Why I'm sad to no longer be a Christian

[BrainInAJar]

Hello

I lived 40 years of my life believing that:

a) I would see my cats again when I die; and
b) evil people would be punished after they die.

And now I realise this is not so.

I am sad.

a) Other faiths include an afterlife, and you don't actually need a faith to believe in an afterlife at all;
b) Wasting your headspace on wishing ill on other people will not benefit you.

You can get new cats. I don't have a solution for the lack of retribution for evil people unfortunately. AFAIK Christians believe that animals don't have souls, so even if their religion wasn't make-believe, there would still be no cat heaven. I never had any faith to lose, but I'm sure life is ultimately better without the threat of hellfire and the constant guilt tripping of Christianity.

Thanks for your replies. There are some verses in the Bible which can be interpreted as meaning that God has an eternal relationship with his animals and so therefore they might be in Heaven. I read a specific book about it once which was very interesting.

You can't just replace an animal you have loved, each is different. But yes, I guess that is basically the purpose of my life now, to provide a loving home for a series of rescue cats. (Got to be rescues, there's plenty needing homes).

I regard myself as a Christian but I don't 'believe' in the things you mention.
I have a spiritual faith in a power greater than me but it's not got any human or recognisable form. It's a force which guides everything to its destined path and we can be with it or against it. I believe after death we are reabsorbed into that divine energy.
Live your life in such a way that is positive both to you and the greater good.

@BrainInAJar I have 5 rescue cats so I hear you. But as an atheist, I'm just happy that I can give them the absolute best lives right here on earth. I also volunteer for the rescue where I got my five and have just found someone who is looking to take on the two older boys who have been waiting for 6 months. It's so worthwhile.

If you are still feeling a need for a spiritual path to your life, why not look and get a feel for what's out there? I'd start with a Quaker meeting.

Why do you no longer believe this?

@Peakypolly do you believe in Jesus though, in that he is the son of God who died for our sins? That's fundamental for being a Christian.

@MrsMiagi good question. I think I realised that I only really "believed" because my mother taught me it from the age of about 3. I really thought I did believe. But tbh I have become disillusioned with life in general so it has made me question a lot of things. And suddenly the whole concept of "it's just made up as a way to control people or to give them a crutch" seems to make sense.

@pointythings high five fellow cat-rescuer. Thanks for the suggestion but I think if I no longer believe in Christianity then I'm not really interested in anything spiritual at all, if that makes sense. Especially in a group setting. Socialising is actually one of the things I hated most about church!

@BrainInAJar in that case may I recommend some mindfulness work? There is so much beauty and joy in the here and now and we humans tend to be very bad at taking a breath and actively taking it in. And as a cat rescuer you have a head start, because what is more beautiful and now than a happy rescue cat purring on your lap? If faith is no longer for you, it's time to find the joy in life without it. I've been atheist for 28 years and never got beyond agnostic before that, and there's enough in the here and now to keep me both grounded and happy.

Literally the only reason I wish it all were real is so I could know certain people would burn in hell. I'm still open to the possibility of reincarnation though..so they might come back as a female and learn what it means to be abused and controlled by a man.
Also sometimes I'll find myself sort of praying, like, "Please let this this work" kind of thing and I stop to wonder who I'm talking to :/

@flowerchild2000 I know what you mean. It enrages me that Jimmy Savile faced no justice in this life. I wish he was getting his comeuppance over the rest of eternity.

But JS was a Catholic and on his deathbed was certain that he was going to get his punishment.

I consider myself a Christian and I don’t believe in an afterlife at all. I love my (rescue) cat very dearly and often tell him how he’s changed my life for the better. I just want to give him the very best life I can. I’m sure your dear cats live on in your heart!

The yearning for justice is surely a key reason why religion exists, as life is so often unjust. I liked something i once read by Rabbi Blue, along the lines that when you die, God sits you on His knee and shows you everything you did right and wrong in your life and that’s your heaven or your hell. I suppose i have come to believe that I must focus on what’s in my own heart, and follow my conscience, which can include things like trying to stand up for what I believe in and against injustice as I see it, but also praying for God to help me see my faults and guide my judgment. Also, I express my thoughts and feelings about wrongdoing and injustice in the world in prayer, which helps.

I certainly do know that a man called Jesus existed and that he was who he, and his contemporaries, said he was. He explained the divine energy in a way to help us understand it and, most importantly, told us the way to behave was to treat one another with love.
I think you are being a conduit of love and peace, your compassion to your cats proves this.

I'm a Christian and I don't believe either of the things in your OP.

