I Feel Like A Christian Again

[directionless]

The last couple of weeks were incredibly stressful for me, but surprisingly I made huge progress psychologically. I had been angry at myself for a decision I made 15 years ago that I thought was very, very bad. I suddenly realized that this decision was actually good. I wouldn't change it now if given the chance. When I tried to talk to my therapist about this realization, I became very choked-up and weepy - and I can go years between shedding tears.

 

An odd result of this progress is that I seem to be emotionally a Christian again. It makes me realize that a lot of my deconversion was driven by anger towards any omniscient being that would stand by and let me make such ruinously bad decisions - maybe even encourage these bad decisions. With that anger gone, I find that I feel like a Christian.

 

Factually, I don't know what I believe. I have seen God and Jesus in my mind. They seem to do things in response to my needs at times. Only yesterday, I was not looking forward to searching through 1000 scanned images for a particular one. I muttered "Jeeesus! grumble, grumble,...". Then I said "sorry, Jesus.". Surprisingly, the first image I clicked on was the particular image I wanted.

 

On the other hand, the historical facts of Judaism and Christianity don't support faith. I have problems psychologically. Just a few days ago, I couldn't stop thinking that I had caused my father to get cancer. These weird magical thoughts seem to go away when I get sleep.

 

I don't even know what I am. I don't know what is real. I do believe that meaning helps.

 

Here is something on logotherapy that I recently read about. Frankl was an Austrian Jew who survived the concentration camps. He felt that searching for and finding meaning in your life is very important psychologically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Sounds like you are digging deeper into your self, and that is a good thing. "The unexamined life is not worth living" - attributed to Socrates.

 

I've found my dreams have been telling me things about my emotions and past. Sometimes I have to confront people I hope to never see again. Sometimes through a parable, they show me some emotions I wasn't consciously aware of, but which are affecting how I live. My hunch is that this isn't another being controlling my dreams, but me on other levels sorting things out and needing to deal with some issues.

 

I wish you well on your journey of self-understanding.

[directionless]

Thanks, @Fuego and @TrueScotsman

I won't pretend to understand everything in the post by @TrueScotsman. I have not read too much psychology and philosophy, so that limits me unfortunately. I sort of understand bits of it though.

 

It is strange to believe in Christianity while simultaneously knowing so many reasons to disbelieve. I have been trying to think of some way that Christianity might be true in spite of all those reasons to be skeptical. All the while, my emotional side says the various prayers as though it is all true.

 

So my current state is believing in Christianity and trying to understand how it could possibly be true. It isn't too hard for a skeptic to accept the possibility of a unspecified God, but it is much harder to accept the possibility of the Christian beliefs. So that is where I am at. I feel better believing in God and Jesus again, but I don't understand how they could be true.

[Margee]

directionless, I have found that by not fighting or resisting the things my brain are telling me and allowing issues that I'm trying to work out to just remain there for awhile, are OK. It's OK not to fight. I feel that the brain must get so tired of us trying to change when we are not ready. When my brain (and I) are ready to make a change, it will. And so will yours. Just try to be at peace with yourself right now until something happens that will automatically make you look in a new direction.

 

((hug))

[directionless]

Thanks, @Margee

 

Also I wanted to mention that @TrueScotsman was a very good guesser. His initial paragraph:

You're reconnecting to a state of mind that you had when you were happier and content, which I believe was likely when you were a Christian. A sort of optimistic perspective on your life, when even your mistakes have sort of brought you along this cosmic journey to where you are. Perhaps it's the similarities in the neural pathways that are connected to your Christian memories, the nostalgic comfort of hope and faith.

I happened to start listening to a CD of Christmas choral music. I have probably listened to that CD almost 50 times over the past two weeks. I began to ask myself why I wanted to hear those songs over and over. I suspect it is because these are old-fashioned songs that I remember singing in the holiday season when I was in elementary school - songs like "Silent Night" that are not as common today. That was always a special time as a child. The whole month of December was an anticipation of Christmas. Psychologically I must be going back to find some things that I need now.

[directionless]

Thanks, @TrueScotsman

I agree that traditional Christianity requires belief in a historical narrative that isn't fully accurate. Personally, I believe a historical Jesus probably existed, but I do not believe the historical narrative of Judaism. Judaism is total and complete malarkey. How could the Son of God be a Jew? How could the historical Jesus have done his ministry without ever bothering to tell his disciples that the Torah is bunk. Granted, Christianity superseded the Torah eventually, and Jesus pointed out the need to practice the higher meaning of the Law, but Jesus never said the historical narrative of the Torah was malarkey. Apparently the historical Jesus did not know this.

