I'm a former Christian who needs guidance

[imogene]

I am a former Christian but am now definitely a non-believer. For one thing, I cannot reconcile the unspeakable, unbelievable cruelty in this world.
My problem is, I am so lost. I am truly, truly sad. I am scared. I have a wonderful family and I love my children so much I can barely put it into words.
When I believed, I knew we'd see eachother again someday.
I no longer believe.
Why..... Why is life like this? what happens after we die?
I am so upset, I'm getting teary just writing this. My life is so full and happy and yet I go to bed each night so scared.
Truth be told, I want to believe again, It made me feel secure, But I don't. I simply don't.
Can someone please help me, or give me some words of comfort? I am really struggling.
Thank you, thank you.

[Hugoneus]

I admire your honest and open representation of your feelings.

I know how you feel. When I joined this forum, I wrote this:

I am an atheist, or to use Christopher Hitchen's terminology, a Mulsim-atheist. Several years ago I was a devout Muslim, until I entered university. There, I met a few atheists who debated with me on my beliefs and challenged my world views. It was difficult to shed my beliefs, but the more I educated my mind, the more I became free. The transformation was not overnight, but over a few years.

Now I have completed my Ph.D. degree and in the past several years I have begun to debate with believers of all faiths. At the conclusion of every debate, I am happy to my core, relieved with every cell of my body that I am an Atheist. I cannot convey through this missive medium how lucky I truly feel. My morality and understanding of ethics has soared to new heights. I see the human race as Shakespeare does:

What a piece of work is a man,
how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a God!
The beauty of the world, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust?


I see the human race with an eye of wonder and pity. I shed tears when faced with human suffering and shed tears when faced with human discoveries. I live on knowledge, float in mystery and uphold the truth of any kind. I understand that morality is alive, it grows, evolves and as our mammalian 2-3 pound brains better understands the nature of suffering, we will become better at combating it. I finally see the world from above, the beauty that I see in nature is far more grand, beautiful, and forbidding than any cheaply magical explanation any religion has to offer. I understand it, from evolution to planetary motion, from fusion to transistor operations, I love them all.

I no longer obsess with sexual morality, I finally see that the Islamic (and Christian) teachings on sexual morality are diseased by definition. I respect the rights of women, and respect every individual's rights to practice their own sexuality in their own privacy as consenting adults. Oh how free I am!


Death is a state where we live only in the memory of others. We live forever through the lessons we leave our children, through their eyes and through their lives. We live to better ourselves and better the lives of others, we are here for each other sakes and for our children's future.

The consoling role of religion is a delusion. The real world has not changed, your lack of beliefs now does not mean there is no life after death for you, there never was in the first place.

It takes courage to leave faith behind. But you will discover wonders far greater you thought possible. And I quote Christopher Hitchens:

If you will devote a little time to studying the staggering photographs taken by the Hubble telescope, you will be scrutinizing things that are far more awesome and mysterious and beautiful - and more chaotic and overwhelming and forbidding - than any creation or "end of days" story.

If you read Hawking on the "event horizon," that theoretical lip of the "black hole" over which one could in theory plunge and see the past and the future (except that one would, regrettably and by definition, not have enough "time"), I shall be surprised if you can still go on gaping at Moses and his unimpressive "burning bush." If you examine the beauty and symmetry of the double helix, and then go on to have your own genome sequence fully analyzed, you will be at once impressed that such a near-perfect phenomenon is at the core of your being, and reassured (I hope) that you have so much in common with other tribes of the human species - "race" having gone, along with "creation" into the ashcan - and further fascinated to learn how much you are a part of the animal kingdom as well. Now at last you can be properly humble in the face of your maker, which turns out not to be a "who," but a process of mutation with rather more random elements than our vanity might wish. This is more than enough mystery and marvel for any mammal to be getting along with: the most educated person in the world now has to admit - I shall not say confess - that he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more.


There is so much wonder, so much beauty.

