Stop me from chasing religion, for the love of G- oh...
September 10, 2012 at 5:22 pm
(This post was last modified: September 10, 2012 at 5:26 pm by kindofblue.)
Hello,
I am not accustomed to joining new forums and making introductory posts such as these, but just as an alcoholic, or anyone fighting an addiction, stands before the crowd, introduces himself, and admits his problem before any healing can begin, so must I.
My username is kindofblue, and I am addicted to religion. I grew up in a secular household and lived as an agnostic throughout college. After graduating, I was not happy with my life. Weighed down by the depressing thought that there was no point to the universe, I alienated myself from my peers. I did not enjoy their pleasures, which I viewed as empty, temporal pleasures. As you can surmise, I was ripe for the religious's picking.
I went to Israel, expecting nothing more than a free trip but returning with a unquenchable desire to reconnect with my roots. I joined the Orthodox Jews, and though I felt strong resistance regarding their attitudes towards women, homosexuals, non-Jews, and liberals (God help you, Ellen Degeneres), as well as their cosmological theories, I stuck with them for almost two years. Why? Because I was convinced that I was wicked and stupid, and that God and the sages he left for us knew better. So I kept the Sabbath even though it killed what was left of my social life, ate kosher even though it meant never sharing a meal with my heathen family members again, and grew my beard even though it was really, really, itchy. And I prayed three times a day, wore tefillin, the whole song and dance (oh, I actually sang and danced too).
I started seeing a therapist about the difficulties I had with the faith and the people who practiced it. That led to a clinical diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. It wasn't long before I put two and two together: my desire for religious belief and ritual was nothing more than a manifestation of my very real mental disorder. One night, while still in treatment, I decided that I had been living in a delusion, and I left.
If only it were that simple.
I tried to fill the "God-shaped" hole with science and reason. I devoured the works of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Sagan. They helped me see my folly, but they could not help me out of the predicament I was in before I became religious: that I could find no hope to live in a random and meaningless world.
So slowly, as the episodes of Cosmos tapered off, I started wondering again... maybe I just went things in the wrong way? Maybe there really was a purpose, even a God, even the SAME God that I refused. That's when I turned to Christianity.
I found many things to like, that would convince me to give religion another go. Many Christian denominations (including Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, the two I most seriously considered) did not read the Bible literally, and were okay with the idea of evolution. They believed all men were equal in the eyes of God (whereas the Jews view themselves as inherently superior to the goyim). They taught forgiveness and the power of redemption (God didn't expect me to fulfill his 613 commandments to be saved, He would save me because he loved me). I learned to stop listening to the OCD-ridden voices in my head and accept that God was beyond all human thought, and so beyond my own self-condemnations and doubts. I was willing to accept the mystery of faith.
But then ugliness appeared once more. I couldn't ignore the Christian's view towards sexuality, no matter how well phrased. I couldn't ignore the history of the Church, and the countless mistakes it made, white-washed by PR. Was I really wrong about my views? Did I really need to go through a period of mental cleansing and straight-up forgetting before I could feel comfortable as a Christian? I couldn't remain on the fence and adopt a moderate route -- I'm an Orthodox person by nature. Either these things happened and these teachings were true, or they weren't.
This struggle led to difficulties accepting anything. Did God really descend to earth as man and die on the cross to save us, or is that story adapted from similar myths of the time, which practically no one in the world believes now? And there are dead saints all around us, and if we ask them, they'll pray for us? Concerned about these questions I had, I put down the Bible (for the second time) and started reading what the scientists had to say. Then, more doubts, more alternative explanations that fit better with the world I lived in.
So now I'm sort of at a precipice, and I'm teetering back and forth by the hour. This morning, I was reading Christian apologetics. By lunch time, I was watching Bill Mager's Religulous and slapping my forehead.
Sometimes, I tell myself, "Forget it, you're religious and you just need to work through these doubts." Other times, it's, "Forget it, you don't believe any of this and you just need to work through these delusions." Meanwhile, I've opened contact with two priests, who are eager to assist me in a spiritual journey I'm already half-regretting. This teeter-tottering isn't just affecting my own life anymore.
Obviously, since I'm writing this post, I'm in the "you don't believe any of this" cycle right now (but who knows where I'll be in a few hours?). So I ask you, how do you live with being an atheist? How do you prevent yourself from turning to superstition? How does the atheist attain solace with a neutral, uncaring universe? These are not "bait" questions. I really have yet to hear from an atheist on these matters.
I think the main reason why I keep teetering towards religion is because I'm scared shitless of a world without a God or a purpose. It's easy to mask my failures and shortcomings with the idea that "everything is happening as it should be." But if I really am the master of my own fate -- holy shit, that's scary. That's not something I think I can handle. But if that's the case, well, I'm gonna have to do something.
I'm not looking for proof from either side; I've investigated all the proof I care for. What this comes down to is really faith -- what do I, given the evidence before me, think actually happened? And, given that answer, how, then, do I live?
