Some thoughts on lent.

Giving up stuff for lent is stupid.

The universe is a hard place for humans, death used to come to all of us early and in unexpected ways. We had no real control.

We couldn’t accept that the universe was evil and random though, even though that’s how it seemed. So instead we invented a mostly benevolent but easily displeased ruler, who could be appeased by certain sacrifices (virgins, lambs, pancake ingredients etc). This gave us back the illusion of control, and gave us comfort.

But it was just an illusion. Reality was never out to get us, we just had no power over it. We do now.

Today i’m going to enjoy my pancakes and re-read Bertrand Russell’s A Free Mans Worship and be thankful i was born in a time where we have real control over our surroundings thanks to the generations of rational, curious humans who weren’t satisfied with unreliable sacrifice as our only defence.