AIBU to wish I were religious?

[religiouslychallenged]

Name changed as I never thought I'd be anything other than a stoney atheist (and it's a hell of a lot of fun to come up with new names, pardon the pun).

Can't help but feel on some level desperate for religion. I poked fun at people who were heavily emotionally attached to the concept of God, mostly to do with premarital shagging. Now I wish I had something I could dedicate myself to as much as folk dedicate themselves to God and religion. Anyone else?

It’s a good thing - to be analytical and deepen your understanding and ask all those questions.

what about folk who are repeatedly abused and love their partners so much that they keep putting up with it fittata? id say for them hate keeps them safe and loving and forgiving is the dangerous bit.

plus i dont think love and hate are opposites, i think indifference is usually the opposite to love but thats neither here nor there. i guess i also think theres rarely a situation where one person is 100% the "poor, abused vulnerable" type and another is the evil villain (other than abuse) so god's gotta side with everybody which means he doesnt side with anyone

reminds me of that quote from the evil ginger guy in the Incredibles - "if everyone's special, no one is"

‘what about folk who are repeatedly abused and love their partners so much that they keep putting up with it fittata? id say for them hate keeps them safe and loving and forgiving is the dangerous bit.’

There is a great danger in being naive. You can completely forgive someone and understand why they do what they do while also recognising that they pose a danger to you and that you are not obligated to remain with them.

There are complicated reasons for why some people don't leave their abusers but I would tentively suggest it comes from a lack of self-love or belief that they are worthy of more or that they will be OK on their own. I don't think hate ever keeps anyone safe. Loving someone doesn't mean that you excuse their behaviour.

so fittata and stripes (given i think we're the only ones awake!) do you believe in heaven and if so how do you think heaven will present itself? big white room in the clouds or something else? do you think you'll ever meet god?

@religiouslychallenged
. do you think you wouold have found religion without grief?

I was very much a Lapsed Catholic. The strong belief that she is at peace and we will be reunited again has led me back to the chapel.
Also, dd2 has been brought up in the Catholic faith. DH who is also a Catholic has never been back to Mass since her funeral.

Haven’t read the whole thread OP but if you’re looking for a belief system and a like minded group to belong to, how about feminism... sounds like it would fit! No churches but plenty of online chats.

I have often felt this way when i have felt such despair and loneliness

I witnessed how faith helped my ex mil when her son (my dh brother) was murdered. It didn’t ease her pain but her faith guided her

I have worked as a bereavement therapist and faith certainly helped some to believe that they would be together again helped people but I have also seen it do the opposite when they have questioned their faith and all that they had always believed that is very very painful and for some they lose their faith and this adds to their pain

For example, I am no contact with a close relative because he is toxic and abusive. I will not let myself or my family be around. I feel anger, sadness and injustice at his behaviour but I don't hate him. I pray for him and have forgiven his behaviour towards me (that took years...) but I will not put myself at risk of being around him again. Forgiveness doesn't erase the past, for me it means wishing him well rather than wishing him ill. I can still feel hurt and angry about how he has affected me though.

parkhead do you ever wonder what happens if she isn't at peace / there isnt an afterlife? i know its a shitty way thing to think about but is there any chance that folk who turn to / back to religion after grief are kind of trying to put off the grieving process.

sorry dont want to step on any toes, so if its an uncomfortable topic then tell me to back off. i had folk die within my family and other people who were very close to me but it kind of gave me more of a feeling that if there is a god then it would be worse as they could have kept these people close to me and didn't

I have already met God. I don’t know what heaven will be like, but I think it exists. I believe my family are in the afterlife and that it feels like being called home, like when you’ve been on a long walk and you see your house in the distance.

I have more conviction that God is here right now than in the afterlife.

minipie feminism is a good idea, but similar issue in that there are some bits i dont agree with (at least some of the stuff i read on mn, i know its a lot of intersecting ideas). also not sure it gives me a set kind of ethics that i can stick by necessarily, other than to not be sexist / treat people shittily (which I try to do anyway ha!)

itsalwayssunny is there a possibility that faith is a coping strategy rather than a tangible thing, speaking as a bereavement therapist then? cos like it seems a lot of miracles happen under extreme grief and duress is all

fittata i mean i get it ive been abused and you dont hate your abuser. but i see it as my choice not to hate him, not for god to decide how i respond is all (or what the right response is)

if you believe in heaven stripes, is that heaven immortal? are we going to live forever, is heaven a different universe or is it a totally different plane of consciousness? i just cant wrap my head around it

I can’t even wrap my head around the material reality of the universe being infinite or how time and space interact, so trying to wrap my head around exactly how the supernatural concept of heaven works is unlikely to happen for me.

