Category: philosophy/religion topics
Giving up lent is something done within the Catholic Church but so many people jump in and give up their sweets and other favorite things in hopes of a second chance to concore their New Year resolutions. So weather if you are Catholic or not... if you’re planning to give something up for lent, what is it?
Here is an article I copied below that someone explained better than I ever could. I am not Catholic, so didn't really know all the details.
http://bustedhalo.com/questionbox/why-do-we-give-up-something-for-lent
Lent, the period of 40 days that precedes the celebration of Easter, has its origin in the early days of the Church. Converts seeking to become Christian, who at that time were mostly adults, spent several years in study and preparation. Under the threat of Roman persecution, becoming a Christian was serious business, so their process of preparation was intensive! Then they went through a final period of “purification and enlightenment” for the 40 days before their baptism at Easter. The rest of the Church began to observe the season of Lent in solidarity with these newest Christians. It became an opportunity for all Christians to recall and renew the commitment of their baptism.
Today we know Lent as a season of conversion: we acknowledge the ways we have turned away from God in our lives and we focus on turning our hearts and minds back toward God. Hence the three pillars of Lent are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These observances help us turn away from whatever has distracted or derailed us and to turn back to God. Giving up something for Lent is ultimately a form of fasting. We can deprive ourselves of some small pleasure or indulgence and offer that sacrifice up to God. Or we might “give up” a bad habit such as smoking as a way of positively turning our life back towards what God wants for us.
So maybe your mom was on to something when she had you give up Oreos or your favorite TV show as a child. An experience of want, however temporary, can help us to appreciate the true abundance in our lives. And a small positive change can have a big impact that lasts beyond the 40 days of Lent.
Take the time now to think about what you might give up this year. Is it something you enjoy that you want to sacrifice for a while, like your daily latte? Or is it a bad habit you want to conquer, like running in late to meetings with co-workers? Or perhaps you want to turn your cell phone off for a few hours each day and not let it distract you from the loved ones you are with in real time? Find something that works for you, and whatever it is, may it help you to turn towards God in this holy season of Lent.
I'm giving up exercise and salad.
I'm giving up camel riding.
Bob
Nothing
All deists should read the entire RationalWiki website for lent. Give up woo, objectively look at things as they are. Just for 40 days: it's not that long.
I'll toss in the Pope's money.
I gave up spell check for Lant.
great things you all have going on... Hope your sticking to them...
Oh, has it started yet?
I rode my camel yesterday.
Oh well, next year.
Bob
I doubt if most people really get the true meaning of lent. If I were a religious person I'm sure I would try harder to give up something and be closer to God and all that stuff the article talks about. But unfortunately I tend to think of lent and new years resolutions in the same way and just don't even bother trying anymore.
I'd like to give up the cold and be closer to the sun. The sun is god.
LOL Impricator. Well said.
It's true, you know. The Abrahamic god was derived from earlier solar deities.
I like the sun idea however, when it is really hot at work and your too scared to adjust the tempature because every time you touch the thermostat, it hisses... oh!
If people really want to be closer to loved ones or God, they should do it no matter what day or time of year it is. It's like only doing something nice for your sigo on Valentine's Day or Sweetie's Day. Just work on improving yourself, getting your shit together, and showing love and affection regardless of the time.
And the people who only give up sweets, coffee, or eating meat are just fuckin' sorry. How about making a real sacrifice if you're so religious or in the know to even acknowledge, honor, and give a damn about Lent. How about sacrificing in a way that makes a large impact on your life and in turn, an impact on the people who interact with you. Or at the very least, solidify your relationship with God by praying, studying, and sacrificing something that you worship or put before God, not just some daily cup of coffee for the fuck of acknowledging Lent.
Catholic-specific subjects make my blood boil.
I believe that we should always be trying to do better in every way. It helps to have something in our life to help give us some encouragement. That is what Lent is, it’s an encouragement booster. There is nothing wrong with that.
Encouragement booster can come from a New Year resolution, Lent, summers coming up or even from a birthday. It is easier to work on things we struggle on with other people. That’s why people do better with exercise and weight lost in groups and with buddies. You help each other not to give up.
I asked my roommates about their thoughts on the whole shebang, they said that they always want to try but they always end up messing up. Well this great person I know who runs a website called (flylady.net) has these monthly habits she does. The habits are the same every year because you always need to touch up on your ways, but she said that she does her habits for a whole month even though it’s been told that it takes 21 days to make a new habit. She does this so you have days to mess up. That is the issue with anything people try to change, Change is hard and can be discouraging if you well! MESS UP.
