Religion
Related: About this forumFormer atheist poet reveals details of her Catholic conversion
By David Kerr
Rome, Italy, Jul 27, 2012 / 03:51 am (CNA/EWTN News).- “Until two years ago, I was a really committed atheist and I really hated the Catholic Church,” said poet Sally Read, as she explained how all that dramatically changed during nine months in 2010.
“The whole process took from March to December, and I was received into the Catholic Church at the Vatican in December, so it was a bit of a lightning flash,” she told CNA on July 24.
A 41-year-old Englishwoman, Sally Read is regarded as a rising star within the world of poetry. Her publisher describes the former psychiatric nurse as “one of a new generation of younger poets shaping the future of British poetry.”
She now lives in the Italian seaside town of Santa Marinella with her husband and their daughter. It was there that her conversion story began two years ago while she was writing an anthology based on her experiences with psychiatric patients.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/former-atheist-poet-reveals-details-of-her-catholic-conversion/
Here's one of her poems:
The next afternoon we tried anal sex
and as you coaxed my neck with your thumbs
I thought of Wolf’s Creek
and the fish you wouldn’t catch,
plump trout necks you couldn’t bear to break
and take home dead to your mother.
In the warmth I knew my arse
was soft, the downy peach.
from The Point of Splitting (Bloodaxe Books, 2005).
On edit: Four stanzas = 4 paragraphs for copyright. Here's the link to the rest of the poem:
http://peonymoon.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/sally-read-writes-about-her-poem-breaking-fish-necks/
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cbayer
(146,218 posts)
rug
(82,333 posts)Can't cut and paste it but you can read it online.
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=12818
She's an interesting woman.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)She has a nice flow and I like what she does with the line breaks to put a little halt in the flow. Nice imagery.
rug
(82,333 posts)It is a good poem.
struggle4progress
(118,236 posts)In the spring of 2010, I embarked on a project with a doctor, co-writing a book about the vagina. It was to be a funky self-help guide to a woman’s most misunderstood parts: The Vagina, an Owner’s Guide. Part of my remit was to garner as much anecdotal information as possible. I decided to interview prostitutes and Muslims, Catholics and lesbians.
The hookers and gay women were easy talkers. The religious women less so. But I live near Rome and run into nuns every day – what a scoop, to talk to a nun about her vagina! But the approach would be tricky. I knew of a priest through a friend, a youngish man who chatted easily at the grocer’s. Perhaps he could introduce me to an open-minded sister. One March morning, I emailed him: “Dear Father, I am writing a book about vaginas …”
And so the clash of the sacred and profane began. He wasn’t shocked by the vagina question. But we started talking and, after a lifetime of passionate atheism and a visceral loathing of the Catholic Church, I asked if he minded if I put some questions to him. Sparks flew. Our exchange came to disrupt my work, my sleep, my well-being. Not that the priest’s arguments convinced me. Not that I was desperate to convince him. But my mind seemed bent on listening to some painful, raw static I could not switch off from ...
In the circles I used to keep in London, owning up to choosing to be Catholic is a little like admitting you’re racist or homophobic or sexually repressed. Like most British women these days, I had become sexually active at about the same time as I learned to drive a car, and with the same pragmatism: “The time is right: I need to get around if I’m not to be left behind.” Chesterton wrote that sex would be the final heresy. Indeed, for me the central stumbling blocks to entering the Church was doctrine relating to homosexuality, masturbation and contraception. I felt I could never belong to a church so didactic in its beliefs, so narrow in its view of sexuality ...
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/162180
2ndAmForComputers
(3,527 posts)You could almost picture them jumping and dancing and shouting, "WOO HOO! We got one! We finally got one! Take THAT, USA! YEAH!"
But of course, those handful didn't make the thousands of people trying to cross the Berlin Wall from East to West disappear.
rug
(82,333 posts)That's why I find the vehemence of these atheist/theist wars to be bogus. The core issue is the joining of state power and religion, not whether one believes or does not believe.
Here's a VoPo fleeing East Berlin.
Frankly, considering what he was fleeing, your analogy doesn't work.
2ndAmForComputers
(3,527 posts)
Silent3
(15,151 posts)...an atheist whose atheism is grounded in methodical skepticism converts. I remember reading about one prominent intellectual atheist who became a believer later in life (sorry, the name doesn't come to me now), but there were signs that his mind was slipping. He got to where he'd convert to back and forth from one conversation to the next, apparently just eager to be agreeable.
I don't see that this woman started out with any strong grounding in skepticism. She was simply raised atheist, had emotional objections to religion, and lived in social circles where proclaiming belief would be difficult. Religion seems to have come to her as an emotional experience that filled an emotional hole, and she had no solid habits of skeptical thinking to question that experience with, so she let herself be swept away by whatever made her feel better.
rug
(82,333 posts)It would not be difficult to make the same assumptions about emotional reactions to, and ignorance of, religion to explain one's conversion to atheism, but that would be ignorant and uninformed.
One does not need to lose one's mind or to be skepticly ignorant to reject atheism.
Silent3
(15,151 posts)Last edited Sat Jul 28, 2012, 10:46 AM - Edit history (2)
If there's a solid grounding in skeptical thinking there, it doesn't show up in her quoted words or anywhere else. Being swayed by social pressures and emotions is prominent.
As for atheism possibly arising from supposed ignorance of religion, believers here have had ample opportunity to explain where atheists are lacking in important knowledge about religion, but they mostly produce no more than emotional appeals and special pleading and "you can't prove me wrong!" arguments as a response.