I have some idea of how it will feel and what it will be like from dreams, and I know it will involve a relationship with God. I can’t describe it in any kind of comprehensible philosophical way, and need to learn more.

religiouslychallenged

parkhead do you ever wonder what happens if she isn't at peace

ARE YOU FOR FUCKING REAL?

how do you feel it from dreams? i guess i have a certain feeling when im asleep that feels somehow transcendental but i also have a lot of weird sex dreams and i hope thats in no way the afterlife

also dreams are kind of just your subsconscious letting off some steam as it reboots from what i know. where does god play a part in that?
sorry if asking too many questions just curious particularly when folk are in the earlier stages of a religious experience

parkhead whoa, i'm sorry if that upset you! genuinely didn't mean it to, and wasn't trying to make it personal im just interested in religion and the grieving process and how they often intersect. i was just curious if you had doubt is all.

i'm very sorry if i upset you.

A long time before I had this very recent religious conversion I had a dream where I died and went to heaven and met God. I have also had dreams where people who have died have spoken to me about heaven and God.

They did not feel like other dreams, which happen in very different surroundings.

stripes that's interesting. i think the concept of miracles or religious experiences are fascinating (and i might have experienced some myself but not registered em as such). is there any chance it's because you were thinking about heaven a lot? not to sound dismissive, i just know that ive had some very involved dreams where i felt present but it was usually in relation to things i was thinking about on some level beforehand.

I think that when you get down to the base of it, religion is about how we find meaning.

Lots of things intersect with that. Metaphysics. Ethics. Practical ideas about how to live a good life. Social practices and rituals to draw communities together. Shared stories about meaning or other things religion touches on. Philosophical traditions to talk about these things. Art and music and literature that speak to us about them. A lot of religion is also about how things are inter-related and interdependent. Including our ancestors and traditions, people in the past - so it can bring people out of a very limited contemporary perspective to a broader way of thinking about meaning. It gives us a language to talk about meaning, as well.

There are really only a few areas that serve these kinds of questions. Philosophy, which tends not to be for everyone and is often more about the theoretical side of it. The arts, which tends to be about how we access these ideas through poetry and also communicate them within our group. And as far as how to live well, and ritual, there are some civic equivalents, or self-help, and psychology, though often those aren't very satisfying without philosophy or art to back them up.

I think most people feel the need for these kinds of elements at some times in their lives, and in most cultures, they have been available to the majority of people and the community through religious practice.

I don’t recall thinking about heaven at all at the time of the dream. I know nothing about psychology but don’t people dream about things they are not experiencing? Like at moment I am having no fun due to Covid so I am constantly dreaming about theme parks and having a great time at them.

There will have been a lot of thought put into what heaven is by a variety of clever and learned people, of whom I am not one. So they are probably a better answer for you than me.

stripes, i mean as far i know there's a lot of theories on dreams but you could be dreaming about themeparks as you're not able to access them due to lockdown as that's what youre thinkin about most. though im not freud and could be (and probably am) chatting out my arse.

do any of the points ive made or things ive mentioned make you doubt your faith?

@Goosefoot you've got an interesting view. mind if i ask if youre religious?

Yes, Goosefoot sums up all the elements.

If you are doing without religion you need to combine the arts, history, community, psychology and philosophy to get a similar experience.

It can be hard work to combine them all independently of religion, but it is very rewarding to experience them.

stripesnomore guess the people of the renaissance had it right all along!
id do a million courses on topics like this but not sure ive got enough money or time

‘do any of the points ive made or things ive mentioned make you doubt your faith?‘

No, because they are largely a series of rational questions which have been asked many times and turned over by philosophers and theologians. I understand the complexities of them and the various points on both sides. Similarly the poster talking about what it means to be good - all covered by philosophy.

What made me an atheist was that I never felt the presence of God. I tried to feel it and it made me feel unpleasant, whereas secular things like Romanticism gave my life meaning.

That isn’t meant to discredit your rational questioning. It just wasn’t an issue for me, as I have heard those issues discussed all my life.