I'm curious if any of you have experienced a longing/nostalgia/sadness at having lost parts of the religious experience, and if you've found alternative ways to have similarly fulfilling experiences.
Examples of some things I've genuinely missed about being a fundamentalist Christian:
- Singing with other people
- The experience of worshiping God - this has somewhat been replaced by an awe of nature and science, though the emotion of it isn't as intense
- Having a space to talk with other people about the hard work of developing personal character and virtues
- Walking in to almost any Christian event/church and immediately feeling a sense of community and belonging
- A culture that encourages conversations about making a difference in the world
- Prayer - it helped me to let go of the things I didn't have control over, and also to process my own guilt/responsibility for actions I'd taken, as well as just making me feel heard (therapy is similar, I suppose)
- The belief that I was deeply and unconditionally loved by the creator of the universe. That was an incredible feeling.
There are tons of things I do NOT miss, but I do genuinely miss some parts of my religious experience. Do any of you? Have you found other experiences that are similarly fulfilling?
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Similarly fulfilling experiences are everywhere. The best way of expressing this comes from something said by Carlos Castaneda.
"Stopping the World." In psychology these are known as peak experiences. "A peak experience is a moment accompanied by a euphoric mental state often achieved by self-actualizing individuals." Corsini, Raymond J. (1998). Encyclopedia of Psychology. United States: John Wiley & Sons.
"Abraham Maslow in 1964, who describes peak experiences as "rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_experience
THESE ARE NOT RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES; THEY ARE HUMAN EXPERIENCES.
The emotion is not as intense. "You are making a fundamental mistake here." You are waiting for intensity to come from outside yourself. You bring intensity to the world. You create it. The world is not responsible for providing you with intensity. Look at the con man religious asshole. HE CREATES THE INTENSITY. He does it for himself and others just follow along. Intensity is there, and it is yours, and all you need do is reach out and choose to observe something, involve yourself in something, intensely.
How can you even compare the intensity of the universe with a belief in God. Please choose a star lit night and a place where you can simply lie on the ground and look up at all the stars. Just lie there and look up and search for that intensity you speak of. It's right there.
The very atoms in your body came from the stars. You are on a speck of dust flying through all this shit. Beyond all the shit you see is more and more and more shit. Some of the stars you see are millions of years old and the light is just reaching you now. DON'T SEE IT. DON'T UNDERSTAND IT. FEEL IT. GROK IT. Church is an emotional experience. You have stopped using your emotions to understand science. You are doing it purely intellectually,. You are not grasping it with your being but only with your mind.
Sam Harris has some interesting lectures on this topic. There is something that we call spiritual.... "WE CALL SPIRITUAL" not is spiritual, that is a part of the human psyche. You have not lost yours, you are simply not using it.
"Walking in to almost any Christian event/church and immediately feeling a sense of community and belonging."
Humans need this sort of contact. We are group animals. I agree that this is not easy to find. I am an introvert and do not seek the company of groups or others. I do not get lonely. (I did when I was younger but then I realized we are all alone within our skins. Connection to another is an illusion our minds like to convince us of. We all die alone. Actually understanding this really makes the friendships I do have much more valuable. We are just people, sucking in air and making our way through this world the best way we can. It is awesome to find another traveler headed in the same direction.) This is another amazing thing about life. WE ARE COMPLETELY ALONE. CONNECTION TO OTHERS IS AN ILLUSION. WE DO NOT TRANSCEND OUR SKIN. THE LOVE WE FEEL FROM ANOTHER COMES FROM US. WE CAN NOT FEEL THEIR LOVE. WE CAN ONLY SEE THEIR ACTIONS, LISTEN TO THEIR WORDS, AND FEEL LOVE FOR THEM.
There are so many awe inspiring things to see and understand in the world. But more importantly, TURN ON THOSE EMOTIONS AND REALLY OPT TO FEEL WHAT SCIENCE AND PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT.
Absolutely. Nature is sincerely amazing and is hands-down my favorite thing. Camping is my favorite hobby, as well as stargazing, storm watching, and gazing lovingly at trees. Ha! But seriously, I'm moved to tears by nature almost daily. I have the Deep Space Hubble photo on my wall so that I can have a daily moment of, "Holy shit, that light is OLD. This is fucking time travel!" Chemistry is basically magic. Being made of stardust is mind-blowing and inspiring. Don't get me wrong, I gush over this stuff all of the time. It just feels a little different than if I added on top of all of that that an infinitely perfect, powerful and wonderful being loved me passionately. But that's probably more about God being a replacement for me for my abusive parents, and missing him as a pseudo-parent.
