Following My Own Path

[zuker12]

Hello everyone. I've been lurking less and less each passing week. I think I am getting healthy finally. Of course my anxiety strikes back at me at times. I've made a few realizations that might put an end to my eternal battle of God vs. Satan.

 

Both extremes (God and Satan) are not good for a human being. The first one demands absolute purity and even ruthlessness in it's ambition to maintain a spiritual status quo. What kind of a god wants you to hate your parents, amputate your limbs (ironically first condemning any carvings on the skin and deformities), kill those who make the wrong choice, never letting them come back, sometimes kills just because this is what the drama requires and wants you to be perfect lest you risk getting killed yourself? The price of non-perfection is eternal sickly torment. Why are we inherently weak, then he lets all kind of deceptions and misfortunes come our way (where the hell did all those false gods come from? Abandon your creation much?), is incoherent and inconsistent in his behaviour, sometimes killing the child for the father's sins (when he said that he won't do that). This end demands much, so much from you, does not love you unconditionally, is unwilling to look past your mistakes unless you beg for mercy day after day even if you did nothing harmful. He sets billions of restrictions and expects total unyielding loyalty even when you feel tormented and destroyed. He only enjoys your purity. He doesn't enjoy you, if you are not perfect, in every small thing. He has a lot of rhetoric about vengeance and this is how I see him. Vengeful and Jealous. His perfection is absolute because he wants it. I don't know, but it seems like he wants to satisfy his ego, and he can't bear the mistakes of his flawed creation, opting for a fiery vengeance against us. God wants all these hoops and tricks that cause us pain, because he wants it. We bear the brunt and get punished for it too. God must be the biggest drama queen to ever exist, creating misery against us then killing and tormenting us for failing in his eternal tests. The best thing is the reward for purity; an eternity in the world to come, praising god for ever and ever, being finally drugged with the spirit so much that we feel no pain. Supposedly we also forget our loved ones and their hellish misery.

 

The other end, Satan, is not good too. It is overtly selfish, prone to manipulation and ruthlessness. It is not however much different from God, opting for violence and trickery to gain for it's selfishness. It doesn't love in any way, anything or anyone. It is all about me. Me, me, me. Healthy selfishness is good but hurting others for it? No way. I could not never do anything major against another person and I believe we have our conscience to give us limits and punish us. Our conscience is a very good thing. Being deceptive and cruel is a bad thing. There's some sort of a karmic law in addition to our conscience whereby we get punished for our selfish deeds. It is human-driven mostly, but I think sometimes events may conspire against a person who has done misdeeds. With unlimited selfishness, we end up destroying each other. Being cooperative and loving with others yields greater rewards than selfishness. This is why we can't be selfish. If Satan has a legion of demons, we've been successfully battling them with many other methods than exorcisms; therapy, medication, the exorcism practices of other religions (power of belief, anyone?).

 

With these things in mind, I have decided that I no longer want to belong to any extreme. I have no need to be pure. I simply don't understand what people gain with overt selfishness, except for loneliness and the occasional material good. It's like choosing between two dystopias. About a month ago I posted a post where I reached the logic conclusion that in a certain way we are all satanists. Well, I don't consider myself or anyone a satanist unless they say they are. There are people who simply don't want to think about these things and that is good. I believe I can carve my own path now. I can't live with God with a pure conscience, and I don't want to. I can't live with Satan with a pure conscience, and I don't want to. If need be, I'll pray and banter with God if I need it (I think I'll be praying to a universal God, something a bit like a deistic figure but with unlimited unconditional love). If there are demons somewhere, then I must deal with them with whatever tools I have in hand. I'd really rather play my satanic Dungeons and Dragons game, listen to satanic music, pray when I need it, meditate when I need it. Consider important things when I feel like it, but not all the god damn time as I was doing up to this point. If conspiracies are true and we have druidic satanic overlords or something making us all non-christians, then I accept them. Though I have a hard time believing in them, what with fraudulent testimonials from drug addicts and sexual abusers such as John Todd. There's a lot of material against god; but all I need is the knowledge that I have no want to live in an extreme, not in the extreme provided by god.

 

I have bested my OCD. As soon as I best my anxiety attacks about conspiracy theories, hell, god etc, I am on my way to being fully healthy again. I'll make my own path. I am grateful to God or whomever or whatever made me for this chance at life. I fail the Spiritual Character Test miserably, but I have no need of fulfilling it.

[TrueFreedom]

Good for you, zuker12.  Perhaps the wisdom in Ecclesiastes will speak to you.

 

Ecclesiastes 7:16

Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? (ESV)

[Ellinas]

Congratulations.

 

Balance is key to a healthy outlook.

 

It's also worth remembering that satan is, basically, a christian creation.  Concentrating on him validates the belief system that spawned him.  Therefore best to leave both alone.