But sometimes, I really, really wish there was a God to pray to.
I'm still doubting hope.
But sometimes, I really, really wish I had more hope.
I'm still doubting that I'm an atheist.
But sometimes, religion just does not make any sense to me at all.
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13 comments:
I understand what you mean about wishing there really was a god to pray to. And not just to pray to, so that he/she/it would actually answer and care about my struggles.
The hardest part of becoming an atheist is having to "man up". My personal sense of responsibility toward my life and the lives of my kids got all up in my face when there was no longer a god to carry my burden. It feels so overwhelming sometimes that I want to just walk away from my life...literally and figuratively. But just as some christians say they've died "unto Christ" I have, in a sense, done the same thing...just to my progeny. My life is not my own...my children are the greater good that I live for. When I have doubt, when I am hopeless, I only need to remember that they are counting on me. With the martyr complex I've had most of my life that works for me. :)
That's one of the hardest things. Knowing that despite your best efforts or intentions, that there's nothing you can do.
When I look back to my time as a religious person, I find that mostly when I was praying I was comforting myself by handing over worry to an external party.
Now I try to worry less, difficulties pass or in stepping back and worrying less I find a new solution, something I hadn't seen before.
Thank Evolve and Sean. I've been questioning a lot lately.
There are so many things I don't understand in this life. I'm trying my best but sometimes it's difficult.....
I do understand what you're talking about.
I just--as in tonight--watched Religulous. I'm probably the last person in the world to see it, but if I'm the next to last, and you're the very last, I recommend it.
I think anyone who has shit happen to them and to people they love wishes there was a god to pray to for help. Unfortunately, at the end of the day all we have is ourselves and the great people in our lives.
I agree with evolve... it's hard having to "man up" and be responsible for what happens in our lives. It's up to us to make our happiness. It's also up to us to be responsible for our sadness and anger.
Christians have a tendency to say "it must be easy being an atheist because you don't have to answer to god". Actually, I think the reverse is true, we have to answer to ourselves and humanity, those things are real. We can't blame the bad on some invisible friend.
Continuing doubt is part of the journey, especially when you are so new at it. BUT it is totally worth it on the other side when you realize that YOU control your happiness, not anyone else, including a god.
Snowbrush, Thank you. You are very wise.
Poodles, You've been such a good friend on my jouney of doubting faith. You always help me see things so clearly. I hope you are happy and well.
Evolveintobirds, Sean, Snowbrush and you have all really helped me more than you all ever know.
Thanks and hugs!!
P.S.
Snowbrush,
I have seen the movie. I have it listed as one of my favorites in my profile.
I was, as you know, writing but then sort of got writers block. I procrastinated for a few days with no hope of reprieve. So I'm sitting down at the stroke of midnight after watching southpark to write this. :) I'm also munching on corn based products flavoured with cinnamon, cayenne, pepper, paprikika, tomato and garlic so anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt. Also I too wish I could pray................. that I don't get visited by the ghosts of midnight snacks past for choosing this time to type.
I understand the depth and breadth of what you are feeling. But taking a step back to review it with a clear head you see that nothing has changed except you and your interpretation of things. You have all the hope, help and comfort you used to access by praying still locked up inside of you. It is still but it is just hard to access.
Convincing yourself that there is a God who loves and cares and protects you might help others (if they are able to suppress facts and doubts) but it doesn't do anything other than provide what they had with they had, within them, all this time. Reminds me of the Wizard of Oz....... on more and more levels the more I think of it :)
Back to the point it is as I said before a way to access inate comfort. For those who can without question or doubt then that is there way and I wish them well. But you are the disposition that you cannot truthfully. That is good. For while it is harder to find the comfort within yourself without an imaginary being to pin it to for safe keeping, it also allows you to find the source. And finding it there will allow it, and you through it, to shine fully and trully. Without the mar of control inspired myths tainting it.
