I lost my faith a number of years ago. I really struggle with it but there is a sense of loss that still haunts me.
I think that if you had faith in God and lose it, you feel much more adrift than if you never believed in the first place.
Religious life is still important to my family. I just shut up when it comes to discussions about faith, God and religion in general. If somebody says they are going to pray for me, that's lovely. I will accept all positive energy.
To go along with not believing God, I also don't believe in the devil.
I don't have all the answers. I used to have them when I followed religion. That is what leaves me with a lot more questions. .. . The Bible has a ready answer for most everything. When you hand in that set of beliefs, you also hand in all the easy answers to most of life's difficult questions.
I still believe that there is a right and wrong. I haven't given up being moral. I haven't become a nihilist.
I was looking for some good arguments in support of my newly discarded beliefs. I found it in Judaism:
There is a story told in Hassidic literature that addresses this very question. The Rabbi teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson.
One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”
The Rabbi responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”
"This means," the Rabbi continued "that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’" Tales of the Hasidim, Vol. 2: The Later Masters [Martin Buber, Olga Marx]
This comforts me.
2 comments:
Interesting post. There's a lot of praying going on right now, for many reasons, and I don't know if it really helps, or if it works, but as you said, it is positive energy and fills a need to be doing something useful and meaningful.
My fellow Canadians in Nova Scotia need positive energy right now, in the form of prayer and whatever can be offered to help in their anguish.
Whatever gives people comfort is helpful, but just don’t force others to believe the same as some groups do.
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