An AlterNet article by Amanda Marcotte reminds me of a question a reader asked me over at Google+.

7) Atheist lives are bleak and lack meaning. Those in the atheist activist community find this one particularly insipid, because we so often deal with people who suffered religious abuse and were only able to find peace by abandoning religion. There’s really no reason to believe that happiness and fulfillment come from a supernatural place, or else believers would have no need for fulfilling work, loving families, friends, and hobbies, since their spiritual beliefs would suffice. Most atheists actually find our lack of belief in a supernatural being makes it easier to fill our lives with meaning and joy. Since we don’t believe in an afterlife, many of us find ourselves more motivated to make the most out of the time we do have instead of looking to the next life to make us happy.

Some might remember that Amanda Marcotte was one of two bloggers fired from the John Edwards presidential campaign for some rather extreme anti-Catholic screeds. In this article she makes some valid points though her article named  “10 Myths Many Religious People Hold About Atheists” should really be named “10 Myths May Atheists Believe That Religious People Hold About Atheists” or at least that is the impression I get from her replies. She could not put the disclaimer “No straw man was hurt in the making of this post.”  This is not to say there are no myths that religious believers have concerning atheists. I would say there certainly are when it comes to discerning motivations and atheists like any group of individuals have motives that span the gamut.

The question I got asked myself concerned the question of joy and happiness when I was an atheist and the comparison to now.

Generally I have always been a happy person and as an atheist enjoyed many of the natural joys involving family, discovery of knowledge, and the effects of the natural virtues (and of course the effects of vices).   I could read an article in a science magazine and feel elation on some aspect of science and discovery and be amazed anew at our universe. Music has brought me great enjoyment.  I certainly experienced many material joys and I would have called myself a generally happy atheist.  My developed sense of wonder certainly contributed to this feeling.

I didn’t dwell on the meaning of life since there wasn’t one other than to “go along to get along” and to enjoy what I could since one day I would just stop existing.  When I thought about this “not existing” it didn’t fill me with fear since that was a natural end and there was nothing to regret once you stopped existing.  This is not to say that the idea does not cause a rebellion of self at the idea of not-existing, but it was just a fact to be faced and one to be faced not all that often.

There’s really no reason to believe that happiness and fulfillment come from a supernatural place …

I don’t anybody who believes that or makes that claim.  Atheists can very well be happy people, but can it really be said that their happiness derives from their atheism?  Is somebody who most fully lives the tenants of atheism happier?  Some of the atheist philosophers were the most miserable people I can think of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ayn Rand, Jean-Paul Sartre.  When you think of the new atheists the word joy doesn’t usually come to mind, but this is also seems to be true of some religious leaders.

What I would contend is that religious believers in general and Catholics in particular can be more filled with joy than any atheist.  Joy is the feeling aroused by the expectation or possession of some good.  There are both natural and supernatural joys depending on these goods. There are goods that atheists deny so this in itself reduces the range of possible joys. I did not give up joy when I came to faith.  All of those natural joys I was comforted by were expanded in directions I never expected.  My love of science did not end as I came to believe in God, it was extended. Somebody who took great joy in the beauty of paintings who discovered that there was also a painter could rejoice in both the painting and the painter.   Before I was limited  to just admiring the painter.  It is a much greater and deeper joy to think about both the universe and its creator. My love of science resulted in the fact that the world is intelligible.

Most atheists actually find our lack of belief in a supernatural being makes it easier to fill our lives with meaning and joy.

Of course she doesn’t mention how she knows this and if her data is other than anecdotal. Where exactly does she get this meaning she fills her life with?  In an atheistic universe meaning is only something you impose on it.  There is no intrinsic meaning other than 42.  One of the many things I found towards the end of my atheism was that I used many words and ideas in a way that I could not really defend.  The words good, meaning, rights, etc were societal conventions and societal devices that could ultimately make no claims on me other than what I decided for myself. Something is generally agreed upon might be well worth looking at, but it can make no moral demands on you if there is morality other than a subjective one.