There is hope. There is always hope. Even if it is found in the most unlikeliest of places, it still exists.
Take a deep breath. Rub your eyes and look through mine for a second. Smile at your children, their thoughts their dreams. They love and care for you more than you know. You are a good mother to them. Take some time. A minute will do as I know things are overwhelming. Give them a hug and share their hope. They don't need to know the reason (through if they were me they'd be evil and want to know) but just share. Mary Poppins was on to something with her songs about work been more fun with song. But it's deeper than that. Work shared. Made into a game, a shared experience. It is when things are the bleakest and you feel you don't have the time for such a luxury that it is needed the most. A lot of experience and literature portrays a husband and children as a burden. But they can be so much more. Such a source of hope. Share, confide, trust, be honest. Strengthen the connections to those you can about and those who care about you. You will find hope in time. Or maybe I should say it will find hope.
I think this is sort of venturing into a personal letter so I'll stop now. It also only partly dealt with the question at hand, but since I'm privlidged with a deeper view I tried to answer in a more personal sense (at least to a brain adled by cinnamon, cayenne, pepper, paprikika, tomato and garlic sort of way :P). I also got distracted by the hypnotic patterns on a dirty keyboard so it'll soon by half past midnight and while there's no distracting clock tick tick tocking I am deadly tired.. I want to continue a book to calm my brain so I'll post this without edit or review. Apologies if it goes too deep for a public blog. Remove if you will, a copy will be in your email.
I was, as you know, writing but then sort of got writers block. I procrastinated for a few days with no hope of reprieve. So I'm sitting down at the stroke of midnight after watching southpark to write this. :) I'm also munching on corn based products flavoured with cinnamon, cayenne, pepper, paprikika, tomato and garlic so anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt. Also I too wish I could pray................. that I don't get visited by the ghosts of midnight snacks past for choosing this time to type.
I understand the depth and breadth of what you are feeling. But taking a step back to review it with a clear head you see that nothing has changed except you and your interpretation of things. You have all the hope, help and comfort you used to access by praying still locked up inside of you. It is still but it is just hard to access.
Convincing yourself that there is a God who loves and cares and protects you might help others (if they are able to suppress facts and doubts) but it doesn't do anything other than provide what they had with they had, within them, all this time. Reminds me of the Wizard of Oz....... on more and more levels the more I think of it :)
Back to the point it is as I said before a way to access inate comfort. For those who can without question or doubt then that is there way and I wish them well. But you are the disposition that you cannot truthfully. That is good. For while it is harder to find the comfort within yourself without an imaginary being to pin it to for safe keeping, it also allows you to find the source. And finding it there will allow it, and you through it, to shine fully and trully. Without the mar of control inspired myths tainting it.
There is hope. There is always hope. Even if it is found in the most unlikeliest of places, it still exists.
Take a deep breath. Rub your eyes and look through mine for a second. Smile at your children, their thoughts their dreams. They love and care for you more than you know. You are a good mother to them. Take some time. A minute will do as I know things are overwhelming. Give them a hug and share their hope. They don't need to know the reason (through if they were me they'd be evil and want to know) but just share. Mary Poppins was on to something with her songs about work been more fun with song. But it's deeper than that. Work shared. Made into a game, a shared experience. It is when things are the bleakest and you feel you don't have the time for such a luxury that it is needed the most. A lot of experience and literature portrays a husband and children as a burden. But they can be so much more. Such a source of hope. Share, confide, trust, be honest. Strengthen the connections to those you can about and those who care about you. You will find hope in time. Or maybe I should say it will find hope.
I think this is sort of venturing into a personal letter so I'll stop now. It also only partly dealt with the question at hand, but since I'm privlidged with a deeper view I tried to answer in a more personal sense (at least to a brain adled by cinnamon, cayenne, pepper, paprikika, tomato and garlic sort of way :P). I also got distracted by the hypnotic patterns on a dirty keyboard so it'll soon by half past midnight and while there's no distracting clock tick tick tocking I am deadly tired.. I want to continue a book to calm my brain so I'll post this without edit or review. Apologies if it goes too deep for a public blog. Remove if you will, a copy will be in your email.
