' the vicar drily replied.
Everyone I've come across who has had dealings with them says the same.
I'm the same. It's perhaps why I don't "get" sports fandom either. I'm not a member of Chesterfield Football Club so why would I feel in any way "part" of their wins and losses?
At church I always feel like an individual adjacent to a body which everyone else seems to actually be part of.
The only sense of "attachment" I feel to the CofE is familiarity. I used to feel I was relatively safe from religious batshittery there but all the local CofE churches here bar one are firmly in the institutional theological sexism camp so that didn't work out.
For me I think I know exactly where it comes from.
The Enneagram helped me to learn more about who I am, and that my outlook is as valuable as everyone else’s, but we all see things from a different perspective.
I would not be so sure. Not St Jude of the Back Streets this time but the former parish church for the area. It closed over a decade ago now. However, a couple of years after it closed I participated in a working party to try and tidy up the grounds. This was before the CofE sold the property and was done by the local Christian's together. The number of people who came by and asked when the church would be re-openning was surprising. There are people want a church in their neighbourhood even if they never darken its doors, pay for the upkeep or believe in God. I think it is probably a status symbol of being a community along with the GP surgery, local school, Post Office and general store.
I think there is more to it than that. People have historical connections to their parish church - baptisms, weddings, funerals, ancestors in the graveyard yes, but they also know that there is a peaceful, sacred place where they can go for spiritual refreshment and prayer, as long as the doors are open.
As a tangent, I don’t know why the C of E have a right to sell the buildings, as they surely belong to the communities they are in.
I agree. I am a member of a FB page devoted to the lovely historical town where I grew up. Sometimes there are pictures of the main town church, also lovely and historical (John Knox preached there) but also expensive and difficult to maintain. Each time it is pictured there is a flood of fond comments about christenings, weddings, even funerals. When there was thought it might need to close there was outrage. And because the congregation works hard to keep it lovely and keep it open and available, not just on a Sunday, it is a place where people drop in - no one person very often, maybe, but several from time to time. People want it, they want to know it is there, and while it is their memories are safe, and, maybe deep down, they have a feeling that there is something dependable in a changeful world.
The parish has suffered immense demographic change, and the older inhabitants who might have fond memories of rites of passage have long since died or moved away. The small congregation is mostly made up of people who are only in the area for a short time, but who nevertheless appreciate a sort of *eucharistic pit-stop* whilst they are around.
The neighbours are only concerned about where to park their cars (often on the church's half-dozen off-street places), or about certain trees which dare to drop their leaves on the said cars. One of the locals once informed me that *all you Christians are f****** hypocrites*, so no doubt he'd be glad to see the place boarded up and (probably) vandalised.
The faithful few try their best to engage with the community, such as it is, but the building is far too large for purpose. It might help if the PCC ever made the effort to make it more user-friendly - there are no disabled-access WCs, either in the church or in the Hall, and there are far too many steps without handrails - but such improvements would cost rather a lot of £££...
Then there would always be that peaceful sanctuary for people to go to when in need of spiritual refreshment - if they are drawn to do so. I do think many people are spiritually searching, even while rejecting religion.
@Bishops Finger it is usually out of reach of a church’s finances, and with planning permission and building controls etc and with ongoing maintenance I reckon it’s too daunting for many to venture with - and as it can only really be used for direct on the spot electricity (unless there were vast banks of batteries) I don’t think it could be effectively used for heating so it wouldn’t be cost effective.
But the National Grid might be able to cut across all of that, generating vast amounts of electricity for the grid and paying the churches for use of their roofs, with on the spot electricity an extra benefit.
The £££ raised could be usefully employed in making the church usable independently of the hall (rented to a nursery school every weekday), with disabled-access WC and modest kitchen/servery facilities within the nave.
I usually if not always feel that way about most things, including humanity. I trust that someday that will be healed.
I think I do as well in my case.
Prayers for you, prayers welcome for me.
Indeed - we can only begin to imagine the potential benefits to everyone!
Yes. The church would remain available to those few who really do want a *sacred space* (and FatherInCharge holds a daily Mass...), but, at the same time, could be used by other groups - not necessarily religious ones!
These are the End Times, I suspect, so there may well be more and more people needing or seeking some sort of solace, not always to be found in formal theology, liturgies or services. Churches are good places for this, at least sometimes.
A bit naughty, maybe, but worth it for the $$$...
Some churches in the UK have found a source of revenue by allowing mobile-phone masts to be attached to their towers, although I think proper planning permission has to be obtained for this.
It all helps!