[imogene]

I thank you. You've given me much to think about. I wish I wasn't so emotional. I'm a mom and I love my kids to pieces. Not just that, I have a seriously ill brother who has been for so long, that I (when I believed) figured this life was his "hell" and, once he died, he would then be free - - and happy and healthy too. In other words, he sure as heck has nothing to look forward to. ugh. I am so grateful to you, though. I still need... i don't know, something, but you helped me feel better today.

[Flower]

Welcome aboard!

Yup, life is tough, and being atheist means accepting that you only get one go at it. Accepting mortality can be quite a mouthful!

On the other hand, it is nice to believe in a life before death and do the best you can to live a good life for yourself, your friends, relatives and whoever else you encounter.

[OhMan]

Remember what life was like before you were born? Yep, that's what it will be like when your dead. There is no Hell you need fear for your family or friends or indeed, for yourself, nor is there any Heaven; a place of eternal servitude to your creator.

Having this knowledge is not a curse, it is a gift. Of the millions of sperm and thousands of eggs that your parents had to offer, only one of each combined to form you, YOU. You have been given a gift that those trillions upon trillions of potential humans never got, the gift of life. How dare we whine about that eventual return to that state, of which so many potential beings never escaped.

Even when we die, does it really end? Our body will break down, be eaten by bacteria, which will in turn be eaten by larger bacteria, or by worms, then birds, and so on and so forth. The journey doesn't end after death, our body is broken apart and ferried away to all corners of the globe. We are just tiny parts of an epic and awesome universe, and though we are infinitesimal, we have a gift that no other life that we yet know of have; we are a way for the universe to know itself.

For me the prospect of certain death empowers me to do two things, 1. to live my life to the fullest, and try and do something that will benefit mankind, and 2. raise children and raise them well, for they are the only real form of immortality we have got!

You have escaped from an ignorance that so many will be forever plagued with, you should not cry at this thought, but leap with joy.


P.S. Damn Hugoneus you should be a poet or something.

[Hugoneus]

Originally Posted by OhMan

P.S. Damn Hugoneus you should be a poet or something.

Thank you my friend, you are too kind.

[imogene]

I thank you all. I'm still troubled, i wish I could be as trouble free as you all seem to be. I hope it comes to me. It's just,,, my life is so full and I'm so happy right now (I know I don't sound it, but I think you all know what I mean! Anyway, All of this love and happiness,and feeling and thought... how can it just end? so final. sheesh.

[OhMan]

It ends for you, but not for everyone else who is still alive. The world carries on.

[ItsDarts]

What a piece of work is a man,
how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a God!
The beauty of the world, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust?

Hamlet, Act II Scene 2 just over halfway down.m You're welcome LOL

We are made of Star stuff, the atoms that make "us" are as old as the universe. It sounds poetic, but there is nothing poetic about it, its plain ole nature. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust".

[steenkh]

Originally Posted by imogene

I thank you all. I'm still troubled, i wish I could be as trouble free as you all seem to be. I hope it comes to me. It's just,,, my life is so full and I'm so happy right now (I know I don't sound it, but I think you all know what I mean! Anyway, All of this love and happiness,and feeling and thought... how can it just end? so final. sheesh.

I am also troubled. Like you, I lead a happy life with lots of wonderful friends and family, but I also have to face that it is all going to end. I cannot say that I think more about my impending death now that I am getting old, because I have been expecting death every single day since my youth, and I am scared. I am not scared at the state of death itself which I am sure I shall not experience, but of the fact that I shall not exist any more. My mind simply will not wrap itself around that concept.

And I am not just scared about my own death, but about those that I love, and who are already now disappearing one after the other, leaving a huge knot of grief in me.

But no matter how much I am scared, or how much I would like to live forever with my friends and loved ones, it will not happen simply because I would like it to happen, and in order to compensate, I try to enjoy life, and enjoy the company of my loved ones as much as I can. Railing at injustice does not help, and the only thing we can do is to get the best out of the situation.

Welcome to the forum!