 

However, I have seen Jesus in a dream, and I like to believe He exists somehow. I have wondered if belief in the mythical Jesus might solve the problem and make Christianity work. Maybe God inspired the myth of Jesus as an icon of the actual spiritual Jesus. That is the direction I am thinking.

[directionless]

Can I ask a more basic question that I think is at the heart of this?

 

Why do you want Christianity work?

(1) Part of who I am is a Christian. My family members are Christians, and I like to have a shared belief.

(2) I enjoy having God to thank and to describe my difficulties.

(3) Christianity is natural for me.

(4) And lastly, I have personal experiences that suggest the existence of God and Jesus. It's interesting how experiences happening every few years over a twenty year period seem to form a narrative.

 

This recent realization has been a new data point that has changed my evaluation of all previous data points.

[Shinzon]

Composition fallacy

 

Just ponder it?

[directionless]

1) Were you born a Christian, or is that the particular religion you were born into? Does it trouble you that if you were born in India you'd perhaps be going back to Krishna?

 

2) Can you really thank god by having sufficient evidence for his metaphysical involvement. Or is it better to understand these as complex emotional interpretations of events and self-contemplation?

 

3) Would Islam seem natural for you if you grew up in Yemen?

 

4) Do they actually from a narrative, or is it a subconsciously constructed narrative of the mind as a sort emotional coping mechanism? That's how I look back on it, when really the issues I was dealing with were actually tied to concrete realities in my life.

1) Yes, born Christian (5th generation Episcopalian. My great great grandfather helped build the little church I was baptized in .... then he was excommunicated for never attending church LOL)

2) For me it is a choice between: psychosis, reality, and maybe a mixture of both. I also spend time on a psychological forum, but my symptoms are somewhat different than psychosis. There are similarities and differences. Sometimes I wonder if God talks to people through their imaginations, and mentally unstable people are better able to hear God. That creates a mixture of random psychosis and God-inspired psychosis.

3) Yes, but my hypothesis is that God is not owned by any particular religion. I suspect God inspires modifications in religions to steer them in the proper direction over time. The most natural way for me to interact with God is to use my Christian model. Otherwise I must say "God, I'm not sure if you exist, I'm not sure what your name is, I'm not sure what you want, but ..." That is awkward.

4) They definitely seem form a narrative. I could describe it but then you would think I am bat-shit crazy (of course it is probably too late to prevent that for anybody who has paid attention to my posts over the years LOL)

[directionless]

Composition fallacy

 

Just ponder it?

ponder, ponder, ponder, ...

[Shinzon]

 

Composition fallacyJust ponder it?

ponder, ponder, ponder, ...

point being, part of the whole dont prove the whole

[florduh]

I feel better believing in God and Jesus again, but I don't understand how they could be true. 

 

Everyone feels better if they think magic is real, Santa is on his way and fairies populate your garden. But we grow up, we begin to understand reality and we (hopefully) begin to think critically. The brainwashing of religion and the carefully crafted community and infrastructure can be emotionally attractive, but you can't see how it can be true. Trust your brain and learn to live in the real world. Real life, once embraced, is much more satisfying than the false world of religious superstition. Living a comforting lie is no way to live.

[directionless]

 

 

Composition fallacyJust ponder it?

ponder, ponder, ponder, ...

 

point being, part of the whole dont prove the whole

 

That is true. I tend to think that nothing can be known for certain.

[directionless]

 

I feel better believing in God and Jesus again, but I don't understand how they could be true. 

Everyone feels better if they think magic is real, Santa is on his way and fairies populate your garden. But we grow up, we begin to understand reality and we (hopefully) begin to think critically. The brainwashing of religion and the carefully crafted community and infrastructure can be emotionally attractive, but you can't see how it can be true. Trust your brain and learn to live in the real world. Real life, once embraced, is much more satisfying than the false world of religious superstition. Living a comforting lie is no way to live.

 

That is true. I have been trying to remember my reasons for disbelieving in Christianity. Clearly a big factor for me was being incredibly bitter about my life. One of the pastors on the Trinity Broadcast Network gave a sermon on why people walk away from God. Bitterness was his answer, and he hit the nail on the head in my case. So with the bitterness mostly gone, I believe again (emotionally).

