Those old fashioned feeling's

[quinntar]

I get the religious creeps, like I feel it creeping all over me. Last night I was in a bad place in my head and I started feeling the need to pray. Man, it's fucking hard to divorce myself from those feeling's. I know prayer ain't gonna do shit, but I feel those old fashioned feelings.

 

What do I do?

[♦ Fuego ♦]

You get used to it. My mind brought up Christian songs for a long time, still does occasionally, because I consumed that for 30 years. Religion is usually based on fears, and those have deep roots that take time to overcome. After my deconversion, my mind was working through stuff and gave me a very creative dream where I had to decide if I was going to be a Christian or embrace my new way. I understood what was happening and chose the new way. This is from a post here about 5 years ago:

 

"I dreamed that I was in the house where I grew up, speaking with my brother in the kitchen. The light was off, but moonlight was streaming through the window. I looked out at the moon, and it was impossibly detailed, like a line-drawing, and rather large. I said "I've got to go outside and see this!" I stepped onto the back porch and clicked the light switch. It didn't go on. This has historically been the sign in my dreams that "THE DEVIL" was there. I knew I had been suckered into coming out there. This time he was a little boy, giggling in the dark. He began to run past me and I grabbed him, threw him to the floor, and put my foot on his chest. I could feel my body begin to freeze up like it always did in these nightmares, and I began to choke out the name of Jesus. But then I realized what I was doing and said quite clearly, "No, I don't need Jesus to do this. I need to do this." He giggled, got up and said "Careful, you're about to sin!" and ran out the back door. I said, "There is no sin." I watched him running around gleefully, and I asked him "You're me, aren't you?"  He didn't answer, but in the moonlight he walked up to a bare rose bush full of thorns, faced me, and embraced it grinning. Then he ran past me, and I grabbed him and pushed him into it. He yelped. I said, "It hurts you if I do it to you, but not if you do it."  And that was the end of the dream.

 

This was an important dream from a few aspects. I had to finally face my fear of the devil, whom I no longer believe exists. I met my shadow self, who is capable of drawing me out and teaching me things about myself that I had no concept of. There is more to the imagery than I have fully understood, and I hope to meet him/me again. I know I don't need to hurt him anymore. He has a lot to teach me."

[Jesus]

For the hardcore atheists, please forgive my heresy.

 

I hate that people feel this way because it is unnecessary. Look, you deconverted from Christianity, not spirituality. There is absolutely nothing wrong with praying to “God.” I’m not talking about the Bible god. You know, God. The Universe. Cosmic Powers lol. Whatever that means to you. I hate that there are 2 camps with the largest voice in the room. Atheist vs Religion. You can subscribe to your own individual belief system. If praying to God makes you feel better why would you force yourself not to? Fucking do it! There are millions of people who are not religious but do not subscribe to atheism. When I first left Christianity I used to listen to a lot of atheist lectures on bible contradictions. These speakers reallly helped shed light on a lot of lies in the Bible and therefore strengthened me in that knowledge. But they also came off as very smug sometimes. Like “you’re an idiot if you’re not atheist.” Oh Jesus you still pray? “You’re a fucking moron don’t you know that evolution and math solve your problems.” “Evidence evidence evidence evidence evidence!” 

 

Jesus shut the fuck up with that bullshit. Why would you want to convert someone anyway? Isnt that mentality what formed religion? No one knows a goddamn thing about anything when it comes to god or no god. It’s all subjective and it’s all opinion. The main thing is to be true to yourself and not force a belief on yourself. For me, atheism doesn’t work. It does not make me happy. Just the same as religion didn’t work for me. This is just me though. Because for many, atheism does make them happy. Praying is absurd to them and they have a very legitimate argument to sustain their belief or lack of belief. But at the same time, just like religious folks, they sometimes project that idea here as I’ve noticed. Be fucking free. If you want to pray then do it. For me, I look back on all my years of praying as me talking with myself. Now I tend to just talk to myself and tell myself things like “you’re gonna get through this you’ve always come out on top.” “You always find a way, you’ve got the universe inside you there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.” But when my daughter is sick and crying I’ve prayed for her because it makes us feel better. Is it spiritual to buy a soda or eat chocolate because it makes you feel better? At the end of the day who really gives a shit? 

 

Say a prayer and keep it moving. Or don’t. The main thing is to not let the projection of others influence you’re own beliefs and practices. It’s almost as if prayer is now to be feared lol. Which again is the same mentality that enslaved us to religion. Fear. Talking to yourself is healthy in my opinion. So pray on it or talk it out with yourself.

 

Hope this helps brother!

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

6 hours ago, Aaron81 said:

I hate that people feel this way because it is unnecessary. Look, you deconverted from Christianity, not spirituality. There is absolutely nothing wrong with praying to “God.” I’m not talking about the Bible god. You know, God. The Universe. Cosmic Powers lol. Whatever that means to you.

I'm right there with you. One of the things that makes modern Xianity so toxic is it's insistence on being right, or it's insistence on forcing others to believe they have a revelatory connection to a divine truth. The word "God" is a sequence of letters that people use and generally assume that they're describing the same, cosmic thing, but in actuality people have very diverse individual ideas of what that means. If it's a vaguely-defined ball of good feelings, then sure, whatever - pray to it. If you want to be a rationalist and atheist about it you can do that, too, at the same time! Just explain to yourself that it's just a form of meditation (it is) and cite some research that explains the benefits of meditation (there are), and don't take your mythologization of your meditation practice so seriously as to want to proselytize to other people... and voila! You just created a healthy life routine for processing the multitude of complex emotions we cope with in life! 

[Geezer]

If one prays for "something" aren't they expecting something in return? Why else would one pray? And if one expects something in return for praying aren't we back to the rewards/punishment scenario again? 

 

I don't thin Deist, or most Deist anyway, pray. They simply acknowledge the possibility of a creator/higher power but don't believe this creator interacts with Its creation. Thus, there is no need to pray to IT. 

[wadori]

You seemed to be a little unclear as to exactly what those "religious feelings" are, but if you want to pray, go ahead and pray.  No, it won't do any good, but it won't do any harm either (and nobody from this forum will see you doing it!).  I think over time the feelings that trouble you will subside.  It's difficult when you first make a major transition, such as in the basic belief system of your life.  I used to worry all the time about, "What if I am wrong and really am going to go to hell?"  I've come along far enough now to not worry about such things.  It is so obvious that the Bible and other religious beliefs are just a bunch of myths.  But it has been 30 years since I left the faith.  Hopefully, it won't take you that long to get past them, but don't let the religious feelings get the best of you.  Just recognize that you will have them, and keeping on living a life of honest questioning.

[florduh]

Indoctrination, programming, brainwashing. That shit is real and it takes time to get over it. Hang in there and don't beat yourself up for having old habits that are hard to break; they were designed that way.