Entry 2 – Losing my Lunch

Last year my Dad passed away due to cancer. Right before I was to catch a plane to go back to where I was living at the time, I had lunch with some of my family members who are of the Judeo-Christian faith. Somehow during the lunch, I was asked outright whether I thought my Dad was “in heaven”. I was, at first, a little taken aback by the directness of the question, and also a little confused because I didn’t have much time to go into the subject, and thought this an easy hour long discussion. But, in the split second I had to try and make up my mind as to how I was going to answer the question, I came up with a very bland, ultimately stoic, “No” followed by, “I don’t really believe in the supernatural”. That simple follow up statement steered the remainder of that 30 minute lunch conversation to life after death questions, belief in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the origin of evil.

The conclusion of the lunch went something to the effect of “How could you once believe in God, and now not?” I couldn’t really address all of the questions asked of me that day as my plane was about to take off, and I needed to go. But I’ve found myself thinking back on that day quite a bit. I think about how abrupt and brash my responses must have come across to my loved ones who do accept that there is a God, a heaven, a hell, a Devil, and numerous other supernatural elements in the universe. I think now that it might be worthwhile to qualify my response a bit more with something more thought out, more scripted if you will.

Entries for the next coming days will address this lunch topic, and I hope will be something that might help my loved ones understand where I am coming from in terms of letting go of the notion of God, heaven, hell, a Devil, and every other supernatural element in between.

Of course, as soon as you tell anyone with faith in the supernatural that you don’t believe in anything supernatural, you immediately open up the door to having to explain how you can have anything to live for, and any way to be “good”; the “Why wouldn’t you just start killing people if you don’t have God or Jesus to answer to?” approach. I want to address these two fundamental questions first, and more specifically, I want my family to know how I still find meaning in this life without a supernatural power telling me the story of the universe, and how I specifically fit into it. I also want my family to know that I am still “good” without being told by said same supernatural power to be “good”. I actually think the question of meaning and the question of goodness are really one in the same. If you answer one, you answer the other.

For my next entry, I’ll go into answering these questions. Until next time, thank you for stopping by.

Sincerely,
TRC
the.recovering.christian@gmail.com