The things that Sam Harris has to say about secular spirituality really resonate with me. I also love that he's a committed meditator without being "woo woo". I have a lot of respect for him and the way he balances reason with compassion.
I like what you said about the love that we feel from other people actually coming from us. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how amazing the experience of God's love was when it obviously wasn't real. It didn't matter because I believed it whole-heartedly, so I created the experience for myself. It's pretty incredible to me that something fabricated could feel so real. The power of those moving experiences lies within us. I'm curious to explore what it looks like to turn that experience on intentionally.
@Stone Jade: "STORM WATCHING" Holy hell, I am not alone in the universe. I love storms. I love the wind, the thunder, the rain, the lightening, the thunder, the snow, huge waves crashing into the beach, the utter and amazing power of a storm is .... "Life Changing.?" When I lived in California I used to go out to the Jacuzzi and just watch the sky while the cold rain hit my face and bolts of lightening flashed across the sky.
I lived in Kansas for a time and I loved just stopping on a country road and watching the tornadoes bouncing up and down., Watching them change colors and shapes/ Long stringy tornadoes, big fat ones that suck up houses. Yes, they are dangerous and it is unfortunate that we live on a planet where such things occur but they do occur and they are amazing.
In Pompeii I walked the streets of the city as Mt. Vesuvius smoked in the background. Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tidal waves , the shifting of the earth under my feet is simply awe inspiring. Like a puff of wind blowing out a match, all life on this planet could end in the very next moment. That is not a bad thing/ It probably will not happen. But it is an amazing thing and it has probably happened at least 7 times in the past. (reference 7 ice ages)/ LIFE IS FUCKING FANTASTIC. I hate quoting Jurassic Park but "Where there is life, there is a way."
I do not miss any aspects of my faith whatsoever.
As for the "meaning in life" thing, I found (all by myself) that the meaning of life is subjective, not an objective absolute; it's really whatever makes your individual life worth living. For me, it is doing the things that I feel passionate about, and helping to make the world a better place. The latter makes me feel like I've made an actual difference; unlike the prayers I once uttered for my own pet problems to be solved (which spoiler alert, they never were), one actually makes a difference and the other's... well, prayer. It not only makes a difference just to my life, but to the lives of others in this world, too.
Mourning: One claim that is often brought up by the religious is that we atheists have no way of receiving comfort when losing a loved one because we are too busy being realistic and accepting that they no longer exist and that their consciousness died with the brain that had enabled it to exist in the first place. Absolutely false. Personally, I haven't yet lost anyone who was important to me, but when I inevitably do, I would think that they would have never truly "left" me, as the memory of them would still live on within my heart for the rest of my life. For as long as I've disbelieved, I have always been one to think that it is not only less woo-woo but also more comforting to have this idea, rather than the idea that they exist in an invisible, inaccessible place in the sky that you won't be able to go to in order to visit them until after you croak.
Morality: A perfectly natural thing that comes not from a bronze-aged storybook, but from our inborn social instincts that we and many other social species have- and AFAIK all non-human animals are atheists by definition, as they do not have the mental capacity to invent any superstitions (which would later evolve into religions and leave them deluded for generations to come) as "explanations" for things they aren't smart/advanced enough to understand.
I never had any gods and it’s hard for me to even imagine what it’s like. I’m so sorry for the difficulty you’ve had to endure because of it.
Well, if you can imagine the feeling of being duped and lied to from having been raised into one of the biggest scams in the history of scams from an early age only to later realize that it's all a fiction, you'll know.
Hey there, Jade. Really sorry that you are missing some of those aspects of religion, and I almost wish I could say I can relate to those feelings. For me, though, it is difficult to miss something I never really felt. Despite my growing up in the church and in a Christian community, about the only thing that stuck to me was the ever-present threat of hell that lived in the back of my head for so many years. And I definitely DO NOT miss THAT feeling since I was finally able to dig it out of my thick skull... *chuckle*... As for all the fellowship and the sense of community, I never felt like I fit in. (I've always been a bit of a loner, anyway.) Going to church or church events always seemed to make me more uncomfortable than it made me feel at ease. As I have said before, even as a kid, I could just never fully buy into the whole thing. My mind simply would not allow me to commit to all the things that did not make sense to me. Therefore, whenever I was around a large church group, there always seemed to be a nagging concern that somebody (or everybody) would know what I thought. Very disconcerting, especially for a little kid.
