Terracotta

Helen said in Tricia's thread:

Actually, for me, finally admitting to myself that I didn't believe was the thing that filled that hole. Let me explain.

The aspect of Christianity that always bothered me the most was the thought that if I had been born in, say, India, I would most likely have been brought up in the Hindu religion. It seemed horribly unfair to me that God would create someone who would have very little chance of converting to the "right" religion, thereby in effect creating someone destined to be tortured eternally. I put it on the back burner for years and years, even studying to be a missionary for a while so I could "save" people abroad. It broke my heart to think of people being sent to Hell because they didn't know any better. How could a loving God do that to his own creation? This notion was the "hole" in my heart. It was bigger than the friendship I felt with Jesus because it made me not really trust his salvation plan.

I eventually couldn't take it anymore. I found no answers to this problem that would satisfy my sense of justice, a sense that God had supposedly given me as part of who I am. It was then that I stepped back, decided that a God who would punish me for using the brain he gave me is not my idea of a loving God AT ALL, and commenced to really analyzing my upbringing. I realized that I could no longer call myself a Christian. From then on, the "hole" has been filled. I am quite comfortable in my agnosticism because I am "allowed" to constantly question, analyze, and make my own decisions about things. I never felt such peace or freedom with my Xianity as I do now.

I hope that makes sense. The "hole in my heart" thing worked the exact opposite direction for me. Yes, there is a sense of loss, especially when finding a different way of dealing with death. But my mental freedom outshines any sense of loss I feel. Now, if I could just get over some of my bitterness about the whole thing...

excreationist

My hole was mostly caused by me giving up my belief in the afterlife. For me, there was no longer a perfect future to look forward to... I had to learn how to be content with the reality I saw in front of me. I was quite suicidal for a long time but that got better after I read books by Ken Keyes and I haven't gotten suicidal at all since I read about <a href="http://www.have-a-heart.com/depression.html" target="_blank">emotional thought stopping</a>. And there are a few other philosophies and things that have helped me... at the moment I have access to just about anything I can dream of... the thought of that makes me chuckle to myself in an insane way...

Queen of Swords

I think I have a "hole" left by the first man I ever came close to loving (and who wanted to sow his wild oats, yada yada).

I've lost a couple of good friends over the years, and there are "holes" where they used to be, too.

(This is starting to sound vaguely biologically repellant; can we refer to "spaces" instead?)

We all have empty spaces where we have lost things - childhood security, love, whatever. It's part of life. We fill them up with other things. I have other good friends who filled up the spaces, so that now I don't go around sighing for the friends I lost. I think of the man occasionally, but not often. No doubt when I really fall in love, I'll think of him even less frequently.

I don't even think, "Oh dear, wouldn't it be nice to have a powerful imaginary friend who always watches out for me" because

1. Even if there was a such a creature, what's the guarantee that it would look out for me? Christians aren't immune to pain, injury, death, etc.

2. This imaginary friend/God proved himself to be less than friendly in the bible. And I don't just mean to the children he ordered butchered or the women he allowed to be raped. Take Job. Here's a good, righteous man, and he became a pawn between God and Satan. His children were killed. Then at the end, God said, in effect, "Well, you were good, so here are a few replacement kids for the ones I let Satan kill." That kind of friend I can do without.

3. What kind of Friend would send you to hell for all eternity if you thought you would want to have other friends, or if you decided that the friendship was no longer working for you? That sounds more like a jealous, stalking ex-boyfriend. Oh wait, I forgot, "I, the lord your god, am a jealous god..."

4. If, after all this, there still was an empty space in my life or heart where a benevolent god had been, I would fill it up. With real people, real issues, real concerns. With the beauty of the natural world and the pleasures of books. With my own sense of self-respect, which was trodden on and wrung out by fundamentalist christianity. I think I prefer all those things to a mythology that never quite seemed reasonable or truly compassionate.

Bree

Religion filled a huge hole in my life.

I think that I clung to religion because I wanted to find a rhyme or reason to why bad things happen to people. I wanted to be able to blame someone for the bad things that happen to both me and the people that I loved. Religion gave me an outlet; I could say "God is testing me right now, he is the fire which is tempering my steel" and therefore channel my anger towards something.

I realise now what a great disservice this was.

DMB

I, on the other hand, have always taken comfort in the idea that the universe is impersonal and uncaring, so that I don't have to believe that a huge evil power is responsible for the bad things that happen, but simply statistics.

I hate the way when anything bad happens to believers or unbelievers, a significant proportion of the believers rush to conclude that the victims deserved it as a result of their sins (in this life or a past one, depending on flavour of faith). We witnessed in the aftermath of the terrorist atrocities of 11th September.

HelenM

Thanks for starting a new thread on this topic, Terracotta. It's an interesting one

love
Helen

Sephiroth

Chucking religion didn't affect me either way. I guess, for me, "holes" never existed.