Brian I really like what you wrote and I feel the way you feel. Interesting post.

I like the term "Failed atheist" coined by John Humphrys.

It is a very nice thing for the Archbishop to say, and I think it is true, except for one thing. I think the experience of gradually becoming disillusioned with what you have been brought up to believe can be quite a bitter one. This is particularly true if you have decided to devote your life to it. It also takes courage to turn your back on it.

But I really don't think a human being has any other alternative but to the bite the bullet because the consequences of not being true to yourself are far more devastating in terms of your own mental health and happiness.

We can only comment on our own experiences, but I sometimes suspect that one of the reasons for so many people in religious life having "nervous breakdowns" that seemed so commonplace when I was so involved may well have had something do with lacking this "bitter courage".

Where I disagree with the Archbishop is that he seems to imply that non believing requires "bitter courage" as a continuing thing. I certainly think it does initially, to take that first step. But after that, I don't think I experience bitterness (quite the contrary), nor do I think I am particularly courageous in continuing in that state of non belief.

However, as an "agnostic with doubts", I think it important to continually have your beliefs and non beliefs challenged. And that is why I found this forum so interesting.

Colette, thanks for your contributions to this discussion, and for the quiet witness you have provided. Even if my own outlook on these matters might be different to yours I have deeply appreciated listening to your points of view, and life experience, in the interview with Rachel Kohn and what you've written here.

Where I find a similarity to yourself is that I also find it hard to reconcile the notions of a God — particularly the notions, or theology, of God I was nurtured on — and the existence of so much suffering in the world. One further difficulty for me is that so many people pray to be relieved of some sort of suffering — I've done that also — and God seems to be deaf to our prayers. In the end no relief is forthcoming. It was in fact that very experience of life that led me to questioning the theologies I'd been brought up on. Rather than coming to the conclusion that there was no God, or an indifferent God, I came to the conclusion that perhaps there was something flawed in our understanding of God — something flawed in our theologies. This is what I was writing about in recent days (See: http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=20004 ) that has led me to questioning the whole basis of Atonement Theology — this idea that God sent Jesus into the world to relieve the world of sin and suffering. Self-evidently he doesn't. Even God's own Son was not "relieved from anxiety or suffering". Today I think one of the most important "lessons" of the whole "Jesus expedition" is that his example illustrates in a sense that "suffering (and anxiety) are inevitabilities in life (and Life)". That has led me to a whole new journey seeking to "make sense" of this God question in my life. I do still believe in God. I also continue to have a belief in Jesus and the Gospel story. God is not a magician though. Neither is Jesus. Theologies that present God or Jesus as some kind of "magicians" in our lives, or as "magicians" who can take the pain the suffering out of life by some sort of "wand-waving" behaviour I think are misguided and false. I do believe though that God, and Jesus, do present us with a response to pain and suffering. That's what I was seeking to outline in the post I've already given a link to.

I do think we (human beings) are called to a profound responsibility to "relieve" the suffering of others in the world. Ultimately, I also suspect that the origin of that "responsibility" wells up from very deep down at the very origin of Life. In theistic language, it is ultimately a "divine responsibility" that we are called to.

As I wrote the other day, listening to your conversation with Rachel you reminded me of my own mother. She came to very similar conclusions to yourself. I had enormous respect for her integrity.

Cheers,

I like that I am an agnostic with doubts !! I found that bishop - it was Archbishop Bruno Forte - he was quoted in the Tablet: "true non-belief is not a facile denial, with little effect on the person concerned. Serious, thoughtful non-belief which pasys attention to the true questions of the world and of life means suffering; it is a passion for truth that pays a personal price for the bitter courage of not believing.'

I think there is a fine line between doubt and faith, between believer and non believer and all we can do as Rilke says is sit with the questions, be honest andcourageous and speak the truth as
we perceive it.

I couldn't agree more. There are so many mysterious things about our existence and the world around us. And if people create stories, myths, religions, whatever you want to call them, in an attempt to explain these mysteries, they can hardly be blamed. My personal preference however is to just accept the mysteries that I see and experience every day without trying to graft on other mysteries in an attempt to explain these obvious ones. That effort seems to me to create more problems than it solves.

I always thought that the response that Michael Pallin once gave in a radio interview on where he stood with God and religion was not only funny, but like a lot of good humor, quite profound, "I am an agnostic, with doubts."

I think the insensible forces of the Universe are hard to reconcile with Jesus' personal God ofthe lillies of the field and the sparrows. That is why I don't accept that I am unable to believe because I have a false idea of who or what God is. I think there is a fine line between doubt and faith, between believer and non believer and all we can do as Rilke says is sit with the questions, be honest andcourageous and speak the truth as we erceive it. I don't accept that Mother Teresa's darkness was a God sent trial.I think she had real issues but she was afraid to face them because she felt she may commit the sin of blasphemy and so thought-blocked and confessed these thoughts as temptations. Having emptied herself of all that was not God she felt within herself an oppressive loneliness - and spoke of a pain of loss of God not being God of God not really existing. She felt heaven which in a way is an antidote to injustice, suffering and death - particulary of children - wasa convincing empitness.