I found giving up theism to be a bit like giving up heroin (or at least what I might imagine giving up heroin would be like). I went into atheism kicking and screaming with a lot of periods of backsliding (ha).
Those are my thoughts precisely. I don't like God if he does exist but I can't accept that he doesn't, and thinking that he might exist is sometimes comforting, even if I'm angry at him most of the time.
Calling myself an atheist is just too heavy of a label, as is calling myself a Christian, or anything else. I can't just abandon what I was raised with - tradition and my family's values are very important to me. But I can't reconcile what God is supposed to be with what he is, if he actually exists.
I would like to reach out to everyone on this blog about God. I doubted God for a long time, and it felt really horrible. I used to feel alone in my Christian family. I kept feeling like a faliure and yet every time, I would try and try to believe in him and always end up failing to do so.
Today, this all changed. I talked to someone about it. I talked about the pain and hurt I felt when I didn't believe in God (feelings that many other of you appear to be feeling too). What she told me changed everything.
The main reason I doubt God, I told her, was because I felt like I wasn't getting heard in my prayers. I would openly question God in my prayers. I would ask him why he made it so difficult for me to believe in him and would ask him to send me signs that he exists. When problems came about in my life, I would pray to him (despite doubting him) and demand to know why he was letting them happen. I would spend hours sitting on my bed, trying to understand it all and every time because of it, I would just doubt God more.
The person I talked to really helped me get through this. She told me that I couldn't question God like I was doing because I would never be able to understand him.
When I went to church, all I would hear were stories of how he was so great and almighty. The truth is, I never absorbed any of it.
The thing about us doubters, is that we don't look at God the way believers do. We question every thing bad that happens in the world, asking why he doesn't do anything to stop it, as if we could even begin to understand him. This is what always makes us lose faith in him. We just don't seem to understand what is going on, and as a result, we stop believing.
We need to remember that God is different from us human beings. Although we were supposed to be made from his image, he is so almighty and great that we can never understand his decisions. It doesn't matter if we don't understand his decisions, we need to put faith in him. Choosing to believe in God isn't about looking at the facts and making decisions based on them. Believing in God is spiritual. It doesnt make any sense to the human mind. It is completely irrational, yet if you try it, it just works. It feels amazing. Forget about trying to weigh the points between saying God exists and the points saying he doesn't.
I, once a nonbeliever like the rest of you have tried just to open up myself and remove myself from thinking and analyzing God. It was magical how he embraced me straight away once I did.
I would like to ask something crazy from all of you non believers. I would like you to try and believe in God again and just try and approach Christianity with an open mind. I know this sound crazy on an atheist blog, but I feel like I have been sent by Christ to give you this message. Ha ha. This is getting crazy.
I know. Its just, it feels so amazing having a God to believe in and I feel like you guys are missing out on so much.
The fact that many of you are feeling pain and guilt from being atheist might show you the empty spot where God should be in your life.
Please, just try believing again. I have been where you guys are. Giving Christ a second chance worked for me. For all of you still struggling with relgion: God bless you. Though you may not understand why or how, there is a God who loves you so much more than you can ever imagine.
Anonymous,
Actually for a lot of atheists we become what we are trying to believe in god or become better at our particular religion. I became an atheist trying to become a better catholic. It was finally taking the time to actually study religion and it's roots that led me to where I am.
And I couldn't be happier. I much prefer living in the real world. I appreciate my life and the things in it so much more.
You were doubting, and you turned to people of faith for help with those doubts, nothing wrong with that, however, maybe you need to remember what it was that made you doubt.
Have you read the bible? Both testaments? Start there. Really reading it to understand it. Then read other religious texts. You might be surprised at what you learn.
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