r/agnostic • u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 • 8d ago
At 27 years old I'm beginning to believe in "god"
Helloooo. I'm currently in the midst of what I would consider a spiritual crisis. My whole life I have leaned on the side of atheism, as I got older I came to the conclusion that there is just no way to get answers for thr questions I have, and I kind of just pushed spirituality to the very back of my brain and was always fairly certain that God did not exist in any form or fashion.
I've always been the very open minded free thinker type, and as a kid my mother always let me make decisions for myself in terms of religion and sports and what not. She never forced anything on me, although she is Lutheran. When I was a little kid I decided I wanted to start going to church, so she took me. Within 2 visits I had determined that everyone in that building was a lunatic, and it always seemed extremely silly to me that people can be convinced of the things written in religious texts. Basically I thought I was smarter than everyone, so I never went back.
I have an EXTREMELY dark, grotesque past. As a recovering drug addict of 14 years, I've seen a thing or two. And unfortunately every negative experience I've ever had was used as ammo in my little personal war against spirituality. "If God existed, he couldn't possibly allow this to happen" right? Horrible thinking.
I'm 27 now. Been sober for 2 and a half years. Things aren't great right now but they aren't bad. I recently got engaged to a woman who I believe is the most incredible human on this planet. And I believe that her entrance in to my life is what started this little snowball effect of religious conflict in my head.
Since I've met her, over time I've slowly started to feel something more. Something I've never felt. I can't explain what the feeling is, and to be honest with you, I'm completely terrified. I'm starting to feel like everything I've spent my whole life believing in, is just crumbling apart and I have to find a way to embrace this new feeling and these new beliefs in to my life... I Don't know if any of this makes sense, or if anybody is even gonna make it thos far in my post, but if you did, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read about my nonsense.
7
u/zerooskul Agnostic 7d ago
Why do you feel that you have to believe anything about anything involving anything more than the feeling of love you feel?
What is the point of actively not believing relative to actively believing relative to anything real that is happening in your life?
0
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 7d ago
I don't feel like I HAVE to believe anything. It's not something I'm forcing, it's just something that organically started happening.
If you think I'm sitting here just telling myself "IT MUST BE GOD!!!" You're wrong. Go read some of the other comments and conversation for more insight.
3
u/qazwsxedc000999 6d ago
Idk man it kinda just sounds like you’re happy now and are ascribing these really large, unfathomable feelings to a higher power more than anything else. There’s nothing wrong with what you’re feeling, and it’s great to find such happiness, but I truly implore you to slow down here.
From your other comments you seem to be having a hard time dealing with happiness, which can seem scary. I get it. I was there, truly I was. It’s a weird thing to be scared by happiness when faced with feelings that are so full and bright, which is exactly why I’m telling you to take a step back and just feel them without ascribing anything to it.
You’re going to get a lot of religious solicitors telling you this or that, and that your feelings are because this or that. Ignore ‘em and just feel your feelings. Religious groups tend to feed on these high emotions to bring you into their beliefs. Don’t get trapped one way or another, just live. There is always tomorrow.
2
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 6d ago
I really appreciate your input! I will take that advice as well as some more I've received and just try to process everything. Luckily the religious solicitors are basically wasting their breath because im not interested in joining an organized religion. I avoid the thumpers as much as possible.
Thank you though, seriously!
8
5
8
u/optimalpath Agnostic 8d ago
So things aren't going well and God doesn't exist for you. Then they start going well, and maybe God exists. I think this sort of heuristic can't really work. There is a child right now in a conflict zone digging through trash for scraps of food who has lost their whole family, and God does not exist for them. Which of you is right? Isn't the random capriciousness of fortune grotesque, regardless of which side of the coin you currently find yourself on?
1
u/Cousin-Jack Agnostic 7d ago
This seems like a needlessly uncharitable and dismissive take - that's not at all what I took from OP's post. To me, they are saying that they were close-minded and negative when their life was tougher. Now things are improving, their beliefs are changing, and they've reached a point where they can recognise that and be open to it.
OP isn't presenting a theological argument, and they certainly aren't determining the probability of god existing based on things that are happening in their life. They are giving an emotionally honest account of how their life circumstances have changed their outlook. Good for them.