So Lent can be just a trigger to make a change because that is all it is for most.
There is nothing wrong with that and if you’re so great of a person you don’t need any encouragement or support than kudos to you.
It’s always nice to have a reminder popping up in your life that reminds you to step back and take a good look at yourself and decide where you might need to do some cleaning up.
Here's my actual problem with this, and it isn't just Lent or other Christian things:
People want to feel like they're doing good when they aren't actually doing anybody any good. I remember at college, there were some from a local college who would go and eat out of garbage cans, to "give up their privilege" and see what it's like to be homeless. Of course they went home patting themselves on the back claiming how much higher consciousness or closer to god/ess/dard they were and all the while doing nothing. I've been extremely poor at various points in my life, formative and otherwise, and nobody pretending to be poor did any of us any good.
Now, if you set some pleasure aside and spend the money or time on helping someone less fortunate, then it is useful. I don't believe in the sublime or the idea that the idea of good or bad is anything at all: only what we can actually do for someone.
I realize this doesn't work for a lot of people, and they are into the idea doing something, that the idea of it is substantive. Consider the Christians' belief that if a man is having sexual thoughts about a woman he is committing adultery. The feminists mirror this by claiming he is committing some kind of rape in his mind. Both are wildly wrong: actions are what counts.
If I ever did something for Lent it would be to help a neighbor or someone out with something they needed, or do some other actual improvement in the community where I live.
I know both the lefties eating out of garbage cans, and the fundamentalists breathing fire, would laugh at this. But to me that is the only way to make giving something up to be actually useful to anyone.
So Lent is not for rational objectivists then.
this is true, Leo. I think that yeah, nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with the sacrifices people made for god or the various gods, or the things people do to themselves even if it's torture themselves because they think they are doing something good for others. I'm sorry but no they're not. I'm not judging, I'm saying that it depends on how you see things. So tell me this, if I didn't give up anything for lent, would i not be closer to god? I'm genuinely curious.
Actually Dolce it can be harmful.
People see their families as an extension of themselves. The idea of self ending at our skin is relatively modern, and primarily industrialist.
So if you see self as including your mother, daughter, wife, husband, sisters, etc. you can sacrifice those to your god/ess/dard because you are sacrificing yourself.
This is dangerous to other fellow humans, in my opinion. And if I put myself out somehow, in some form of sublime ascetic do-gooder idea, and now have no energy or resources to help my college aged daughter, I'm a fool. Sorry that is just how it works.
Again, doing good things for other people is actually something to be proud of and strive towards, because you are contributing to humanity.
It should not surprise anybody to learn that fundamentalist Christians sneer at the idea of doing right things for other people, because that is worldly to them. Helping others out in the community, engaging in urban renewal projects, and so on, are all second to proselytizing.
Some I knew who were into the Promise Keepers would try to give me a hard time for being at home on the weekend and giving the Wife a break, helping out with the daughter, and just spending time with her, rather than going off to their events and being all hand-wringy about how unspiritual we all are, what pigs and insensitive clods we all are, and so on.
Just like at college, some of us were called narrow-minded and so on because we'd rather go to a Habitat For Humanity project and do something useful, instead of sit around and talk about privilege and white guilt / male oppression.
The two aforementioned groups, while they do indeed deserve each other to the fullest, are completely useless to real human beings in trouble. I see Lent in exactly the same context.
I can define what it is to help at a food pantry, or to clean up the soot from a burned house so that they can rebuild it and a person or family can move into it. Or how a community garden or reconstituted factory can provide food and economy for local residents.
But for the desperate and insecure, they have to sneer at these things, because raising consciousness and being closer to god/ess/dard has no definition.
What I've said here is no left wing drivel, as the fundamentalists would tell you, and nor is it the narrow-minded and privileged writings of a rich white guy, as some leftist elements would tell you.
It's just the objective and rational observations of a average guy.
I disagree with the OP's opinion that lent is helpful, in any way.
as others have said, the bottom line is that, if people truly wanna do something to improve themselves/the lives of others, it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter what day it is.
if you need lent, or anything else, to remind you to do nice things for people, chances are, they wouldn't appreciate them, cause it'll be obvious that they weren't thoughtful.
no one should do things out of a sense of obligation, no matter what their brand of woo is.
Leo, I meant that you're right. Then I pointed out, and I should've put a question mark instead of a period, when I asked if it was wrong to perform all these harmful sacrifices to the gods? And I meant to point out that to me, when someone says lent isn't wrong it's like approving of all the other things people do to be close to god, that are harmful. sorry! lol
I think people should do good things for others any time they can.
