Think about it –
DENIAL – death can’t be final right? god is in control right?. We need someone that will save us. We think – this can’t be all there is! our suffering must have a purpose right? Were gonna be in a better place after we die right? my grandpa is in heaven and his body is not his anymore but just a shell right?
ANGER – God why are you not listening to me? I been praying and trying to be a good person! fuck you!
BARGAINING – To me this what prayer is! I promise god ill be a good person if you help me! one may say
DEPRESSION – I feel so lost! i feel guilty i must have did something wrong for god to abandon me to suffer!
ACCEPTANCE – Well maybe there is no god
I accepted that there wasn’t a good almost a decade ago. how about you all?
12 comments
im not sure anyore…i was raised Christian…i am a Christian…but its hard believing these things when life feels so bad sometimes…
“anymore….”
My journey to atheism actually started by me questioning the logic of the Bible. At that time i was depressed but nothing like this! I just figured that we was supposed to suffer. This was before my own intense suffering turned that idea on its head! anyways, I started to try and look up evidence for a god. I came to find that there is no evidence of the flood, the Adam and Eve story is just ridiculously impossible, and there is no evidence that Moses existed, the 7 deadly plagues of Egypt or that Egypt ever held Jewish slaves! The “history” in the bible is totally juxtaposed to the history written by secular scholars. Then came the story of Jesus – there is no evidence that he even existed but there is a possibility. The only possibilities were that he was made up entirely OR they Brian Williamed his story 100s of years after he died to gain followers. There is no historical documentation of Jesus in Judea’s records during the time he was supposedly killed. His birth and life is not mentioned ether. the first written mention of Jesus came nearly 100 years after he was thought to have died by people who wasn’t even alive when until like 20 years after Jesus died.
After finding this out, and my interest for studying all the other cultures, I just came to a conclusion that there is no god. For a brief time i was a Unitarian Universalists but then came to the realization that I was just trying to invent my own religion to fit what I want to be true. ugh!
and plus the bible is brutal! yes there are good teachings like Love Thy Neighbor but those are rare in comparison to the negative things. In the bible there are countless passages about an angry God ordering massacres of entire tribes, infanticide, slavery, and even rape. sounds like what ISIS is doing today!
Mystical beliefs about heavens, hells, angels, inherent rights, and the inviolability of life are evolutionary mechanisms. There’s no one listening to our thoughts.
I agree Agent. Religion is something people hold onto to keep there own sanity though this miserable world.
i hear that. i hope that mankind ends all this hatefulness to each other one day.
i hope there is a better place…
believe me id love that. but i dont think there is ugh
Although I’m not an atheist (I’ll try to explain that later) I think everything you said is totally true. You hit on my biggest gripe that modern religious institutions confuse fact with mythology, and that leads to a whole world of stupidity. Why can’t we all just accept that the bible, or the koran or the gita or whatever, is just a big metaphor like aesops fables or Greek mythology? But no, the bible is historical fact they say. And the universe was created in 7 days with human beings at the center of it because we’re god’s favorite, it says it right here!
But ok, shifting into a different gear, I’ve met Christians who use religion the right way: to provide themselves with spiritual strength so they can face each miserable day and do some good in the world. I know a lady who’s the nicest person you’ve met, gives homeless strangers a place to stay, rescues animals, fights for those who are victimized… and she keeps herself going by believing she’s part of a bigger plan. Not because she assumes she’ll get a reward or go to heaven, but just because she believes in a bigger plan.
And that’s what leads me back to why I can’t call myself an atheist, even though I don’t believe in any god I’ve been told about. Like that lady, I do believe there’s a bigger plan. I really do… It’s not just a desperate attempt to make sense of a senseless universe.
The universe, chaotic as it is, is NOT total chaos. There’s gravity and laws of physics and science and patterns that show us that there’s some sort of “structure” to it all. And I think that structure will cause everything to come to a logical conclusion–even if that conclusion is the implosion of the universe from gravitational forces and the obliteration of all matter resulting in universal peace. Who knows? No, I’ll never go to a church and pray to the almighty Gravity, but just the same, forces like that are probably what I’d consider to be the gods of the universe and they ARE doing things every day.
Actually there just might be a god, but not as people depict it. If you ever look into the science theories of how everything started, it’s just so freaking crazy that it makes sense some people believe in god. I’ve even heard science people say something like “it’s all that we’ve got” in an apologizing way.
That being said, you nailed it when you mentioned the word “purpose”. I see people that believe in god as people who just need something to hold on to (i used to loathe them, but now i just respect their beliefs). If you look at it objectively everyone needs something to believe in, god, a superior force, aliens, money, love, themselves, etc.
I think there’s a subset of Theism called Deism where people believe in a god but they reject religious authority and and all conventional faiths. To Deists, observation of nature and the unbelievable odds that existence would sprout up like it did is enough, and better than any other (scientific) explanation out there… Or like you said, science theories are so freaking crazy that it makes sense some people believe in god.
I think some Deists also believe that there may be a god, but it is NOT all powerful and NOT all knowing and NOT all wonderful with rainbows shooting out its butt and all that. In other words, Maybe there was something that created the universe, but then the universe grew out of control, and the creator is either powerless, dead or dying. I think I can go with that logic. It would explain a lot of the crap in the world.