Edit: PS: I read the article s4p linked to as well.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Not seeing the problem here. By her own description, it was an entirely sudden emotional reaction rather than based on any kind of rational argument.
Also keep in mind she is not simply rejecting atheism. Near the end of the article she says "“I realized that there was only one Church and the way to be closest to Christ was to be a Catholic, because it’s the Eucharist and taking Communion.”
She's basically rejecting every other denomination of Christianity, and every other non-Catholic religious belief in the world. It sets up a rather easy attack on her ability to think rationality by claiming the Catholic church as the one true church.
rug
(82,333 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)Who to fall in love with? What team to root for in baseball?
How terribly dull that must be.
When I chose who to marry, I rejected all others. Never said they weren't as good, just that they weren't the ones for me.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)is the "closest to Christ". Basically that would be like me choosing a wife and saying she's better than everyone elses wives.
rug
(82,333 posts)In fact, it's a piss-poor ananolgy.
Meeting someone who resonates the most with you is hardly saying every other living human is inferior.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)“I realized that there was only one Church and the way to be closest to Christ was to be a Catholic, because it’s the Eucharist and taking Communion.”
This statement denies that other churches are valid or equal to the Catholic Church.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Are there no humanists that make similar statements about the way they see the world?
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)The point in showing her rejection of other religions is simply a response to those who are pretending this is simply a blow against atheism.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)from being religious to not-religious (or vice versa), the other *side* loses.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)I don't see anyone making a statement in support of humanism that is as exclusionary.
edhopper
(33,487 posts)that our emotions can mislead us and to counsel them with rational thinking can lead to disastrous results.
Marrying someone on pure emotion often leads to a bad marriage. (Is it pure sexual attraction? lust? money?)
Hating another team with emotional reaction without realizing it is a frivolous enjoyment can lead to things like Futball riots.
Choosing to believe in God and a specific church based solely on emotion can lead to a life wasted in useless ritual.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Screw rational thinking when it comes to some things. Love, the spiritual part of one's self, art, music, food.... I could go on and on.
I'm really not concerned with anyone wasting their life on useless ritual. it is their life.
edhopper
(33,487 posts)because they thought they were head over heals, while everyone around saw the relationship for the disaster it turned out to be. A little rationality with the emotions would have saved a lot of heartache.
"I'm really not concerned with anyone wasting their life on useless ritual. it is their life."
You don't need to be, but it is their life and maybe they would not choose to waste it if they used a bit of critically thinking.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Interestingly, the use of algorithms based on personality profiles (such as eHarmony uses) have become more popular. It would be interesting to see data on the longevity and health of the relationships that are formed using these techniques.
At any rate, choosing to believe or not believe and what organizations to affiliate with are highly personal and idiosyncratic. Saying one way is more rational than another is probably a stretch.
edhopper
(33,487 posts)her reason is completely emotional with no rational thought at all.
She seems completely arbitrary and capricious in her decision.
A little head along with the heart might be of benefit.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)It feels right to her, speaks to her, makes sense to her, fills a place nothing else fills...
and it harms no one. What's the problem? I don't see how reason or logic even comes into play here.
edhopper
(33,487 posts)Emotion without reason mostly leads to a bad ending.
Simply believing without logic seems a poor exercise.
And it harms her.
In the case where the emotion is hate or fear, it can harm a lot of people.
The world is rife with examples of people acting on emotion without reason with disastrous consequences.
And this includes the woman in this article, her emotion is having support an institution that she proclaims the one true church.
Do i have to recount the harm the Catholic Church has done, obviously for her with the complete blessing of her new found God.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)edhopper
(33,487 posts)we are talking about a fundamental difference between reason and blind faith based solely on emotion.
The happy feeling in her tummy while being in Church is beside the point.
I am sure Southerners who emotionally felt that Black People were not fully human felt just fine about owning slaves.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Religious belief or disbelief are highly personal choices. Perhaps she had some sort of experience that she can't prove to you but was life-altering for her. Perhaps she was able to find some peace she could find nowhere else. Who's to judge her for that?
I am sure you are right about slave owners, but she's not buying slaves.
Again, who are we to judge her?
edhopper
(33,487 posts)I assume with her full agreement and participation, therefore it perfectly appropriate that I judge her based on what she said.
She has made this public, therefore if I find her arguments for the existence of God and righteousness of the Catholic Church to be lacking and pathetic based solely on "it feels good to her", I have every right to point out the weakness and shear inanity of what she is saying.
Life altering epiphanies are not necessarily based on anything that is real, true or right.
Ronald Regan had a life altering epiphany that turned from a liberal Democrat to an asshole Republican. Just because it felt right to him doesn't make what he thought true.
She gets no special treatment because it's religion.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)You have religious folk acting out of emotion at the expense of reason fighting against equal rights for homosexuals, women, people of other religions, etc. and that's just our country. In other nations you have all that escalating to mass violence and genocide. The Church she emotional chose to be a part of has been involved in all of that in the past, and still actively supports state sponsored bigotry. How exactly does giving up reason to follow Religion not harm people?
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)It's a big reason there's such a high divorce rate.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)So if you found out your partner were a child molester or had actively worked to protect child molesters or was involved in the brutal murder of someone, you still would have married them, loved them, given them financial support, etc. just the same? And in this case of choosing a religion rejecting all others IS saying they are not as good. She is not saying it is best for her, or that all other religions are equally valid.