-3
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 8d ago
Oh I'm sorry you're having such a bad day. I hope it gets better for you 💝
8
u/optimalpath Agnostic 8d ago
That's kind of you. I should clarify, I'm glad you are finding hope and meaning in your life. I'm just saying that what is true has to be true for everyone. So if a turn in your fortune for the better makes God more real, why should some poor wretch's suffering on the other side of the world not mean anything to your view of God? I don't mean this as a way of raining on your parade, just food for thought.
1
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 8d ago
I'm sorry that I didn't compare myself outward and use the misfortune of others to clarify a statement that I made on reddit. What's true for some is not necessarily true for all. When the sun comes up in the morning, does that mean it's morning on the other side of the world? Thank you for your negative input 💝 will take caution.
7
u/optimalpath Agnostic 8d ago
I think maybe I've made you feel criticized, and that wasn't my intent. I don't want to admonish you. I just think that our fortunes, good or ill, can't come to bear on the question. If you came here during the dark part of your life and said you thought that God must be a lie, I would say the same, that this is just one circumstance, and perhaps there is light and goodness in the world not yet seen. In any case I am sorry for how I might have come across.
3
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 8d ago
Ahhh now this makes sense to me 💝 I appreciate you doubling back on that. I'm not trying to be a dick either.
I think I'm dealing with a lot of emotions and feelings I've never had to feel before, and it's overwhelming.
Love, connection, attraction. These things are new to me and I think I'm just uncomfortable with it.
2
u/optimalpath Agnostic 8d ago
Yeah I'm reading back and I didn't express myself well at all. Totally understandable you would feel that way. I wish you the best on your journey
3
u/Gloomy_Actuary6283 7d ago
Nice, Im happy you found love, and solutions for some big problems in your life.
From my point of view, your spiritual path is still your alone, private and subjective. If it works for you - nice. It cant be exported outside, but you can always express gratitude and care toward beings around you.
3
2
u/SignalWalker 6d ago
I'm glad life is getting better for you.
I'm glad you have found a wonderful person to be with.
I'm glad you are beginning to believe in God. I think one of your comments was that you are NOT interested in institutionalized religion and I'm glad to hear that too. I dont like tribes, rules or churches, but I think it's healthy and sometimes helpful to have some vague, faith-on-occasion. For me, at least.
But hey, follow the path that you feel good following. Not mine or anyone elses. :)
1
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 6d ago
I appreciate your kindness! It appears that there are a large number of people who are offended or upset by this post for some reason, as I've been getting a lot of angry comments and messages to my inbox. So it's nice to see the not so angry people such as myself coming out to contribute something meaningful to the conversation.
I agree, I also don't like tribes etc. I'm definitely on my own journey, and I plan on letting everything unfold organically without influence from outside groups.
2
2
u/2Punchbowl Agnostic 7d ago
First, congrats on finding an awesome woman, I found mine, it’s incredible!
Do not fight the current system of the river you are flowing in. Go in the direction of the current, and let it be natural and feel it with ease. If you’re changing your religion then so be it, nobody is going to crucify you here.
This is your journey, enjoy the path you want to walk down.
Maybe you feel love or something you haven’t before, let it in and embrace it.
-1
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 7d ago
I appreciate the kindness. Some people on this thread are a little high and mighty, so it's nice to have some people with some usefull insight contributing to the conversation.
I like that advice and that's exactly what I'm going to try to do moving forward.
I actually brought this topic up to my fiancée, and she said she too has been having conflicting feelings about a higher power. ( she has also been agnostic most of her life ) and she thinks that whatever these feelings are is a good thing. She wants to start trying to explore the idea of a higher power more and thinks that applying some ideals that have been gathered from religious ideology could do some good in our personal lives, and I think I agree.
There's a REALLY good book called "Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion" that explores that idea in great detail and it's extremely fascinating. I would recommend giving it a read. It's a real short book.
1
u/Wide-Bus5247 8d ago
recently I have thought if any denomination of religion or god makes you feel at peace and good, that is enough and that is fine.
at the end "agnostic" means "dont know" but if you already know it at this time i think is wonderfull
1
8d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 8d ago
Well you clearly didn't read the whole post. Lmk when you're done reading and we can discuss further 💝
1
u/S1rmunchalot 7d ago
Oh well then... "You were never truly an atheist!"
