Things just haven’t been going well this morning, and it’s partly because of some stupid mistakes that I made. This is one thing that’s been harder to deal with as an atheist– when things go wrong, especially when it’s my fault. I hear Christian voices echoing in my head that I’m a sinner with a sinful nature, etc.
I might be overdramatic. But when I really get down, it’s just a little bit harder to pick back up. Christianity gave just a small catalyst in the form of “God loves you” or something else equally mushy but nonetheless effective, that made it easier to bounce back from a mistake or a disappointment.
Has anyone else felt this way? I suppose it’s probably just another symptom of learning to face the real world with no cushions. Now that I think about it, becoming an atheist has been an opening up of all my senses and feeling everything more “real-ly,” so it should be the same for small and inconsequential things like having a bad day.
How do you get that voice out of your head that tells you you’re a sinner? It seldom appears, but I wish I could get rid of it for good.
I’ve found that nagging feeling of guilt will pop up every now and again. For me, I’ve had to redefine the idea of sin that was taught to me. I no longer believe in a deity that I’ve somehow offended. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to make bad choices and hurt myself or others. The golden rule still applies.
I would rather know that when I screw things up there’s no one who can fix them but myself, than to take the placebo god-pill and assume I can just imagine my mistakes away with a prayer. I believe it to be much healthier to face your mistakes head-on and deal with them rather than to hide behind the forgiveness of a deity. That’s a hard fact of life that can get lost within the world where a god’s forgiveness can take away responsibility from fixing a problem.
Not that this knowledge will make your mistakes any easier to repair, of course. But it does make things more real. And now you can be glad that you no longer have the empty threat of eternal damnation for your mistake.
We all make mistakes, that’s part of life. It’s up to each of us to correct those mistakes.
nogods, I would just like to clarify that for one sec if I may, i don’t think Christianity teaches that you can just imagine your problems away with a prayer or anything like that. According to the Christian story, we are still screw ups who make a mess of our lives forgiven or not.
Take Cain for example. When he was jealous of his brother and contemplating murder, God came to him and challenged him saying, “sin is crouching at your door…but you must rule over it.” The responsibility was still has. God offered to forgive him, but Cain had to make it right. by the way, if you know the story, you know he never made it right and God still protected his life.
while we can be forgiven, it doesn’t fix the mess we make of our lives, it simply gives us hope for the future, and motivates us to fix the mess.
Hi LE, I’m here by way of CaTE and Friendly Atheist. š
I’m a former conservative evangelical who deconverted around 2002. I know what you mean about the “voice in your head” repeating doctrine like original sin. Sometimes, it seems like it’s on a continuous loop, doesn’t it? š
It’s interesting to try and understand it neurologically, which I found helped immensely. The neuron “pathways” in our brains get worn down (so to speak) from frequent use. So when you feel a certain way, or think a certain thought (“Argh, I screwed up again!) the “default” response that pops up in your consciousness is likely to be the one where the path is the most well-trodden (i.e., “I’m a sinner and need to repent!”)
Think about how many times that doctrine of original sin was pounded into your head, and how many times you confirmed it internally when you were a believer! Of course those pathways have huge ruts of use in them, so that’s how you’ll view many situations for a long time.
The wonderful thing about the brain is that it is SO malleable, thanks to evolution. You can learn new things over time! So, the next time you screw up, you can consciously reject the original sin loop that spools right up and train yourself to think “Oh, I did this and that wrong this time, but that’s okay, I’ll deal with it and I’ll learn from it and next time I’ll do better.”
Accepting yourself as a flawed human being who can learn and grow, even despite setbacks, is a wonderful feeling. You don’t have to think of yourself as “damaged goods” now, that needs to be “saved” from anything. You’re a good person. Keep telling yourself that. It took me several years to accept that and when I did, it knocked my socks off! It felt so great. š
Sorry to go on and on here, but I can very much relate to your situation and I hope what I’ve said will be helpful. Don’t give up on erasing those voices – they do go away, and in a relatively short time!
As a christian, you’re a screw-up and there is nothing you can do to get better. You cannot get out from under the yoke of original sin until you die.
As an atheist, you have the power to improve yourself.
That’s not to say Christians don’t try. When christians ‘get better’ it’s never themselves that did it. It’s always god. It doesn’t matter how much work, time, energy, or help from others it required.
