An Atheist’s Thoughts on Lent

An Atheist’s Thoughts on Lent

It’s finally here! The best time of the year. First, people gorge themselves on all kinds of treats, then they get black ashes rubbed onto their foreheads, then they eat fish on Fridays, and then it’s Easter. That’s right. It’s Lent. Again.

To me, Lent has always been another meaningless church season that I was forced to observe since I was a child. In my family’s Lutheran church, it started with Ash Wednesday, where we would go and get nice and smudged, although fortunately for me, the service was in the evening, and I got to go home and wash it off right after. This practice started to bother me more as a teenager, when I was becoming more of a skeptic, although I never really found the ashy forehead look very attractive to begin with. I once got in a squabble with my mom because I tried to cover my ash-marked forehead with my hair, and she wanted me to show it off instead.

Lent is one of those times of year that I never really think about until other people remind me. Even back in high school on Lenten Wednesday evenings, I would shower, get in my PJs, and get to studying only to see my mom coming down the stairs asking if I was ready for church. Living on my own, this year I didn’t realize it was Lent until my new coworkers started asking each other what they would give up for Lent, whether or not they participated in Ash Wednesday, and where they could find a good fish fry on Friday. Overhearing their conversations, all of these odd memories and customs of Lent came flooding back to me.

I’ve always been aware of Mardi Gras and of Lent, but for some reason, the fact that they were connected never really stuck with me. Now I know that Mardi Gras is Fat Tuesday, which is the celebration most famous for New Orleans parades and feasts before people somberly observe Lent by giving up something they love and fasting (although these are often one and the same, for those of us who love food).

I brushed up on my knowledge of Lent for this post on Wikipedia, so this is by no means a history lesson, but I knew of a lot of Lenten traditions that seemed unrelated to me, like the fasting, the giving things up, and the Mardi Gras celebrations. It turns out, of course, that they’re all interconnected.

According to Wikipedia, Mardi Gras may have pagan roots tied to those of the Christmas season. More recently, however, Mardi Gras has become a part of the church calendar, occurring during Epiphany, which begins after the Christmas season (January 6th) and ends six weeks before Easter (so it can be between February 4th and March 10th). The final Mardi Gras celebration is significant because it’s many Christians’ last chance to enjoy whatever it is they’re giving up until Easter.

I’ve never really understood the Lenten tradition of giving something up. My church never required it, and I always thought, “It’s just not something that we Lutherans do” (similarly to believing in evolution, or questioning our beliefs), but it turns out that a lot of Lutherans do give things up because they feel personally convicted to. Actually, a lot of people do, even if they’re not that religious, and they don’t completely know why. I certainly don’t.

Thanks again to Wikipedia, I learned more about why people give up things for Lent, and fast, which these days seems to just mean eating fish and no other meat on Fridays. It’s meant to prepare the believer for Easter and force them to be without something they enjoy, which should mimic how Jesus felt when wandering in the desert and fasting for forty days before being executed in the Gospels. Most Christians I know are really excited and joyful on Easter, and they say it’s because “He is risen!” but it may be more so because they can once again experience the sweet flavors of chocolate, coffee, soda, or wine, for the first time in weeks.

I’m not morally opposed to the idea of giving things up for Lent. It reminds me of having a New Year’s Resolution, or the newer “media fast,” where people will sometimes challenge themselves to try to live without social media for various reasons. I don’t have any problem with doing things like this, although I find it questionable when it’s for no reason but to deprive yourself of something just because you enjoy it. If you are normally responsible about how much coffee, chocolate, or alcohol you consume, then I don’t think it does you any good to give it up for Lent. You only get so long on this Earth, and you might as well do it without bringing more unnecessary suffering to yourself than you already experience otherwise.

I think that making resolutions is good if you really want to change something about yourself. Maybe you normally have too much coffee, chocolate, alcohol, or social media, and you want to cut back. That would certainly be healthy, but if it’s really a problem, you shouldn’t only do it for New Year’s or Lent. You can make a change on any day when you decide that you want to cut a bad habit, and it’s probably smarter to gradually cut back on things like coffee rather than just give it up cold turkey for forty days.

