I Wish I believed In Religion

If you are a frequent reader of my posts, you should know that sometimes I tend to think on the more negative side of things. In fact, much of my beliefs stem from believing the worst in humanity. This sometimes creates an inner confliction within me because I don’t want to be a pessimist, I want to look at every situation in an optimistic light but doing so would clash with what I believe the outcome will be. In being a pessimist, I have also found that I am often stressed and become too invested in this life because deep down inside I don’t believe there is a god or a greater being watching over us. With a belief of no afterlife I struggle to make this life as best as I can because It’s the only chance I’ll get. I identify myself as an agnostic mostly not because I believe there is a possibility for a god, but I desperately want there to be.

I don’t want to believe that all the mistake I have made can never be remedied and that once its over, its over. I look around me and I often find that many of the religious people I meet seem happy with what life has given them because they expect the afterlife to be much grander. Part of me wishes that I too believed the same thing. I wrote a post a while ago about how I wished I was ignorant and happy, which I would call this a follow up to.

I was actually raised going to church and both my parents are somewhat believers in a Christian god. When we started playing sports, we stopped going to church, but even as a young skeptic I remember thinking that much of what we were being told was just stories like the stories of the Roman and Greek Gods. I don’t think I grasped the reality that people actually took it seriously and abide by the rules as intensely as some do. We weren’t a catholic church so I never had to confess or feel guilt for anything I did, and in the grand scheme of things our church was about as casual as they came. When I was around 12 or 13 we stopped going almost entirely and I haven’t been back since.

People talk about the church and other religious organizations brainwashing people and while I do believe that to an extent, I almost envy those being brainwashed. I often make this reference, but if you have ever seen the movie “Shallow Hal” with Jack Black who plays a character who brainwashed into viewing people’s appearance as a manifestation of their inner beauty, you would understand the beauty that believing in something can bring. In the movie he starts dating a woman who everyone else sees as an obese grotesque woman, but to him he sees a gorgeous woman and is extremely happy with his life. I want the same thing to happen to me in a way, to believe in something greater that is pulling the strings so I can pull some of the burden off myself for the mistakes I constantly make.

Happiness is something that is a matter of perspective and my negative perspective often doesn’t allow me to create it. Giving me something to live for and believe in would change my life. Even if I think about cults like “Heaven’s Gate” who all committed suicide, part of my messed up brain thinks about how happy they must have been thinking they were going to the promise land during the days leading up to when they drank the coolade.

I think faith in something can be a powerful motivator and force that can ultimately help you live a better and more rounded life, but I just can’t help but look at everything with the lens of a complete skeptic. Doing this ends up making me believe that most of what I am seeing and hearing is impossible, which makes me sort of sad in a way. I want to believe more than anything, but my brain is just not capable of letting it sink in. Some people take the idea that only having one life is a reason to make the most of it, and I agree, but at the same time it makes me feel like the life im leading is a disappointing one.

My hope is that something will come along to persuade me otherwise, but I honestly don’t see that happening. I view almost all religions as the way I view fairytales for children, interesting and sometimes entertaining, but lacking any truth. Im trying though, im trying to see the light and convince myself otherwise, for myself, for my health and most of all for my happiness.

-Calaber24p