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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
June 28, 2013 at 5:21 pm
(This post was last modified: June 28, 2013 at 5:23 pm by orogenicman.)
(June 27, 2013 at 7:41 pm)hookakat1 Wrote: Just looking for a place to kind of hash out all my feelings about coming to the conclusion that all I've been telling myself about god, spirituality, connection, etc were just lies to make myself feel better about the world around me. Now I'm feeling a bit lost and empty.
About a year and a half ago I had a cardiac arrest and was dead for a few minutes before I was revived and was then placed in a medically induced coma for a week. I now have a pacemaker-defibrillator in my chest to help with all that.
As I was recovering from that I became really connected to god. I had been making what I thought was that connection even before then as my wife and I were battling some other first world problems so surviving the heart incident and all made me really grateful. This lead me to think more about the concept of god and why that concept is so relevant and it felt very much like Dorothy pulling the curtain on The Wizard. Nothing magical or special back there. Nothing to see there at all really.
I'm not fooling myself anymore but I do feel like I've lost a family member or loved one. I feel like a safety net I had always counted on being there was never there in the first place.
And that's me and where I am right now. Eyes open to the truth but living in a world that seems less magical to me. It's a bummer.
The most important thing to remember is that you are not alone. The second most important thing to remember is to not prop yourself up with some other delusion. Find some things about your life that are positive and concentrate on those. We are always happiest when we are doing the things we enjoy most with the people we care about the most.
(June 28, 2013 at 5:21 pm)orogenicman Wrote: (June 27, 2013 at 7:41 pm)hookakat1 Wrote: Just looking for a place to kind of hash out all my feelings about coming to the conclusion that all I've been telling myself about god, spirituality, connection, etc were just lies to make myself feel better about the world around me. Now I'm feeling a bit lost and empty.
About a year and a half ago I had a cardiac arrest and was dead for a few minutes before I was revived and was then placed in a medically induced coma for a week. I now have a pacemaker-defibrillator in my chest to help with all that.
As I was recovering from that I became really connected to god. I had been making what I thought was that connection even before then as my wife and I were battling some other first world problems so surviving the heart incident and all made me really grateful. This lead me to think more about the concept of god and why that concept is so relevant and it felt very much like Dorothy pulling the curtain on The Wizard. Nothing magical or special back there. Nothing to see there at all really.
I'm not fooling myself anymore but I do feel like I've lost a family member or loved one. I feel like a safety net I had always counted on being there was never there in the first place.
And that's me and where I am right now. Eyes open to the truth but living in a world that seems less magical to me. It's a bummer.
The most important thing to remember is that you are not alone. The second most important thing to remember is to not prop yourself up with some other delusion. Find some things about your life that are positive and concentrate on those. We are always happiest when we are doing the things we enjoy most with the people we care about the most.
And if none of that works, listen to this guy:
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
June 29, 2013 at 12:11 am
There is a certain logic to "magic" ...... Just because you know how it works does not decrease the sense of wonder and awe, look up at the night sky, you are a part of that.
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
June 29, 2013 at 7:31 pm
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2013 at 7:31 pm by hookakat1.)
Thanks so much Rahul.
Thanks so much everyone actually.
"You appear foolish in the eyes of others. Past instances where I may have professed to like you were fraudulent. I have had sexual intercourse with your spouse or significant other"
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
June 29, 2013 at 11:09 pm
(June 29, 2013 at 7:31 pm)hookakat1 Wrote: Thanks so much Rahul.
What's going on, man? I've been wondering if you were going to come back.
Come on, friend. We can help some. There are lots of us that can relate to you. Spill out all your thoughts about what you are going through.
I'm sure many of us will reply how we went through very similar phases.
Everything I needed to know about life I learned on Dagobah.
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
June 30, 2013 at 8:28 pm
I'm good. I've been lurking in some of the oter forums. I'm getting the feel ofthe boards before I dive in. I don't wana be presumptuous and be the overly gung-ho newly atheist guy.
"You appear foolish in the eyes of others. Past instances where I may have professed to like you were fraudulent. I have had sexual intercourse with your spouse or significant other"
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
June 30, 2013 at 10:24 pm
thanks for sharing.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
July 3, 2013 at 1:29 am
I suffer from depression pretty badly and this whole coming to terms with the lack of a god seems to be making it worse. I'm feeling desolate. As though my life is less than meaningless. If it wasn't for my wife I'd be concerned for my well being. I feel like I'm in trouble.
"You appear foolish in the eyes of others. Past instances where I may have professed to like you were fraudulent. I have had sexual intercourse with your spouse or significant other"
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
July 3, 2013 at 12:31 pm
(This post was last modified: July 3, 2013 at 12:32 pm by orogenicman.)
(July 3, 2013 at 1:29 am)hookakat1 Wrote: I suffer from depression pretty badly and this whole coming to terms with the lack of a god seems to be making it worse. I'm feeling desolate. As though my life is less than meaningless. If it wasn't for my wife I'd be concerned for my well being. I feel like I'm in trouble.
At the risk of sounding cliché, you should seek professional counseling. I can't hurt, and may provide you with some relief. Depression is treatable.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
July 3, 2013 at 1:22 pm
(July 3, 2013 at 1:29 am)hookakat1 Wrote: I suffer from depression pretty badly and this whole coming to terms with the lack of a god seems to be making it worse. I'm feeling desolate. As though my life is less than meaningless. If it wasn't for my wife I'd be concerned for my well being. I feel like I'm in trouble.
Prozac worked wonders for my dad for years. Depressed? They got a pill for that. 
Everything I needed to know about life I learned on Dagobah.
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RE: FInally stopped lying to myself, now a little lost.
July 3, 2013 at 2:56 pm
(June 27, 2013 at 7:41 pm)hookakat1 Wrote: Now I'm feeling a bit lost and empty.
I think that's understandable, especially if the realization came suddenly or over a very short period of time. There is a lot of subconscious conditioning that gets thrown out of whack when we realize that there isn't a god or an afterlife. Keep meditating on it and finding the good in being free of a delusion that maintains a pretty tight grip on the minds of billions of your fellow humans.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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