I was raised Christian, turned agnostic when I was a teenager, and turned atheist a couple years back. I really want to leave this place, but, in the words of William Shakespeare, “to sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there’s the rub”. I think one of the main reasons I haven’t already snuffed it is because I’m worried about what might come next.
I used to believe what everyone else seems to believe, that there will be a white light, a tunnel, a kind voice beckoning, dead relatives, and a world designed as either reward or punishment for all the stuff you did here. But I don’t really believe that anymore because, here’s the thing, after living in this world for 35 years and seeing all the random pointless crap that everyone has to put up with, I just don’t get the impression that this world is as meaningful as everyone thinks it is.
I mean so much of what we think and feel and do are the result of forces beyond our control. Right from the very beginning: if your cells don’t divide and split off properly you could be born with two heads or three legs, with malformed organs or mental retardation, and even if you make it out of the womb in one piece your DNA pretty much defines what your life’s going to be like:
If your DNA makes you ugly you’ll have a great personality but everyone else will make your life suck. If your DNA makes you beautiful you’ll have a shitty personality and you’ll make everyone else’s lives suck.
If your DNA makes you smart you’ll get more from life, but if you’re too smart you’ll see the world for what it truly is and that will make your life suck. If you’re born a moron you’ll fit right in.
If your DNA makes your personality unique you’ll get to experience life from a new and interesting slant, but if your personality is too unique you’ll end up experiencing it alone.
I think free will is an illusion: we don’t control our lives, we react to them. If life has a positive purpose, it seems more likely that it’s a lesson than a test. Because a test not only requires free will, but foreknowledge of the rules and objectives. So I don’t buy that there’s a heaven or hell because it doesn’t make sense to be judged so severely for how well you learned a lesson. I also don’t think you just completely blink out of existence, because your existence has clearly happened at least once. Even if it was just by chance the odds say it will happen again. I think, at the very minimum, it continues randomly with no memory from one incarnation to the next, but my leap of faith is that it’s not all for nothing. I believe that there’s some kind of compounding of experiences from all the incarnations of this life; mine, yours, everyone’s, and they amount to something meaningful beyond human understanding.
I’m pretty sure that I’ll take my own life at some point. It will happen when the pain outweighs the joy by too great a margin and I don’t have any hope of tipping the scales. I don’t believe this makes my life less meaningful, just mine to control.
7 comments
THANK YOU. so much for saying this.
I’ve been saying the same thing for years, but all these religious individuals keep on answering me with stuff like ‘God knows the way.’ Not buying that.
So much of who you are and your decisions is based ENTIRELY on your chemical makeup, which is something you have absolutely no control over. So how does it make sense to judge someone for actions that are beyond their control? it doesn’t.
“If you’re a moron you’ll fit right in.” hahahahah!!! Ender, I’m not judging you or questioning anything you wrote, I’m just asking out of curiosity…what is it that you believe in? You said you’re an atheist, so what do you believe on how the earth was formed, and what did you believe the after-life holds?
let’s not get into this tirade again. there are things that science can and cannot explain; just because we can’t explain them doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason not involving a higher power.
Don’t get into that, it’s just a giant circle with the same argument
Ender, I absolutely agree with what you said about smart people and unique people. I’m also an atheist, I just don’t believe that we necessarily serve a purpose or that there’s an afterlife of any kind. When do you plan on doing it and by what means?
Tom: Gun probably, I know it’s a harsh way to go but I just want the job done right (in the heart, not the head, head is gross), I’ll be sure nobody else is put in danger and that the gun won’t be found by some kid (probably by driving out somewhere deserted). It would be nice to be able to somehow give my organs away so that something positive can come from my death, maybe I could call 911, tell em where I am and they can come get me before all my cells die?
Marine: I feel you man, my family is filled with Christians who know nothing other than biblical platitudes. I say suicide can be a positive thing in the right circumstances, they say it will make Jesus cry. No middle ground at all.
Oh and I don’t mean any offense if you’re Christian, I’m just comfortable enough with my suicidal nature that I can joke about it. Even if the Christian thing actually turns out to be true I think Jesus would be smart enough to understand what goes on down here and how bad it sucks for some people. I think he’d be forgiving on suicide, forgiveness is his stock and trade after all.
i love the Hamlet quote!
i do believe in God. i have absolutely no doubts that He is real. and i think Jesus can forgive suicide given the circumstances of a person being saved through His death on the cross etc… not meaning to be flippant to anyone that’s a more hard core christian than i, sorry if you don’t agree. believe what you will thats not at all what this is about.
im sure jesus cries over a lot of things.
meanwhile, i think about suicide everyday.
that doesn’t mean thats how i wanna go. cuz really its not. but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. it used to be worse. i did try a couple of times. but obviously failed.
i believe in an afterlife. heaven and hell. i honestly don’t pretend to know where im going. right now my struggle isn’t with God, it’s with myself.
I had a grandparent struggle with depression a long time before killing themselves. i never knew them but i believe they’re in heaven now.