usp8riot
Registered Senior Member
Been a while since I posted here but I wouldn't be true to you guys if I didn't express how I've changed lately. But just for time's sake, I'll copy and paste what I wrote in my blog for my online friends to read. This is not meant to mock religion, just give my account the way I see it. I was at a point in my life where I was really trying to find God and believe and trying to tie in science with typical religion is just too overwhelming and it's too many contradictions so I just tired of debating. Anyhow, here's what I wrote:
You see, over the past couple months, I've been coming more to terms that religion isn't that big a concern. I was at a tough time in my life when I started my previous blog and looking for God or something to tell me where to go. I tried to find it through science and I knew science was right. I figured religion and science are one in the same. That the truth is in partly, at least, what we see and experience through science so religion in no way should conflict with it while keeping it's integrity. But I wanted to believe so much that at least the bible and the Abrahamic religions could be partly right that I tried with all my brains to have it all converge into one beautiful meaning, and you know what, it came to make more sense than I thought it would. I can convince myself there is a God through my own findings the past couple years. But with all the contradictions in all religions, I could never convince myself that they're 100% right. And that's what I failed at. Maybe I'm failing because I'm looking for that 100%. But you know, I feel much better being religion-less than having one. I feel free, yet I know right from wrong. I felt more angered the years I believed in a God that's ready to smite me for accidentally saying a curse word in my mind that is blasphemous, than I did in the years I didn't know of a God. As the bible says, blasphemy is the unforgiveable sin and I have sayed God's name in vain at least a few times in my mind, I hate to admit.
Not that I'm an atheist, or against religion. It's just when you're back in a corner and feeling threatened to be nice or you will pay with your soul, for people like me who worry about things too much sometimes, you feel even more stressed and angered in your life. Think about it. If someone is there standing over you and ready to smite you for a screw up and roast your soul for eternity if you fail, I'm one of those where I'm going to feel more pressured and if the whole deal is to play nice and be happy, then it's counter-productive. I just don't believe in heaven and hell anymore, believe me, I've tried. I've spent a long time debating in forums for God's sake, and I've made a lot of, I'd like to think, decent arguments if I say so myself, but not before spending lots of time thinking about the issue. People don't act the way they do because they're good and evil, it's just they're being true to the stimuli which is affecting them. And in that view, seeing people for who they are and changing their view and understanding where they're coming from, is a lot more productive then just calling them evil and rejecting them. I'm more at peace with others after studying science and slowly waining from religion. What I wrote in my previous blog was more about how I saw the truth, not how I felt. In some ways, I felt under pressure, and in judgement.
Have you ever been at work and felt like you were constantly being looked over and judged? I'm sure you have, and that's kind of the way I felt with religion. At first I was Christian, then came to accept all the Abrahamic religions the more I learned, then that heaven and hell are not what they are, and slowly but surely, I've evolved to seeing things the way they really are, through the eyes of the sciences. I'm sure any religious people out there are thinking, 'oh no, he's succumbed to the beast that is science'. Science is no beast, it is just the way things are. It's the study of God's laws/universe. Science is reason. Jesus' testimonies were very enlightening, as they were based on reason. But anyhow, I feel more normal. The pressure to do good all the time for someone who isn't sometimes happy with good enough, it's just too much and it's counterproductive. I can't teach others morals, or spreading the gospel as Christians call it, if I'm not feeling 100% what I'm teaching.
But yes, I still can believe in an intelligent God through science but that God isn't exactly the one I think most religions speak of. There is no magic. I feel I've outgrown religion and moved on. Like a worker who has worked under a guiding hand and learned all he needs to know so they need no one to constantly look over them and keeping the pressure on for them to do their job. And I can do my job here just as well as I did before no matter how I believed doing good was good. I do good now because it's what I naturally feel and for my health and others, not because I have to or else my soul's on the line.
Anyhow, maybe that will explain it for the most part. Life is all about changing and growing. Sometimes I think I change too much. Maybe it's my personality. Like a wandering dog trying to find his home and get comfortable. I'm just sort of one of those wandering types. I'm always looking and exploring new horizons. I get bored easily and as much as I may seem to, I don't like sitting still, that is, unless my mind has a place to go. And maybe I'm back home now, in my natural mindset I used to have as I was little and a lot more worry-free. I am more into life and feel more alive. They say religion is a tool to control the ignorant masses, maybe it was proposed for that. I've heard and debated about all the major anti-religion arguments and perhaps I was right on my side, that I was being true to what I know, the way I see it, and what I have experienced, but I didn't have the full story. But hopefully now, I can live at least another good half of my life a way I'm comfortable with."
I hope you enjoy reading it. I know there's been some thread here where people have talked about how they feel after giving up religion but if you don't mind, tell me how you felt. To me, it's almost like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders and now I can get back to doing my job of living life. If there is a God who would send me to Hell for not being religious, then to hell I go. But I know better. I have tried so much to find Him but to realize it's all an illusion in which man possibly didn't have the knowledge to understand the world around him at the time and so God seemed a likely solution and to keep the ignorant and rebellious somewhat at bay. Like I said before, I am for the truth. Seek and ye shall find. And I have found it. And I am at peace.