 

I wasn't a fundamentalist, so the typical arguments against belief don't work as effectively for me. The most effective argument was to learn about the polytheistic origins of Judaism and ask myself why Jesus seemed to be fooled like almost every other Jew of his time. I suppose part of being human was being ignorant, but why manifest as a believer in Judaism? Apparently many Gentiles admired Judaism, so maybe it was the best religion available. If Judaism was truly God's commands, then why isn't it better? Judaism is a fine religion, but there are many other fine religions.

[directionless]

Well, now I seem to be losing my faith again. I don't know what happened. It felt so nice to be a Christian again - even if only at the emotional level. I hope it will happen again, because I don't like my normal atheist state, but that seems to be where I am again.

[rjn]

Some would argue that there was nothing special about the Jews, nor were they originally the chosen people. Their ancestor Abraham however, was handpicked by God, and his descendants continued the beliefs and traditions laid down by him. The Jews became a chosen people, rather than being one from the onset.

[florduh]

Well, now I seem to be losing my faith again. I don't know what happened. It felt so nice to be a Christian again - even if only at the emotional level. I hope it will happen again, because I don't like my normal atheist state, but that seems to be where I am again.

Pardon me if haven't been keeping up, but have you been diagnosed as bipolar? 

[sdelsolray]

Well, now I seem to be losing my faith again. I don't know what happened. It felt so nice to be a Christian again - even if only at the emotional level. I hope it will happen again, because I don't like my normal atheist state, but that seems to be where I am again.

 

 

I suggest you focus a bit more on the causes of your mental illness instead of the results of it.

[directionless]

 

Well, now I seem to be losing my faith again. I don't know what happened. It felt so nice to be a Christian again - even if only at the emotional level. I hope it will happen again, because I don't like my normal atheist state, but that seems to be where I am again.

Pardon me if haven't been keeping up, but have you been diagnosed as bipolar?

 

The only official diagnosis I'm aware of was from about 3 years ago. The therapist thought I had depression with anxiety (o.k.), social anxiety (o.k.), brief psychotic disorder (I debate that one with myself), delusional disorder (I'm even less convinced on that one). The therapist that made that diagnosis told me that it seemed like a very mild delusional disorder, but she wasn't certain.

 

EDIT: The post was too long and rambling, so I deleted that part.

[directionless]

Some would argue that there was nothing special about the Jews, nor were they originally the chosen people. Their ancestor Abraham however, was handpicked by God, and his descendants continued the beliefs and traditions laid down by him. The Jews became a chosen people, rather than being one from the onset.

I have never heard that idea, but it sounds interesting. So the Jews aped Abraham, so that they could be chosen like Abraham. The Christians aped Jesus, so that they could be chosen like Jesus. (Right now I don't feel very inspired to be honest - just a grumpy atheist again.)

[directionless]

 

Well, now I seem to be losing my faith again. I don't know what happened. It felt so nice to be a Christian again - even if only at the emotional level. I hope it will happen again, because I don't like my normal atheist state, but that seems to be where I am again.

 

 

I suggest you focus a bit more on the causes of your mental illness instead of the results of it.

 

That is good advice.

[directionless]

Sorry, everybody, I know my posts are probably a bit weird often. Whenever I try to say what I think, it always sounds weird when I read it.

[hockeyfan70]

I'm at the beginning stages, so I'm kind of going through the stages of grief that Kubler-Ross talks about. Disbelief, bargaining, sadness, acceptance, etc. I certainly feel more free. But I also feel more alone, because my church was my tribe. Now they aren't. I think going through phases happens to some people, so don't sweat it.

[directionless]

I'm at the beginning stages, so I'm kind of going through the stages of grief that Kubler-Ross talks about. Disbelief, bargaining, sadness, acceptance, etc. I certainly feel more free. But I also feel more alone, because my church was my tribe. Now they aren't. I think going through phases happens to some people, so don't sweat it.

Thanks, @hockeyfan70

I hope your adjustment is as smooth as possible. It is never easy, but some people seem to adjust quicker than others. @florduh had some very good observations in an earlier thread about what makes the adjustment harder or easier for people. Maybe I can find it and post a link.

[directionless]

Here is that quote I mentioned from @florduh about why deconversion is harder for some than others.

 

Once the average person is removed from being immersed in propaganda they can't help but start to observe and think. It's hard to leave religion when your family is caught up in the insanity. It's hard to leave if the religion feeds some mental dysfunction. It's hard to leave just because of inertia. Stronger personalities who are naturally logical probably have an easier exit. Education and intelligence help too.

http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/70593-what-makes-deconversion-easy-vs-hard/#.Vui-PI-cG1s