If it takes Lint to motivate them, well, I can think of a lot of worse reasons.
Bob
I ageee with that. however usually if you hear about people giving something up for Lent, it doesn't result in the practical usefulness of doing something for somebody else.
nobody benefits if I give up chocolate. Somebody benefits if I give up my time and resources to go help someone in need.
If Lent were used this way, I'd agree with you. Beneficial as a motivator for some people, a reason to get started with something.
Yes but in this case it's not for the benefit of others, but for themselves... If your motivation to have a charity, and a whole host of other things that are in the name of religion is to be close to god, because god will grant you more in the end, who are you really thinking of?
If they do it for someone else, then who cares what they are thinking of?
My issue is mainly with those who say they're sacrificing when there is no benefit to anybody else.
If someone does a urban renewal project or helps the needy, and goes home at night and pats themselves on the back, the needy still got fed, the project still got done. Who cares what they thought?
But if someone just gives up chocolate for Lent, what good does that do anybody else?
Leo, Chelsea, and others, I totally agree.
If you need a trigger, that's fine. Cancer, disability, and poverty/homelessness have been triggers for me because I have personal experiences or know people who do, so I want to make a difference for people to lighten their load. But if the trigger is obligation such as religious obligation, then it means nothing because you are helping others just because you feel obligated or want to look good in God's eyes, not because you want to see others smile, live improved lives, or take a weight off someone's shoulders.
Like a New Year's resolution, the sacrifices or set goals for Lent are short-lived, and usually benefit oneself rather than others or the community. And there's just another problem with Lent. Religion teaches toleration, community service, and selflessness, but then you have Lent, which is commonly a time when people make selfish sacrifices, rather than sacrificing or acting in a way that demonstrates toleration, community service, and selflessness. Lent is not a trigger, it is just another reason for people to be wrapped up in themselves, and it teaches people that during a time of sacrifice and fasting, it is more important to concentrate on one's own needs and disadvantages rather than the needs of others.
Thank you, Raven. Leo, yes the job did get done, but then people say they do it out of love, right? Yeah love for themselves. But who cares, right? The job got done. Sorry, but I do care. I'd rather help someone who really needs it, and do it genuinely rather ahan for religious obligation. You can't say something and do the contrary, or mask the needs with this selfish feeling of helping others is helping yourself. No thank you. So when you say that it may benefit others, is that really so? Not lent.
Lint or not, if something good got done for someone else, that's great.
Come to think of it, I think I'll give up lint for lint.
Back to camel riding.
Bob
All teasing aside, I agree with Nicky. Doing something for whatever reason motivates you is a good thing. You people who over think, or are strong minded forget everyone isn't like you, so needs something to guide them. All is good in love.
Wane, you're totally missing the point here. Let me break it down.
We all have reasons to act, and reasons/motivations that guide our actions. No one has said that it is unnecessary or fruitless to rely on a trigger or guide for action. I even stated in my previous post that I have triggers or factors that motivate me.
Unfortunately, we're not just focusing on good reasons to act, we're talking about Lent. There's more to Lent then just going off desserts for 40 days.
The biggest problem with Lent is that the focus is on giving up or sacrificing something for oneself. People often give up their morning coffee, desserts, or some indulgence. That's fine, except that people do not replace this with something, which should be some activity that builds a relationship with God (i.e. studying or meditating on the Word, praying, fellowship, or praise and worship.) Also, people believe that sacrificing for Lent means improving themselves and focusing on one's own well-being, rather than considering the well-being of their community apart from or in addition to their own wellness.
This is not overthinking by any stretch. This is taking into account the values and teachings of Christianity/Catholicism. If people don't want to include and acknowledge these teachings in their sacrifices, then don't call it Lent, or at the very least, don't associate it with the specific religion because these teachings should be the triggers and guidance for sacrifice and fasting, not the selfish desire to half-ass it, and temporarily give up something trivial just for the fuck of it.
Again, we're talking about sacrificing for Lent here, not just good reasons or guiding principles to do good things.
I understand this. But I can't say what people do when they do this ritual. Everyone will do differently, but for these that do it and give something worth while, I say it is all good.
Wayne, you're wrong, in saying that just cause people do good things, even if it's strictly for themselves, there's value in that.
thank you, Raven, for saying what you did. it's nice to hear someone who's religious feel strongly about this, and not buy into the bullshit that so many people do.
I'm giving up Lent for Lent. LOL.
I gave up my lent brush for lint.