I believe that Jesus had the right ideas about how to live a good life. That building the kingdom of heaven here on earth means feeding the poor, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger and visiting those in prison. Loving each and every human, even the sinful and rotten ones, as if they are a representative of God, which they are. Heaven and Hell aren't a very important part of my beliefs.

I don't think the evil are punished, because if heaven really exists then God's love and redemptive power is more awesomely omnipotent than our ability to sin. If hell exists then it's empty. However it might be that neither exists. I don't feel the need to know, because if they don't exist then I won't be in a position to care by the time I find out, and if they do then I can trust in my own redemption.

Jesus is very clear that it is absolutely none of our business if God chooses to redeem and forgive those we deem unworthy and give them the same reward as if they had been good and faithful. We are not to judge, but attend only to our own redemption.

Thank you all for your responses.

I'm quite surprised by the number of you who identify as Christians but don't base that round what I was taught was the fundamental part of being a Christian - to believe that Jesus, the son of God, died for your sin. And if you repented and turned to him, you were forgiven and would go to Heaven.

The whole "loving other people and being a good person" etc would then flow naturally from your desire to now be more like Jesus.

@MadeOfAllWork it's interesting, you'd think if Jimmy Savile REALLY believed in a God who would punish him then he wouldn't have actually done those things surely?!

I DO hope he was terrified on his deathbed.

But I wonder if it's more likely he was "nominally" Catholic ie brought up Catholic but had no personal real faith.

I mean what was the point of Jesus dying then, in your minds? If not as a sacrifice for our sins?

I am a Christian but believe in universal salvation.

He died because he was arrested and put to death. The point was to execute him wasn't it? He didn't choose to die, he was literally arrested and sentenced to death.

I certainly don't need anybody sacrificing themselves for my so called sins. What sins by the way? Apparently it is a sin to eat pork and other silly things like that.

Just live your life and be a decent person.

I miss my cat too by the way. He was lovely.

This is also blowing my mind - there are fundamental things required to be a Christian, and what some of these other posters are saying is not Christianity. It might be their own philosophy, but not Christianity..

I believe that Jesus died to show us something new about suffering and death. He experienced betrayal, despair, agony and death. He sacrificed Himself to share in our humanity. For me this means that I can trust that God understands human suffering.

I do my best to have a theology that works with the Creed but there are things I just don’t believe. However, I find Christianity - the religion I was brought up in and which, culturally, has had a huge impact and influence on my life - the best possible framework for my spirituality. I try to fit my philosophy/theology in with it to
the best of my ability - I don’t see the value in trying out other religions or just being ‘spiritual’. It has taken me a long time to get to this point and I appreciate that it’s unorthodox but I don’t worry too much about that.

As I don’t believe in life after death I see it as helping me live my life better and being connected to other people and the human experience of/relationship with God.

@SwordToFlamethrower

Just for information, it is Muslims and Jews who eschew pork. It’s fine for us bacon munching Christians…..

I was brought up ‘Christian’ and made to beleive terrifying things and I definitely have ptsd from religious trauma.
for a long time after I stopped believing I felt sad and strange and empty but I’ve applied plenty of logic since and I feel ok about it.
this time of year I still enjoy carols an ting but it’s just for the enjoyment of community, festivity and having a good old singalong.
and mince pies etc.

As a catholic , he would supposedly have been forgiven frequently throughout his life as long as he regularly confessed.
don’t forget the majority of people he might have confessed to could possibly have been into similar things to him so the whole thing is as confusing as the hypocritical victim blaming, rape apologist Pentecostal and evangelical churches I went to.

I'm a Catholic- practicing Catholic not just brought up that way. In fact I converted to Catholicism as an adult after several decades of really learning about as many different religions as I could find and realising that, for me, this is indeed the way. People miss the point of why Jesus died for us. They forget (or perhaps have never learned) it was so we no longer had to make the sacrifices spoken of in the Old Testament. So we didn't have to follow so many different things, we could simply love and put our faith in Him. He sacrificed himself so we would not need to sacrifice lambs etc for Him, He is the sacrificial lamb for us all. His sacrifice replaces the Ten Commandments as His commandment of love and have faith in the Lord covers all those Ten. We all have free will to decide whether we believe or do not.
To know the Lord is to know love, Hell is simply the absence of love. That's it. And we also accept purgatory exists after death so that would be where we make the final choice to embrace that love and be eternally without it.
I don't think any good comes from wishing ill on others, no matter what faith they or you may have. It just breeds unhappiness, discontent etc. Also if you need your pets for you to be happy in Heaven then God would provide this for you, that's what I was told when I asked my priest a similar question about pets and Heaven.
Hope that helps a bit and if not that's ok, I can respect your right to have your own interpretation of faith for yourself.