You see, over the past couple months, I've been coming more to terms that religion isn't that big a concern. I was at a tough time in my life when I started my previous blog and looking for God or something to tell me where to go. I tried to find it through science and I knew science was right. I figured religion and science are one in the same. That the truth is in partly, at least, what we see and experience through science so religion in no way should conflict with it while keeping it's integrity. But I wanted to believe so much that at least the bible and the Abrahamic religions could be partly right that I tried with all my brains to have it all converge into one beautiful meaning, and you know what, it came to make more sense than I thought it would. I can convince myself there is a God through my own findings the past couple years. But with all the contradictions in all religions, I could never convince myself that they're 100% right. And that's what I failed at. Maybe I'm failing because I'm looking for that 100%. But you know, I feel much better being religion-less than having one. I feel free, yet I know right from wrong. I felt more angered the years I believed in a God that's ready to smite me for accidentally saying a curse word in my mind that is blasphemous, than I did in the years I didn't know of a God. As the bible says, blasphemy is the unforgiveable sin and I have sayed God's name in vain at least a few times in my mind, I hate to admit.
Not that I'm an atheist, or against religion. It's just when you're back in a corner and feeling threatened to be nice or you will pay with your soul, for people like me who worry about things too much sometimes, you feel even more stressed and angered in your life. Think about it. If someone is there standing over you and ready to smite you for a screw up and roast your soul for eternity if you fail, I'm one of those where I'm going to feel more pressured and if the whole deal is to play nice and be happy, then it's counter-productive. I just don't believe in heaven and hell anymore, believe me, I've tried. I've spent a long time debating in forums for God's sake, and I've made a lot of, I'd like to think, decent arguments if I say so myself, but not before spending lots of time thinking about the issue. People don't act the way they do because they're good and evil, it's just they're being true to the stimuli which is affecting them. And in that view, seeing people for who they are and changing their view and understanding where they're coming from, is a lot more productive then just calling them evil and rejecting them. I'm more at peace with others after studying science and slowly waining from religion. What I wrote in my previous blog was more about how I saw the truth, not how I felt. In some ways, I felt under pressure, and in judgement.
Have you ever been at work and felt like you were constantly being looked over and judged? I'm sure you have, and that's kind of the way I felt with religion. At first I was Christian, then came to accept all the Abrahamic religions the more I learned, then that heaven and hell are not what they are, and slowly but surely, I've evolved to seeing things the way they really are, through the eyes of the sciences. I'm sure any religious people out there are thinking, 'oh no, he's succumbed to the beast that is science'. Science is no beast, it is just the way things are. It's the study of God's laws/universe. Science is reason. Jesus' testimonies were very enlightening, as they were based on reason. But anyhow, I feel more normal. The pressure to do good all the time for someone who isn't sometimes happy with good enough, it's just too much and it's counterproductive. I can't teach others morals, or spreading the gospel as Christians call it, if I'm not feeling 100% what I'm teaching.
But yes, I still can believe in an intelligent God through science but that God isn't exactly the one I think most religions speak of. There is no magic. I feel I've outgrown religion and moved on. Like a worker who has worked under a guiding hand and learned all he needs to know so they need no one to constantly look over them and keeping the pressure on for them to do their job. And I can do my job here just as well as I did before no matter how I believed doing good was good. I do good now because it's what I naturally feel and for my health and others, not because I have to or else my soul's on the line.
Anyhow, maybe that will explain it for the most part. Life is all about changing and growing. Sometimes I think I change too much. Maybe it's my personality. Like a wandering dog trying to find his home and get comfortable. I'm just sort of one of those wandering types. I'm always looking and exploring new horizons. I get bored easily and as much as I may seem to, I don't like sitting still, that is, unless my mind has a place to go. And maybe I'm back home now, in my natural mindset I used to have as I was little and a lot more worry-free. I am more into life and feel more alive. They say religion is a tool to control the ignorant masses, maybe it was proposed for that. I've heard and debated about all the major anti-religion arguments and perhaps I was right on my side, that I was being true to what I know, the way I see it, and what I have experienced, but I didn't have the full story. But hopefully now, I can live at least another good half of my life a way I'm comfortable with."
I hope you enjoy reading it. I know there's been some thread here where people have talked about how they feel after giving up religion but if you don't mind, tell me how you felt. To me, it's almost like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders and now I can get back to doing my job of living life. If there is a God who would send me to Hell for not being religious, then to hell I go. But I know better. I have tried so much to find Him but to realize it's all an illusion in which man possibly didn't have the knowledge to understand the world around him at the time and so God seemed a likely solution and to keep the ignorant and rebellious somewhat at bay. Like I said before, I am for the truth. Seek and ye shall find. And I have found it. And I am at peace.