A Bishop whose name presently escapes me wrote in the Tablet some months ago that it is important to have a dialogue between those who engage with the deep human questions of suffering, vulnerability and how to live a courageous life whether they are believers or not.

Thank you for publishing Colette Livermore’s response. I particularly agree with Colette’s comment above. It seems to me that this is precisely what Catholica provides, and why I have become a Catholica tragic.

By coincidence I came across another book in a similar vein to the philosophical or theological problem posed by Colette. It is by Bart D Ehrman, “God’s Problem. How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question: Why We Suffer? (2008 Harper One)” .

Ehrman was both theologian, academic and Protestant pastor who carried out an extensive examination of what the Bible had to say about suffering. He moved from being an almost fundamentalist Christian, through to more moderate or liberal Protestantism to finally becoming agnostic, for much the same reasons as Colette sets out in her response.

The book is a very detailed examination of the age old problem of suffering and how it fits in with a personal God. Ehrman goes through all the books of the Old and New Testaments that deal with it.

The “classical” explanation of suffering is that it is a punishment for sin. But that can’t be true because defenseless children also suffer. Then there is the explanation of the first part of the book of Job, that God is “testing us”, the classical explanation for the “dark night of the soul”. But that also has problems because why do children need to be “tested’.

Finally in the second part of the book of Job, there is the response that there is no explanation and we have no right to question the Almighty about decisions he makes. This does not fit in very well with the idea that we are made in God’s image and likeness. The end result is that Ehrman painfully comes to the same conclusion as Colette.

The book deals with his own personal struggle, as well as appearing to be a scholarly examination of the biblical texts on the subject.

If JPII is made a saint it will show just how far the church has sunk. In some matters he was impressive but in so much of his thinking he just did not understand the real church. His total lack of understanding of the values of Liberation Theology & the fact he apologised to the church on his second visit to South America for his criticism on it previously on his firt visit showed just how much a second rate Pope he really was.

I cannot see him being made a Saint. If he is made one it will just belittle the whole process of saintood in the Catholic Church

.Surely there are many saints around who don't function within the present religious
» systems. Tom in San Jose

Of course a priest on another site will disagree with me immediately but that just reflects on himself not on me.

BarryS

Thanks Collette for your honesty. What you say has merit. As adults, we must question our own faith journey and where we stand, even if we are at odds with Rome on certain issues. We are all companions on the journey - whichever direction we are coming from.

Collette,

Thanks for your message. I am one with you in your thinking.

The God I worship is the one present in your love as you minister to the needy.

Peter

Collette, I enjoy your womanly reply. I place little value on the process of making a modern day saint , lots of money and politics involved. In early church the acclaim of the people held up the person for being saintly , some of the big sinners making the list for their human effort personally to reform. I am amused with the story of Ambrose who became canonized by public acclaim. He was bright and understood people spiritually yet was a buck of a man who lived immorally now and then. The people chased him down to make him their bishop and Ambrose ran to a whore house and stood on the balcony shouting " look at me and where I am " and the people kept shouting "Ambrose for bishop ....Ambrose for bishop ". I'm not sure Ambrose was ever a priest as such really did not count that much in those days.It was only in 1127 that the priest was singled out as the most important post in the Christian community. I remember giving homilies on Ambrose and encouraging the people to vote for Tom ( the rebel ) .
Culture enters the picture as is the case with Mother Teresa, who offered to a downtrodden type an uplifted way of life , hard to understand in our modern world ; there is plenty of criticism of the way she treated her own sisters. Making a saint out of say John Paul the 2nd is just an ordinary way to push forward his theology, his writings and thinking .Surely there a many saints around who don't function within the present religious systems. Tom in San Jose

Dear all,

I have just received the following response from Collette Livermore to the discussions on Catholica her interview with Rachel Kohn has generated...

I have read you online blog and just wished to respond. Like most believers I am not trained in theology, I am also not on a mission to convince people not to believe. All I can say is that after many years of deep searching a shift has occurred in me and I can no longer reconcile Christianity’s all loving omniscient omnipotent God with the torturing consequences of disease and the insensible forces of nature. These forces were present on earth well before humans evolved and began to choose between good and evil. Sin did not cause suffering and death which has always been part of the natural order. I have never been able to believe in personified evil or in salvation as a plan in which Christ was preordained to crucified as a propiation for sin. To me Christ was a radically good man who was killed for that very reason. He was tortured not because ‘he never opened his mouth’ but because he spoke in defence of the poor and marginalized. A Bishop whose name presently escapes me wrote in the Tablet some months ago that it is important to have a dialogue between those who engage with the deep human questions of suffering, vulnerability and how to live a courageous life whether they are believers or not. I do not think my theology was ever the same as Mother Teresa’s. I had particular problems with her theology of the cross, of silence, of total obedience, of imitating the Lamb who never opened his mouth, of rejecting in many ways the pursuit of knowledge and the primacy of human conscience. I do not think Mother Teresa was anything but a good person trying with all she had to follow a theology which I think was faulty and which lead her to a dark place. If she is to be proclaimed as a saint and a model for Christians I think a distinction need to be made by the church between her courage and compassion and the system she put in place which in my experience sometimes turns generous young people into angry middle age women.

Collette