Since we don’t believe in an afterlife, many of us find ourselves more motivated to make the most out of the time we do have instead of looking to the next life to make us happy.

Again a generality that probably can’t be supported.  Going from atheism to theism did not affect my motivation for making the most out of time.  I did not suddenly decide that I could stop making the most out of time now that I believe in an afterlife. Besides the whole phrase “making the most out of time’ is pretty subjective.  Is somebody traveling the world and constantly dong things making more out of time than a nun in a contemplative order?

Sometimes you hear of a Jewish person who converts to the Catholic faith saying that they did not leave behind their Judaism but completed it.  All of those natural joys and virtues I enjoyed as an atheist were not left behind, but completed and heaped upon.  Ironic that in her myth-debunking post that she asserts that believers just look to the next life to be happy.  This is really usually a both/and situation unless your St. Bernadette*.  When I think upon Heaven, I don’t think “well I can hardly wait for the afterlife to be happy and I will just have to need trudging along until then.” What I do know that gives me great joy is that God has made me for himself and even though my imaginative abilities to conjure the reality of Heaven are woefully lacking; I totally know that God will give me joy and happiness also in the next life.  Many atheists would call this wish fulfillment and a crutch, but that there is a reality that matches the desire in my heart is not some cosmic joke and if a crutch helps me walk straighter and to obtain that joy – all the better.

I just wish my “wish fulfillment” didn’t bring me to belief in hell and the real possibility that I could reject God.  That my “wish fulfillment” didn’t wish for a hundred or more Lents to work on my sins and to be able to grow in virtue.  Darn that “wish fulfillment” for putting a crimp in my style and keeping me from just going after individualistic pleasures. Us believers really need to work on our “wish fulfillment” since we come up with such downers like repentance and all that.  Some might critique atheism as a sort of “wish fulfillment” of there not being ultimate consequences to actions, but this would be as equally untrue to the majority as the counterclaim.

* I say this jokingly because of the famous quote from the Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next.”.

(AP) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his “700 Club” viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s is justifiable because the disease is “a kind of death.”

During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.

“I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her,” Robertson said. [Source]

Mr. Robertson might not want to let Mrs. Robertson know you can get a divorce if your partner is brainless.

When it comes down to it though, how is Pat Robertson’s position much different from the view of divorce in Protestantism generally? Marrying after a civil divorce is pretty much totally accepted within Protestantism. If a Protestant want’s to get “remarried” there is pretty much no bar to going to any Protestant minister to perform a wedding. Their civil divorce could have been for pretty much any reason. Now of course talking about Protestantism in general means that there is bound to be one group or more that are an exception since practice is so varied.

Sure some will use scripture to defend divorce in the case of adultery, but pretty much once they had one exemption the reality is that there are no exemptions as practiced. There is no investigation into a marriage even for the supposed exemption.

One of the things that attracted me to the Catholic Church when I became a theist was the Church’s view of marriage. As an atheist I saw marriage as a “unto death” kind of thing even if I had nothing in atheist philosophy to build such and opinion on. While some might think that annulments are a form of Catholic divorce, they are founded on a valid principal even if the practice is not perfect. Only the Church treats marriage as seriously as is merited.

When you don’t have a Magisterium difficult cases are what drive the practice and the exceptions made open up endless exceptions. While we can easily see the effect in Protestantism it also applies to Orthodoxy where divorce is more and more accepted.

Archbishop Dolan fallows up on his markers of the faith post with some more reflection on this subject after attending World Youth Day.

…The planners of each Mass — wisely and thoughtfully, when you think about it — printed in the Mass booklet, and even announced before Mass, “Look, it’s so jammed in here, and you are all so hot and tired, why don’t you just stay seated during the Eucharistic prayer.”

Very practical . . . very wise . . . let’s make this simple and a bit more relaxed. Let’s “lighten-up.”

What happened? I’ll be darned, at all four occasions, all the hundreds, thousands of youth still knelt! They wanted to kneel in adoration! They didn’t want it simple or practical! They didn’t mind the challenge! They wanted it!