It takes the same things to change, whatever your faith. Work, time, energy, and help from others. The difference is that you recognize your own progress, and can be encouraged by that.
As a christian, you live off of alms from a god who never answers you unless you take responses as open as possible (including the idea that no answer is an answer in and of itself).
I’ll take the atheist way any day of the week.
I think the first thing to realize is that that nagging voice that says “you’re a sinner” isn’t a Christian thing. It’s a natural response for a responsible person to have, but putting it into those words is just habit. I never had the strong Christian belief that you had, so I never had to deal with the guilt of rejecting such things when I solidified my feelings, but it was still quite some time before I had a handle on the concept of naturalism. There is a deep need in humans to have some sort of code to follow, and realizing that those nagging thoughts were not only natural, but desirable, in that it helps me because it reassures me that I’m on the right path–I can recognize my “sins” as well as any Christian. I’m still no better than they are, and they no better than me.
Mighty, I agree – especially with that last comment
“Iām still no better than they are, and they no better than me.”
But of course you know where i would say that “natural” need for a code comes from. Where would you say it is from?
Thanks!
When I get down, I’m much better off now. Before, I used to feel the added consternation (when I screwed up) that I was failing my faith or that it was failing me and my witness would suffer as a result. But now, I know that this is par for the course and that I am not imbued with superhuman strength to overcome selfishness or manage my responsibilities. When I fail, it’s a perfectly natural occurence, not something that falls short of the ideal due to a lack of sufficient prayer or faith or commitedness.
Bible verses assault my consciousness on a pretty regular basis. I don’t feel guilty, but I do get a lot of “wow, the bible said this would happen” or “I’m thinking/talking/acting just like all those hell-bound heathens Paul was talking about” even when I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s usually a passing thing.
I’ve noticed the voice eases up, but for me it hasn’t gone away. It’s almost like I’m under the impression that an entity is always reading my mind, is judging my thoughts etc. If I were to tell this to anybody but a Xian, they would regard me as insane. But many Xians I’ve met experience the same things.
Luckily, it only happens when I’m in a depressed state of mind. And Karen above is saying just keep reversing the negative thoughts at they arise, and it gets better.
To which I add, realize there is nobody but yourself judging your thoughts. Intellectualize this, and it will become intuitive. When a bad thought arises, whether it’s a hyper-critical thought about yourself or about someone else or about the situation, neither accept it nor reject it. Self introspection is okay, but the fundamentalist church teaches us to go one further and actually confabulate God’s response to our present thought. I do not believe this is very mentally healthy.
This is also a great time to sit back and come to terms why it’s difficult to give up a faith, even as it constricts your being. What incentives does faith offer, for instance, as for structuring your thought life against the big questions in life, and once free, is there any healthy way to keep sane?
I deal with my faults easier as an atheist. When I was a Christian, I had a hard time getting past “Why is God doing this to me.” I felt more guilt because I felt I did something wrong to anger God. I often did nothing to fix the problem, because I felt I deserved the punishment.
However, now… when I make a mistake, I feel dumb… and then get over and fix the problem. I don’t have the guilt I had before. I realize that I am human and we make mistakes. And that the only thing we can do is move on and try to fix the mistakes we make.
I’ve been reading the blog for about a week. I wish you well.
Is it just me or are there no Christians responding to this? I don’t want to invite condemnation on someone else (when you are having a bad day the last thing you need is someone to show up and tell you it is deserved, whether it is the God-voice in your head or one purportedly in the head of another).
I’m still a Christian but I wonder about the usefulness of that God/guilt thing. I guess part of the reason to indoctrinate people with that is the hope that it will be the voice of your parents when they’re not there and you are about to do something they would consider wrong. In reality, for many people it isn’t really God — it is what people have told them God is like or would do.
I have recently been reading about St. Augustine. He invented the whole original sin thing. He did it because it provided a way for the Church (which also happened to be the Roman government) to have a voice in your head. It was a control mechanism.
Funny thing is that original sin was probably not a concept that Jesus embraced because, as a Jew, he probably believed that there was no such thing.
Maybe for some people having a God watching over their shoulders helps them to be better people. But my experience is that it generally either makes them less happy or simply delusional. It isn’t that I don’t believe God cares, I just think he/she/it gave me my life and now it is up to me. Perhaps that just makes me seem cracked to both atheists and Christians.
