Tercel

Matt,
Isn't there an easy solution to all your problems? ie Be a liberal Christian?

You seem to want to be a Christian and you say you'd prefer to be a liberal than an atheist, so what's stopping you exactly?

Theli

I was going to say pantheist or something, but I think your suggestion was much better.
As Matt seems to have been very emotionally dependent on his belief, he shouldn't go with pantheism as pantheism has asmuch emotional appeal as a peice of concrete.

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

A perfect marriage of convenience. After all, as Joseph tells us (in the musical): "Any dream will do".

Why does the image of lawyers chasing ambulances come to mind?

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Pomp

I agree, this isn't really EoG(s) material. Misc. Religion perhaps? You mods down there feel free to move it if you don't think it's your topic.

HelenM

Matt

I have some suggestions:

1) Stop wishing for what isn't, and accept what is
2) Stop saying "I can't find" and look - look here, where there seem to be happy ex-Christians. If they have found a way to be happy as such, surely you could to.
3) Stop idealizing liberal Christianity as if being a liberal Christian would solve your problems. It wouldn't. Liberal Christianity is open-ended enough that you likely wouldn't find that 'what to do with my life' was handed to you on a plate. You'd still have to figure out what 'pleasing God' meant; that is, if you ever got as far as deciding who/what God is!
4) Stop saying that one reason and one alone is causing all your unhappiness. It isn't. My guess is that there are several changes in your thinking and behavior you could make that would make you happier. However they might take effort. It might be easier to stay unhappy. But it's your choice Matt. The choice to be happy was not removed from you by whoever convinced you that your beliefs were untrue, despite what you may think. I know that because, as I say, there are happy ex-Christians right here on this site. Maybe they were unhappy at first too but they moved on, accepted where they were, adjusted to it, etc.

Alternatively, if you can find a way to believe again...go for it. I could have said this first but I was figuring that if you could have, you would have. At any rate, please don't just stay where you are now. If you change nothing, there's no reason to think your unhappiness will go away, is there?

Best wishes with finding your way to happiness again,

love
Helen

Buffman

Hi matt,

The last year of my life, I have been a miserable wreck on the inside, and it is for one reason and one reason alone: I saw a meaning in life, I had my life's work cut out for me: to please God. Now, I can't find any ultimate meaning in life that compares to what I had before, and I am very, very, very unhappy.

First, based on the above statement, I sincerely believe you would find a good deal of beneficial assitance/information if this whole string were moved to the Secular Lifestyle & Support Forum.

Second, you are far from the first person to ever experience this particular "withdrawal" symptom. I would almost wager that it is a universal symptom.

Third, it might be helpful if you considered exactly how it was that your life was given meaning (purpose and direction) by servicing your God. Would not your servicing this God include doing his bidings/edicts/commandments? If so, then stop a second and ask yourself exactly why those bidings/edicts/commandments were important to your God. Were they loving of humankind? Did they set a path that could elevate humans to be more than omnivorous, savage, beasts? In following these bidings, did you feel better about yourself?

Now you are ready to ask yourself the "big" question. "Do these bidings remain the most positive, constructive and beneficial things for you to be attempting to do...even if there is no personal reward or punishment at the end of your time on earth?" If you can answer yes, then you still have all the purpose and direction that anyone could hope to have in their life. The only new factor is that now it is you, not some supernatural God, that gives meaning to your actions.

What I sense is your fear of accepting responsibility for yourself, or anyone else, now that you have been weened from the religious bottle. Yes! That can be very scary. Yes! You will make mistakes. However, you should be able to benefit, as well as others, from your mistakes because you will be able to recognize them in the future and help to prevent others from making the identical ones. That can provide a ton of meaning to one's life.

Last, our natural universe is a huge, beautiful and wonderous place. How fortunate we humans are to be able to recognize that and to even be able to attempt to reveal more of the beauty and wonders that exist. If you can not find ample meanings in that quest for continued enlightenment, then perhaps you still remain within the shadows of the cave in which you were spawned. I invite you to boldly step out into the sunlight, take a deep breath and smell all the smells, see all the things to be seen, tastes all the tastes, hear all the sounds, feel what can be felt and rejoice in the knowledge that your mind is free to roam the universe, giving meaning to all that is there...and to yourself. Attitude! Attitude! Attitude!

Starboy

Hi Matt,

You have an excellent point. I have had discussions with Christian friends and they like to tell me how being a Christian is so hard. I tell them that if they think that is hard, try atheism. There were times when I felt I was in free fall. Then a very liberating thought occurred to me. I came to understand that I truly was the captain of my own fate that I choose what the point of my life will be. That is more easily said than done, but after a while I think I have figured out what is really important to me and that has become the basis of my life.

Well atheism is not for everyone, that’s for sure. So do you just not want to believe in god or do you think that the entire thing is a hoax?

Starboy

Albion

Matt, on another board where I post, there's a liberal Christian whose views regularly make the residential fundamentalists wet their knickers in fury at how she's promoting false teaching and how she'll be condemning people to everlasting torment if they follow her and how she really needs to stop because of all the danger. Others are making the point - which I think is a very good point - that people should make up their own minds and not be so influenced by the character or approach of the messenger that they swallow the message without thinking about it, and that therefore if anybody is going to follow what this person says simply because of who she is or the way she says it, it's their responsibility, not hers.

I don't know the history of what happened to you; I gather it's been painful and I'm sorry to hear that. But the approach of the person or people who caused you that pain shouldn't be an issue. If the arguments were such that they caused you to lose your faith, then is it really important how they were presented?

Have you spent any time over at Beliefnet? They have boards for just about every flavour of every religion, including non-theistic ones and Christianity from liberal to fundamentalist. You could go over there, try out some of the boards, and see what people have to say. Here ther's going to be predominantly nontheists and on Christian boards there's going to be predominantly Christians (statement of the bleedin' obvious, but you know what I mean). At Beliefnet there's all sorts. There may be other sites like that too but I don't know them offhand.

mattmattmattmattv

Yep, a lot more time than I have spen here.

To all of you who tell me to "just believe again" or "just be a liberal religion": Sure, as soon as you "just believe" in a literal Santa Claus.

Theli

Matt...

I have to ask, what did "please God" imply?
I haven't heard this before.