to wonder if he really exists (or just to want it)

[idiuntno57]

DH is fervent cafflick. Kids brought up as such.

I am an atheist but it strikes me that I would enjoy life a whole lot more if I believed.

cafflick..... why the stupid spelling? I find it smacks of ignorance and mocking. Sorry, but you asked.

I hope you find your way and some belief system that might add whatever it is that you think might be lacking. You are obviously intelligent and questioning. IMO belief doesn't actually bring any certainty and faith is constantly questioned and tested.

You can't make yourself believe, it's not a conscious choice. It's actually quite a wonderful thing that you're willing to give time and effort (and hand over the spiritual teaching of your children) to something you don't believe in, just to be part of it all.

I wouldn't. But I couldn't have married a person of religion in the first place!

Stew Francis exists. I saw him once. And Will young exists. And Peter Tatchell. Why don't we make a list of everybody who definitely exists because we've met them, then we'll know that anybody not on the list is imaginary!

YANBU in that the 'security' of knowing somebody is looking out for you can be v comforting. I think faith for some is replacing the safety they felt with parental figures.

But somebody either has faith or they have not.

I am an atheist although I grew up in quite a church-going family (not catholic) and I sometimes feel I miss out on the community aspect of going to church but not the faith bit.
I truly don't understand how various things people are expected to simply believe in any religion are any different from what are considered 'superstitions' if other forms of faith

I've read studies that have shown a positive correlation between religiousity and both intolerance of ambiguity and authoritarianism. So it's possible that the certainty and the satisfaction in a hierarchical organisation that you're detecting in the churchgoers is personality driven, not god-related. If you live more in the grey areas and don't believe there is "an answer" (nor seek a father figure to tell you what that answer is) perhaps you'll never be religious.

So the 'cafflick' comment not meant to be derogatory. Just how my (Catholic) extended family jokingly refer to themselves. Apologies to all and anyone I have offended.

It strikes me that some of you have made a very good point that Faith is either there or it isn't. Whilst I am happy to embrace the Church and its rituals and community on behalf of my children and DH I just don't believe in an omnipotent God.

Doesn't stop me thinking that I'd spend less time challenging myself, who I am and what I do in life if I felt there was a real reason for my existence. However I appreciate that certainty can bring with it new uncertainties so will leave it at that. As long as my kids' church welcome me and my lack of belief then I'll stick around.

Doesn't stop me thinking that I'd spend less time challenging myself, who I am and what I do in life if I felt there was a real reason for my existence.

Who wants to stop challenging themselves? Or questioning who they are? And thinking about what they do?

it can make you miserable (or rather it does me)

it can make you miserable (or rather it does me)

And how do think that a genuine belief in god would help that? What would a belief in god tell you about your "real reason for [your] existence)"?

(Interested, not arguing!).

I think if I thought that human life had a purpose beyond our continued evolution as a species I might be more at peace with my own role in it.

I may well be wrong

I wish I still had faith and envy the faithful.

Unfortunately, rational thought, logic and science indicates that there is no free will, choice or meaning in this universe and even our deepest thoughts are nothing but inevitable flickers of a dying flame.

It's not a good thing to feel, but thankfully there are lots of drugs which can temporarily make you forget and believe.

Damn in I thought this thread was gonna be about Santa Claus...

Now I know she exists...

I think if I thought that human life had a purpose beyond our continued evolution as a species I might be more at peace with my own role in it.

I don't see why the basic outcomes sought by religious people to "get into heaven" ie justify existing (be good to others, leave the world a bit better than you found it etc) aren't equally valid as a raison d'etre without a god in the equation? In other words, being "good" is its own reward?

I know my life has a purpose beyond our continued evolution as a species. I know, because I've given it that purpose myself.

Life doesn't have to last forever to be important. The fact that it's temporary is what makes it so immeasurably precious.

If I believed that I was nothing more than a puppet created for the amusement of some shouty celestial dictator - that would be a meaningless existence for me.

I am very happy to have no greater purpose in the greater scheme of things than to just be and pass on my DNA.
I never quite understood why we humans thought we were more 'special' than all other species on earth or indeed in all universes .

I find it very reassuring that I am not all that important.

And no, I don't want to (or could, I suppose) questioning things.
This is one thing I can agree with ?Karl Marx: 'Religion is opium for the people.'

But if all we are is to just be and to be good, kind and helpful etc. etc. then when it all goes a bit wrong it's hard not to just say to oneself that it's time to throw in the can.