I realize it’s a trivial example, a little thing. Maybe I read too much into it. But I wonder as well if once again our people — our young people — are telling us something:

“We don’t like ‘Catholic-lite.’ Don’t pander to us! Call us to greatness! Call us to heroic virtue! Remind us that following Jesus calls for sacrifice, and that we long for ways to let ourselves, and the world, know that we are different. Don’t make things simple! Don’t cater to convenience!”

Jesus summoned us to be a “light to the world.” Nothing “lite” about that.

Have we put this lantern under a basket? Have we turned light into lite?

I would say the answer is yes. Holiness does not come lightly and minimum Catholicism results in minimum holiness.

Father Frank Pavone, one of the country’s most visible and vocal opponents of abortion, has been suspended from active ministry outside the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, over financial questions about the priest’s operation of Priests for Life.

The suspension was made public in a Sept. 13 letter from Amarillo Bishop Patrick J. Zurek to his fellow bishops across the country, but Father Pavone told Catholic News Service that he was returning to Amarillo and planned to continue functioning as a priest there.

“My decision is the result of deep concerns regarding his stewardship of the finances of the Priests for Life (PFL) organization,” Bishop Zurek wrote. “The PFL has become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Bishop Zurek said “persistent questions and concerns” from clergy and laity about how the millions of dollars in donations the organization has received are being spent led to the action. [Source]

Wow its been a tough years for “celebrity priests”. Fr. Euteneuer, Fr. Corapi, and now apparently Fr. Pavone. Though it is almost a relief to see that it was financial irregularity and not something else. Especially considering that two priests that were most involved and visible in the pro-life cause have run into problems. Satan would like to sift all of us like wheat, though I am not surprised if he had concentrated he efforts in the pro-life cause. I say this not to invoke the Church ladies “Satan” as blame considering our free will.

Again a further reminder to pray for our priests.

Update: Fr. Pavone has released a statement in response to his bishop’s order.

As usual time will tell what is going on, but the financial situation is not the loose canon that was Fr. Corapi financial arrangements.

The same attorney who has won public notice for trying to sue McDonald’s on the grounds that the institution is responsible for America’s obesity is now behind the now well-known sex-discrimination lawsuit against Catholic University’s decision to reintroduce single-sex dormitories. Citing District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act, Professor Banzhaf believes CUA’s decision does not qualify for the Act’s exemption of discrimination of any kind outside of “business necessity”: “without such exception [discrimination on the basis of sex], such business cannot be conducted. [Source]”

I don’t know anything about Professor Banzhaf private life, but I think I will sue him anyway.  In fact I am considering a class action lawsuit against him.  For example if he is heterosexual than that means he discriminated against  men in his selection of a possible mate.  This is totally outrageous that he would make any such decision based on sex alone.  If he has same-sex attraction the same goes for his discrimination against women as a suitable partner. Either way he has discriminated against a whole group of persons based on sex alone and this outrageous behavior  certainly deserves that a class action lawsuit should be brought against him.

In some interesting news the movie on the story of Judah Maccabee looks like it will actually happen.  I remember when this movie was rumored to happen not long after Mel Gibson directed The Passion of the Christ.  Mel Gibson along with Catholic convert and screen writer Joe Eszterhas are behind the project with Mel Gibson possibly directing.  Considering Gibson’s drunken anti-Semitic rant and subsequent bizarre behavior you can imagine their will be some opposition to the idea of him doing a movie on a very interesting and less known piece of Jewish history.

So instead of hammering the Jews, Mel Gibson will make a movie on Judah the Hammer.

On an apologetics note it would be quite interesting to have a movie based on the books of Maccabee and really there is great material in them for a movie.  I always found profoundly moving the story of the mother and her children who were martyred rather than to give in to the Greek culture.  We have a equally if not more  pernicious culture today that would force itself on us. Of course discussions/flame wars would erupt about the canon of scripture since Protestants removed these books after the King James was first published and that only some Jewish groups have these books in their cannon.  I say deuterocanonical you say apocryphal.