And prayer always seemed incredibly silly to me. On one hand, I was told that God knows every single thing about me. I was told he knew every single thought I was having, I ever had, or ever would have, and that God knew all of this even before I ever existed. And I was told God already knew what was in my heart and that he already knew everything I would ever want or need. (Well, naturally, that creeped me out for obvious reasons.) But then I was told that we should pray to God and ask him for the things we want. That kind of crap totally baffled me. Made no sense to me whatsoever, even as a little kid of eight and nine years old. Nevertheless, I played along because I was an obedient child, and I trusted that the adults knew what they were doing. Plus, as a bonus, the threat of going to hell always helped to keep me in line. Extortion is a wonderful thing... *rolling eyes*...
Anyway, didn't mean to start rambling there. Basically, I can honestly say I do not miss a single thing about the religion under which I was raised. If anything, it is a tremendous relief to no longer have to concern myself with such nonsense. Matter of fact, over the last few months I have made a wonderfully unexpected discovery. Before I finally escaped my religious indoctrination, I ALWAYS felt incredibly uncomfortable being around anything or anybody of a religious nature. Would even avoid having discussions about religion as if it were the plague. NOW, however, it is almost as if I am totally immune to anything having to do with religion, or witchcraft, or spiritualism, or any other such practices. And it is a most sensational feeling. I actually ENJOY religious discussions now. I have FUN learning about various different practices. My wife is Pagan and has recently embraced the practice of witchcraft. Heck, we even have a whole coven of witches as friends... *chuckle*... (My wife still practices solo.) Some people might cringe at that, and I admit there was a time it would have made me feel incredibly uneasy. Now, though?... Hell, I think it is pretty freakin' cool! Why? Because for one, it is interesting learning about the history of it all and how the practices change from culture to culture. And it is really neat watching her do rituals and such. Fascinating stuff. Mainly, though, I like the fact I can be around these things now without it causing me any concern or uneasiness whatsoever. Same if I were to walk into a church now. I would feel totally relaxed, and maybe even slightly amused. I love it. It is a feeling of mental/emotional freedom that I have never before had in my life. No feelings of guilt. No worries. No uncertainties. No second-guessing myself. Just pure mental freedom and peace of mind knowing I am no longer affected by those things anymore. (Hope all of that made at least a little sense. Rather difficult to fully explain.)
Anyway, chin up. Chances are all those feelings of "loss" you are having will eventually fade as they are gradually replaced by more and more things grounded in reality. As others have already said, this tiny speck of dust we call home and all that infinite space that surrounds us is quite fascinating enough on its own. No gods required to be amazed and awed... *grin*...
I had 'peak moments' as a believer but I have since had many more intense moments afterwards.
Laying in a field all night cloudless moonless marvelling at the sensation of being literally stuck onto planet earth as it moved through space and the beauty of the galaxy.
Being present at the birth of both my children.
Climbing a hazardous vertical headland cliff free hand during a storm and celebrating my ascension with a wardance whooping with thunder and lightning and a violent sea.
Watching patiently the tiniest spider weave a complete web from start to finish.
Yeah, nature mostly and too many joyous and siginificent occasions to mention with friends and family. It's good to be alive.
Oh and no gods were required at any point , was too busy living.
I understand what you are saying Stone Jade and I share many of those feelings.
The difference between then and now is that then I thought I had eternity, and now everything is finite. I keep asking myself if there is any meaning without eternity as I watch the seconds tick by.
I can marvel at nature and a beautiful sunset, or the accomplishments of science and be in awe. But those moments pass and become memories and fade. We eventually die and they probably completely dissappear.
Personally, the fact is I can never have enough religious experiences or sunsets, or beatiful trees or scientific marvels, because there is always something amiss; a gnawing emptiness. It drove me away from faith in God and even now wont leave me.
I sometimes think that some of the people on this forum who are proud of how knowledgable, content and fulfilled they are as atheists, are here to fill that same hole. Maybe posting ones convictions on forums is the same as a religious prayer: Trying to fill an emptiness by expressing conviction into the void.
I think true fulfillment can come from truth, but religion is not spiritual enough, and science is not real enough to find it yet.
Or like usual I'm just writing alot without really saing anything; anything meaningfull that is. *Sighs and reaches for an emptiness filling cold beverage...*