Religion and perseveration: bad combination?

Post Reply New Topic

Sharing a personal perspective on religion and perseveration; maybe some of you can relate to this.

I was raised Christian and have not wanted to abandon my faith, but a few years ago I went through a stage where I was trying so hard to be "right with God" that I actually ended up hurting my peace of mind in the process.

The strange thing is that this happened in adulthood, not in my youth. In youth everything seemed so simple and straightforward: God and the angels were all up there in the sky, protecting me, etc. Never saw any of them, but it was easy to believe and was comforting.

But then years later I made the mistake of letting myself believe a more conservative faith approach that stressed working to be perfect before God. Eventually, my literalism took over: I became fearful and hypervigilant to the point of nearly developing PTSD (actually I think I may have even developed it). Eventually I had enough of the self flagellation and decided to step back and take a more rationalist approach to my religion. I had to, because everything was telling me that religious legalism is absolutely wrong, and even if Jesus was real, this can't possibly be the way he wanted people to feel and to live. It was so oppressive and fear-based to live in a hypervigilant state, forever questioning oneself.

Now I have a more mature view of religion, but I am also more skeptical. Not sure where the truth is, since no deity ever drops down from the sky to confirm or deny the stuff that his minions teach the rest of us. Would make it so much easier if that happened; it would settle a lot.

I had some internal conflict in my youth; believing that God was watching me when I did bad things or simply when I had "sinful" thoughts. This is what I'd been taught to believe by teachers and preachers. I used to believe all the stuff in the bible about creation and Adam and Eve but the more I learned about the sciences (I eventually went on to study sciences at university) the more I learned about evolution and I came to the realisation that all the stuff I'd been taught about God & Jesus was just mythology. Sure there are some nice tales in the new testament and some moral instruction, but that doesn't make gods any the more real. I'm now free of the conflicted thinking caused by my early religious indoctrination and I'm an atheist. I view the Christian God as no more real than Zeus, Odin or the other gods that mankind has created over the ages.

This is probably the main thing that puts people off man-made religions, and unfortunately God at the same time.

I read scriptures that seem to condemn me, but then I remember Jesus illustrations about the unworthy tax collector being considered more worthy than the priest who felt he was saved by his good behaviour, I remember the illustration of the man who owed 10 denars and the man who owed 1000 denar, (or similar), the debtor, (Jesus) let them both off and said which one would Love him the most.

The worst you are, the more you are going to Love Jesus when he forgives you.

If you are as perfect as religions tell us we should be, then Jesus died in vain, you dont need him, we could have just carried on with the mosiac law.