Now I am not suicidal on a daily basis due to my lack of faith (or anything else) but some days I do find it hard to just get on with it. There's something in me as a human which is making me question what it is to be human and I haven't been able to find a satisfactory answer.

The situation is unlikely to resolve itself any day soon but in the mean time thinking on the subject and debating it makes a change and actually serves to give a bit more meaning for me at least.

If you want to find out then why not go and do it? There's only one way to find out and it can't do you any harm.

There is an ever increasing 'I believe even less than you do' camp going on these days, which as someone who just doesn't care either way, I get a little tired of, but I see no real harm in you attending church even if you don't believe.

There's something in me as a human which is making me question what it is to be human and I haven't been able to find a satisfactory answer

I'm not sure there is an answer.

I think we are an assemblage of atoms with a finite lifespan - and that's it. I know it's not very inspiring, but it is what it is and it ain't what it ain't.

I know what you mean - when things are tough, it's easy to think "What's the bloody point?" The point is whatever you, personally, have decided it should be.

But that's just my take on it.

Life is amazingly precious - just the very fact of it.

You were dead for 13.5bn years - you beat enormous odds to get here at all (your parents had the genetic capability of producing trillions of distinct people - but you were the one who got the chance to live). Your life is the tiniest fraction of a moment in the lifespan of the universe - pretty soon (sorry!) you'll be off again to your natural state - being dead.

But you were here - a member of the most intelligent species that has ever existed on Earth (that we know of) living at the very best time to live in human history. The atoms that make you were born in the heart of a star that spewed out it's guts when it died.

You are the universe talking about itself. You are just amazing, truly - and inordinately privileged.

I know that's all a bit useless when you're buried under with worries, but I think we should all take a moment every now and then to think...."Wow! Fuck me....I'm alive"!

Many years ago I tried to believe. I tried to learn and understand and just accept the bible and all that went with it. I tried to open my heart and let god in. It didn't happen. I felt nothing.

Then I woke up and started to question. None of it made any sense to me. I could see the community and how that aspect was good, but the entire religious aspect was just ridiculous to me.

I hate the control that it has over people, I hate the things that are done in the name of religion, but most of all, I hate the way that religion stops you from questioning and insists that you just have to believe, despite the overwhelming evidence that it is just a fairy story.

Thanks for the apology.

Something completely earth-shattering has happened to our family and it really makes you question the very existence and everything I ever believed in. I do wonder that if my faith had been stronger it would have comforted me any more. As it is I am left bereft and wondering "why?" (My middle ds died a couple of months ago in an accident). My father is very devout and it seems to bring him peace. Personally I wonder what, where,why???
How wonderful it is that you are seeking. Good luck.

Very briefly as I have to get back to work but faith does not always bring certainty. What it can bring is peace as LilyTheSavage says of her father. And so very sorry for your loss.

There is something called stages of faith theory which charts childhood faith which is all about believing what mummy and daddy tell you through to the need for certainty and groups and then to the questioning bit most of us go through in our teenage years through to the ability to live with doubt and paradox and uncertainty which is part of mature faith.

www.usefulcharts.com/psychology/james-fowler-stages-of-faith.html

Not sure this helps at all but knowing that faith is a journey might give some pointers about where you might be.

Evidently we have a "god-shaped hole" in our brains. In other words, we're predisposed to seek to understand the purpose for events and expect that an agent is causing them. It's an evolved shortcut that helps us understand, and interact with, the world efficiently.

I suppose knowing your brain is making you question the higher purpose of things like suffering and death doesn't help much in dealing with it, but I found knowing about the neuroscience helped me make sense of how I feel when I'm sad about the world.

Have you read Alain de Botton's religion for atheists, OP? It's very interesting - about the good bits of religion that we shouldn't throw away even if we don't believe in god.

Lily, I am so very sorry for your loss.
And yes, it is situations like yours in which I can see how having faith might give comfort. Or make you lose whatever faith you used to have... I don't know.

IMO and IME shitty things happen to people all the time - I'd rather believe it is random bad luck/circumstances than some divine plan. If it was a divine plan, then I would not want anything to do with a higher power that uses us in some plan of theirs.

They say that there is no such thing as 'an atheist on their death bed'. We'll see.

You are so disrespectful of his faith (and that of some readers)

Quite right too BohemianGirl. Why should ideas or ideologies be respected? I respect people, not their 'faith', nor their ideas. I recognise that everybody is free to believe whatever they like. I choose to believe in Hitchens who was spot on when he said 'religion poisons everything'.

I can think of no reason to respect any religion. So you're offended by my lack of respect? Big wow. I'm offended by the shit things done in the name of your gods, so we're even on the offense.