Jared —
You know, we are social beings, and so we have a natural need for rules. What does the term “natural” mean to you? If God created us yesterday, then it would be as natural as if he created the universe 14 billion years ago and hadn’t touched it since. It really makes no difference in practical terms. I’m tired of the arguments about what is true and where things come from. There will never be agreement but more importantly, they have no bearing on solving the real problems of real people in the real world. We are constructed a certain way, and arguing over our origins will not change that construction one bit. We are the way we are. I really don’t think whether anyone believes in evolution or not (or any other similar issue) has anything to do with the happiness of the average person, or a starving child, or a terminally ill cancer patient.
This is probably more response than you were asking for, but thanks for giving me the opportunity to make the point.
Mike
A few random comments:
I cannot fully defend the idea of conscience a part from the Christian revelation but I do think there is a natural rationale for it. As mighty favog rightly pointed out, guilt flows from responsibility, which is part of the structure of the world. It comes from being an agent, of making choices and recognizing that your choices do have consequences for yourself, for who you want to be and for others and the world we all inhabit. If you feel guilt, you need to identify, then, where it is coming from–specifically, what obligation you have violated–and if you genuinely have not violated any obligations, then you should not feel guilt. While I do not relish contributing to you ‘reprogramming’ your conscience, I do believe that there may be useless guilt inside all of us, believers and unbelievers alike, and I think it is important not to live with a spirit of slavish servility before yourself or others. Sometimes just recognizing the ‘errant cause’ of guilt is enough to free us from false guilt (and the sham humility it breeds).
Next, I don’t endorse David H’s guilt manipulation theory of original sin, or his speculations about Jesus, but there is truth in the experience of many, inside and outside the church, that Christians do practice guilt-mongering and manipulation. I’ve seen it. Hell, I’ve done it.
Finally, I am saddened, LE, if your conscience speaks to you only in condemnation and if that is/was how your conscience was formed by Christian faith and community. There is a both/and message that Christians need to teach and practice: namely, we are BOTH sinful AND there is grace. The consciousness of sin must rightly be transformed and shaped by the experience of grace. But too often (as I gather was your experience), the grace part is left out of the picture. If it is there, I think you can be freed to live your life before God, yourself and others without errant guilt.
Some thoughts to ponder, if it’s not too late:
There is not only the “God/guilt thing” as David H called it, but there is the God/forgiveness thing. And yes, I think it is all tied very much to the “parent’s voice” idea. We are supplied with many psychological behaviors to get us through different stages in life, but as any student of evolution can tell you, no set of traits is perfect. All they have to do is function reasonably well when needed, and not interfere too much with our functioning the rest of the time. As adults we all have the latent desire to be nurtured, to be punished, rewarded, taught, and loved–in the child’s sense, not loved in the romantic sense which is tied to reproduction. Guilt is a social thing, because if there were only one person, there would be no reason to feel bad about doing something you wanted to do. As a social thing, it is also a cultural thing. Which brings us to forgiveness. In the absence of the parents, we seek forgiveness from our peers. If they judge us, then there’s always God. Is it any wonder that as societies got more complex, the concept of a loving and forgiving God became more prominent?
LE, I’ve found this helpful: I asked myself, what would I say to a friend? Then why am I harder on myself than a friend?
I needed to learn to be the ‘voice of grace’ to me instead of the ‘voice of condemnation’. I’m still learning but I do think I’ve made some progress.
Just like Karen said, I think you’ll find it’s possible to change what you say to yourself over time. It’s wonderful to have supportive friends but you can also learn to be one of your own best friends.
Hey there,
Love this blog! You are on a great, fascinating journey, and I wish you well.
Please listen to David H, then please take the next step and reject what he’s saying. He’s talking about listening to jesus, and who knows whether jesus existed or not. And who cares? Thing is, it doesn’t matter.
Take your cue from Christopher Hitchens. His call to the moral authority folks has never been answered adequately, and I believe never will be:
“Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.”
That might help you get out of the Christian head-space. I know it helped me get out of mine.
Here’s another one, less often quoted, but christian-mind-blowing all the same:
John R. Searle, Mind, Language, and Society:
“…the world has become demystified…the result of this demystification is that we have gone beyond atheism to a point where the issue no longer matters in the way it did to earlier generations. For us, if it should turn out that god exists, that would have to be a fact of nature like any other…If the supernatural existed, it too would have to be natural.”