0 thoughts on “An Atheist’s Thoughts on Lent

  • March 10, 2019 at 8:42 am
    Permalink

    The best part is when Jesus comes out of the tomb and, if he sees his shadow, there 6 more weeks of winter. Very insightful, helpful too!

    Reply
    • March 10, 2019 at 12:50 pm
      Permalink

      IMO, you win the wittiest comment of the day. Hell … for the month! And most definitely for the current “season.” 👍👏

      Reply
  • March 10, 2019 at 10:43 am
    Permalink

    Did you know that Sundays are not part of Lent? I’ve always liked the ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust part,’ but the ‘go and sin no more’ or ‘reject sin’ (I may be off with the quote) was never my fav. So much of what people do is cultural and not religious, it makes life interesting. Catholics are not required to attend Mass on Ash Wed., but many think so. Anyone can give ashes, no priest/deacon required. Back in the day, people did not get married during Lent. It is no fun time. Good topic.

    Reply
    • March 10, 2019 at 11:18 am
      Permalink

      The only thing I vaguely remembered was “from dust you come and to dust you shall return” which I should look into more, but I found it strange because that sounds more like something an atheist would say about mortality than a bible verse. 🤷🏻‍♀️

      Reply
      • March 10, 2019 at 12:30 pm
        Permalink

        I expect that is based on Genesis 2:7, which is the Biblical account of abiogenesis.

        Reply
      • March 10, 2019 at 1:31 pm
        Permalink

        I agree. I am using a line from Ecclesiastes 1:9 (one of several that I like) in my post for tomorrow. I like it.

        Reply
      • March 10, 2019 at 6:53 pm
        Permalink

        Ecclesiastes 3:20 is a similar verse. That book intrigued me,and it seems to go against much of what the rest of the Bible teaches (it seemed to imply no afterlife, for instance). I wonder why it became canon?

        Reply
  • March 10, 2019 at 3:43 pm
    Permalink

    When someone asks me what I’m giving up for Lent, I usually say “religion”.
    I came from a church that didn’t make a big deal of giving up stuff, unless you felt like you should. The biggest Lent annoyance for me was while I was in college, singing in the college choir. We would learn these beautiful mass settings, but then for any concert during Lent, our Director would never let us sing the Gloria movement, no matter how beautiful it was, or how hard we had worked to learn it. Apparently it’s “Not Done”. And our Spring Tours were often during Lent.

    Reply
  • March 10, 2019 at 5:41 pm
    Permalink

    My answer for what did you give up for lent – I tell them one year I gave up organized religion for lent and never looked back.

    Reply
  • March 10, 2019 at 6:47 pm
    Permalink

    Perhaps my church denominations were different, but I never really had much experience with ‘lent’. Is it a more Catholic or Angelical thing? For us, Easter mainly consisted of a Friday evening church service, and a Sunday morning service with hot cross buns, but there was nothing about fasting or giving up something. I liked the four day weekend and eating lots of chocolate aspect, though.

    Reply
    • March 16, 2019 at 8:13 am
      Permalink

      Well if you know the evolution of the Baptists faiths – it started with Martin Luther who was a pissed off Catholic priest – his theses were mostly screeds against indulgences the church was selling at the time.

      Reply
  • March 10, 2019 at 9:21 pm
    Permalink

    I was raised Lutheran too and never understood the ashes on the forehead thing. I think they want to make dots like Hindus. I never heard a reason from the Bible, but now I’m out of the church for many reasons, so I’ll never ask why the forehead dots? I think they want dots because Hindu dots are cool. Yeah, we do dots too. We’re the same, or something like that.

    Reply
  • March 25, 2019 at 4:01 am
    Permalink

    Eating fish has nothing to do with religious restraint. It was instituted several hundred years ago, by a Pope who was trying to aid the failing Portuguese fishing industry. 😯 (Show Me The Benjamins)
    The ashes on the forehead thing is a Christian adoption of a pagan ritual to blind The Third Eye of learning and knowledge. 👿

    Reply

What do you think?