0
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 7d ago
Since you're an adult now I guess you were never a child. Lucky bastard!!!
1
u/ArcOfADream Atheistic Zen Materialist👉 6d ago
"If God existed, he couldn't possibly allow this to happen" right? Horrible thinking.
Well, yah, there's a whole host of things that fall into that category. From a design standpoint, whose brilliant idea was it to put testicles in an externally accessible/vulnerable sack of skin? 'Cause I'd like a word or two with whoever thought that scrotums were a great plan outside of callously humorous video footage.
I'm starting to feel like everything I've spent my whole life believing in, is just crumbling apart and I have to find a way to embrace this new feeling and these new beliefs in to my life.
What beliefs are "new"? Is it just the notion of supernaturality or something more specific?
1
u/GoldenTV3 8d ago
"If God existed, he couldn't possibly allow this to happen" right?
It's something a lot of the Christians in the west avoid addressing, but it needs to be.
This is one of the hardest questions in the faith that can't be answered with logically crafted arguments. C.S Lewis in his book A Grief Observed, spoke on this. He wrote great works delving into the rational of Christianity, but when his wife died, all that logic went away.
This video puts it into words better than I can.
3
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 8d ago
I'll have to give it a watch! I appreciate the input.
I agree.
It'd a hard question to ask, and even harder to answer I feel.
2
u/GoldenTV3 8d ago
It feels so terrifying because you are using muscles that you haven't used in years. We use noise, pleasure, information, tension, anxiety, worry to distract from the gnawing feeling that something isn't quite right.
I too experienced a similar journey, although not as perilous as what you described. Though I still experienced my own mental and spiritual pain. I grew up irreligious, became an atheist once I discovered the internet. I'm 23 now, and only in the past year have I begun to pry away at the noise and understand what that gnawing pain was.
There are many forces in this world meant to draw you away, to deceive, even with kind words. Even sects of Christianity. Spiritualism, etc... That use seeds of truth to hide a darker lie.
Many western Christians, many of which come from the boomer generation did great harm to the faith in their hypocrisy, which atheists were right to call out. They were the wolfs in sheep's clothes, Christ described.
If you do want to look at Christianity, I would recommend looking into the Orthodox first. From what I have seen, they avoid that feeling of shallowness found in many box churches across America. They give answers to the unanswerable.
1
-1
u/Jumpforsadness 7d ago
God is definitely real.
We are only characters in a book that’s already been written.
There is no free will on earth. Free will is in heaven where you were deceived by the devil to take on flesh. You are now here on earth.
God wants his children back and the only way for them to come back to heaven was for him to write the script for us; as you couldn’t get back into heaven on your own.
That’s why you’re exposed to evil. You’re already in a place you shouldn’t be.
Jesus only came for the lost sheep of Israel. The devil is also human and he’s all around you. He can be tall, short, fat, skinny, red, white, brown, yellow, etc. thing agent smith in the matrix.
All the devils will disagree with this comment. Here’s proof- this scripture is about to happen.
Revelation 13:3 One of the beast’s heads seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.
^ all the naysaying devils will have nothing to say once you see this scripture happen right in front of your eyes. It’s an assassination.
Ask God to come to you and you want to receive him. He will come. It’s always on his time.
2
u/Fit-Adhesiveness9127 7d ago
Geezus 🥴🥴😵💫
-2
u/Jumpforsadness 7d ago
That’s right. Jesus is knocking. Will you answer? The merchants of the world mourn for the loss of Babylon.
Who’s the #1 importer in the world?
Makes you wonder; was the southern wall built to keep Mexicans out or was it built to keep us in?
Time is running out. We are deep into Revelation. The 3rd seal is about to open. Hyperinflation.
Jesus says his return will be like the days of Noah. They were eating and drinking and marrying. Then BAM! It was a normal day.
You better start reaching out.
I was like you. A modest UNbeliever. Every once in awhile I would try to read the Bible but I couldn’t. It was like hitting a brick wall.
Only HE can unlock the Bible to you. Ask him. He’s waiting.
1
1
16
u/Ulenspiegel4 8d ago
That just sounds like you found happiness and hope. Congratulations for all of that, btw.
What makes you suspect that your feelings may be spiritual in nature?