I am not accustomed to joining new forums and making introductory posts such as these, but just as an alcoholic, or anyone fighting an addiction, stands before the crowd, introduces himself, and admits his problem before any healing can begin, so must I.
My username is kindofblue, and I am addicted to religion. I grew up in a secular household and lived as an agnostic throughout college. After graduating, I was not happy with my life. Weighed down by the depressing thought that there was no point to the universe, I alienated myself from my peers. I did not enjoy their pleasures, which I viewed as empty, temporal pleasures. As you can surmise, I was ripe for the religious's picking.
I went to Israel, expecting nothing more than a free trip but returning with a unquenchable desire to reconnect with my roots. I joined the Orthodox Jews, and though I felt strong resistance regarding their attitudes towards women, homosexuals, non-Jews, and liberals (God help you, Ellen Degeneres), as well as their cosmological theories, I stuck with them for almost two years. Why? Because I was convinced that I was wicked and stupid, and that God and the sages he left for us knew better. So I kept the Sabbath even though it killed what was left of my social life, ate kosher even though it meant never sharing a meal with my heathen family members again, and grew my beard even though it was really, really, itchy. And I prayed three times a day, wore tefillin, the whole song and dance (oh, I actually sang and danced too).
I started seeing a therapist about the difficulties I had with the faith and the people who practiced it. That led to a clinical diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. It wasn't long before I put two and two together: my desire for religious belief and ritual was nothing more than a manifestation of my very real mental disorder. One night, while still in treatment, I decided that I had been living in a delusion, and I left.
If only it were that simple.
I tried to fill the "God-shaped" hole with science and reason. I devoured the works of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Sagan. They helped me see my folly, but they could not help me out of the predicament I was in before I became religious: that I could find no hope to live in a random and meaningless world.
So slowly, as the episodes of Cosmos tapered off, I started wondering again... maybe I just went things in the wrong way? Maybe there really was a purpose, even a God, even the SAME God that I refused. That's when I turned to Christianity.
I found many things to like, that would convince me to give religion another go. Many Christian denominations (including Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, the two I most seriously considered) did not read the Bible literally, and were okay with the idea of evolution. They believed all men were equal in the eyes of God (whereas the Jews view themselves as inherently superior to the goyim). They taught forgiveness and the power of redemption (God didn't expect me to fulfill his 613 commandments to be saved, He would save me because he loved me). I learned to stop listening to the OCD-ridden voices in my head and accept that God was beyond all human thought, and so beyond my own self-condemnations and doubts. I was willing to accept the mystery of faith.
But then ugliness appeared once more. I couldn't ignore the Christian's view towards sexuality, no matter how well phrased. I couldn't ignore the history of the Church, and the countless mistakes it made, white-washed by PR. Was I really wrong about my views? Did I really need to go through a period of mental cleansing and straight-up forgetting before I could feel comfortable as a Christian? I couldn't remain on the fence and adopt a moderate route -- I'm an Orthodox person by nature. Either these things happened and these teachings were true, or they weren't.
This struggle led to difficulties accepting anything. Did God really descend to earth as man and die on the cross to save us, or is that story adapted from similar myths of the time, which practically no one in the world believes now? And there are dead saints all around us, and if we ask them, they'll pray for us? Concerned about these questions I had, I put down the Bible (for the second time) and started reading what the scientists had to say. Then, more doubts, more alternative explanations that fit better with the world I lived in.
So now I'm sort of at a precipice, and I'm teetering back and forth by the hour. This morning, I was reading Christian apologetics. By lunch time, I was watching Bill Mager's Religulous and slapping my forehead.
Sometimes, I tell myself, "Forget it, you're religious and you just need to work through these doubts." Other times, it's, "Forget it, you don't believe any of this and you just need to work through these delusions." Meanwhile, I've opened contact with two priests, who are eager to assist me in a spiritual journey I'm already half-regretting. This teeter-tottering isn't just affecting my own life anymore.
Obviously, since I'm writing this post, I'm in the "you don't believe any of this" cycle right now (but who knows where I'll be in a few hours?). So I ask you, how do you live with being an atheist? How do you prevent yourself from turning to superstition? How does the atheist attain solace with a neutral, uncaring universe? These are not "bait" questions. I really have yet to hear from an atheist on these matters.
I think the main reason why I keep teetering towards religion is because I'm scared shitless of a world without a God or a purpose. It's easy to mask my failures and shortcomings with the idea that "everything is happening as it should be." But if I really am the master of my own fate -- holy shit, that's scary. That's not something I think I can handle. But if that's the case, well, I'm gonna have to do something.
I'm not looking for proof from either side; I've investigated all the proof I care for. What this comes down to is really faith -- what do I, given the evidence before me, think actually happened? And, given that answer, how, then, do I live?
Touché!
