Do you ever miss it?

[Ziploc Surprise]

If you were deeply religious before, do you ever miss the warm fuzzies, the church potlucks, the sense of security (albeit false), and the comfort of it all?
I miss the (false sense of) safety and security I got from my sky daddy. I miss conversing with the sky daddy in prayer. The sense of peace I got after talking things out. When times are difficult or uncertain, this is when I feel it. God is a portable friend. Sometimes this makes me want to go back, but how can you go back to what never really was?

I don't miss the cognitive dissonance that comes from having to wrestle with things in the Bible. Homosexuality, evolution, pre marital sex, gender roles, unanswered prayer, all of the unanswered questions....the list goes on. I feel a great relief in not having to play the apologist anymore. I can call bullshit bullshit.


What keeps you from going back for a little taste of it?
I wanted to go to a Christmas service. I have always loved singing Christmas carols. When I was in College I was involved in a youth group. Though I pissed off scores of people with my incessant questioning and theorizing I still has a group of friends who were accepting of me. I miss this. The older I became the less acceptable my questioning and theorizing became and the lonelier I became.

Sunday is now my day of rest (I sleep in). Seriously though Church was never a very good place for me. I am very educated, I read voraciously, and I have a high I.Q, but I felt like a turd in a punch bowl. I had difficulty communicating with people. Christians often treated me like an idiot because they couldn't understand me. It can be very lonely in the fundamentalist world. There are almost no intellectuals there. No one to talk with, not even on the Christian forums.

I learned to keep my mouth shut to avoid rejection. People want simple answers to questions, not complicated answers. If you can't grab someone's attention in three sentences or less then you've lost them. The problem is that for every question someone askd I had often read about three books on the subject. How do you condense 3 books worth of information down to two sentences and have it make any sense? It's best to keep your mouth shut to avoid humiliation.

As for sermons, they are boring. Most of the time I knew more about the subject than the preacher. I listened to the sermon out of obedience. The Bible says you are supposed to go to church, so I did. Yawn!!

Another thing I don't miss is that churches favor the rich, those without a lot of money are not important. Sometimes poorer people who have a stunning personality can break through the prejudice but if you lack one of these stunning personalities you are just a nameless face. I don't miss this sort of discrimination at all.


Have you sought to replace these things with realistic experiences?
I read.
As for the social things I attend a local Atheist meet up group and I go to a theology class with a few Unitarians.
I have not been able to replace the good feelings I got from my spiritual experiences. Any suggestions?

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There are times when I wish I had a crutch to lean on, particularly in hard times such as what I'm going through now (most of which is already public knowledge). In the past couple of days I have felt that having faith would help me through the next couple of days. My stepmother is dying, and I'm going to say my last goodbye on Sunday. It's extremely unlikely that she will live to see the new year. All of this came down in the last few hours.

Alas, I have no faith, and I can't force myself to and so I will get through this the best that I can. So I would have to say that I only miss it a tiny bit when I'm faced with extremely difficult situations where faith would make the pain not seem so bad.

Nothing much else to say on the subject, really.

I sympathize. I find myself wishing I had a crutch to lean on, I feel like having faith might help me through something. Faith can have a way of making things not feel so bad. tough times can also be lonely times. I can't even say I'll pray for you because, of course, prayer makes no difference when there is no god. I do sympathize though.