Month: April 2009

  • Is It Silly to be a Hopeless Romantic?

    I made a post a couple days ago about how I was really going to concentrate on searching for love and searching for a mate.  I decided that was more important to me than my search for religious answers, at least for the moment (though I am pretty sure that it always will be).  I also figured it would be more productive, because finding someone is a goal that I could possibly achieve, an event that would make me VERY happy if/when it happens.

    I know I am definitely at least a bit romantic, and I think I might even fall into the category of being a “hopeless romantic.”  Not only did I mention it in that post, but I also talk all the time in real life about how much I desperately want love, and about how much it pains me that I don’t have love (and don’t feel I have ever had it).  I want that one special woman who I can hold in my arms and tell her how much she means to me, and show her how much I care for her.  It is something I want so much that it often makes me unable to concentrate, and at times has even made me physically ill.  I think about it night and day with my heart aching to find it, and it cries out that I don’t have it.

    First of all, does this make me a hopeless romantic?  I know that pretty much everyone desires love to a point, but it is the one thing I want most out of life, and I would do pretty much anything to get it.  I don’t really believe in fate or destiny, nor do I really believe in God anymore, but I still often think that there is one special person out there for me just waiting for me to find her.  My rational mind tells me there are probably multiple people who could potentially qualify, but my heart tells me that there is one unique individual out there who will be my soulmate, and nobody else.

    Whether this all makes me a hopeless romantic or not, is it silly for me to think such things?  Is it silly for me to go around trying to find “the one,” thinking that there will only be one person who will ever fill that part of me that needs companionship?  I haven’t had much experience with relationships, so I am still learning exactly what I want in a mate.  But it is something I have thought about a LOT, so I think I have a pretty good idea.  I also know that whoever I end up in a relationship with that I will give myself completely to her, loving her for who she is, possibly even to my own detriment.  Because of my lack of experience though, I am just afraid that I will settle down too quickly, deciding to make a life with the person I am with when there could have been something more.  But then again, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life searching and pass up some potentially great opportunities for love.

    I know the first task is to find someone, regardless.  But I am just wondering if I am going about this the wrong way.  Or perhaps I don’t really know who I really am when it comes to relationships and have much to learn.  I am still very new at all of this (yes, even being in my mid-20s), so I would really like some advice.

    EDIT:  I just had a thought about submitting this to Datingish to get some more comments.

    EDIT 2:  Datingish did put it up, and I have already started to receive comments over there.

  • Abandoning the Search

    This post is very difficult for me to write.  This is the second edition of it, and even it has gone through massive edits to get into this form.  This is a topic that I have been thinking long and hard about for awhile, particularly the last few days, and it is something I feel I just need to get off my chest.  So please bear with me as I write it.

    Ever since I started asking questions, and particularly when I left my faith, I thought the religious questions were so important to me, the fear of Hell so strong, that I would never think there could be anything more important.  The religious questions seemed to consume me, causing me much frustration as I searched and came back with only dead ends and more questions.  I would lose much sleep at nights, obsessing about them constantly in my head, reading books on the subject, and constantly feeling I had to have an answer in case I were to die that night.  I poured everything of myself into the search (all I had left after I lost so many people in my life), desperately wanting to find answers to the questions yet none seemed to ever come.  But I was afraid to give up the search, fearing that not having the right answers would doom me to Hell, and so I kept up a futile search for answers I never felt I would receive.  As much effort as I put into it, as much pain as it caused me, I never thought something else could possibly come anywhere close to matching the priority of the religious questions.

    All this time though, tangled up all the way through it were the issues I was dealing with regarding my emotions, particularly love.  I lost a fiancee over the religious questions, and losing her was always constantly a part of my internal struggle.  I don’t really feel I have had many opportunities at love; in fact, I feel that was the only opportunity I really had.  And I don’t really know if she even really loved me, after leaving me like she did after she found out I was no longer a Christian.  So there is a part of me that feels like I have never tasted love at all, or merely just a drop of it.  More than four years have passed since those events took place, and I haven’t come anywhere close to tasting it again.  Call me a romantic, but my spirit cries out to experience true love, my heart aches to have someone to hold close to me so I can show her just how much she means to me.  Every time I think about this, not only do I have the frustration over not having it and lose sleep over it, the symptoms seem to be much, much worse.  Whenever I think about how much I so want to have love, it also makes me physically ill so that I can’t eat, makes it so that I sleep only an hour or two a night (if that) and makes it so that I can’t focus on anything else besides that topic through all of my waking moments.  Comparing these two obsessions side by side, it seems the obsession that is much more important to me is the obsession over love, the one that is causing more problems.  Now I am sure hormones play a part in my longing for love, but I am sure my survival instinct also plays a part in my fear of Hell, so I still have to say that love clearly is the need with the higher priority for me.

    Thinking about it all, I have come to realize that my search for religious answers is at a standstill, and may be at a standstill for the rest of my life.  I have been doing what I can, but very little progress (if any) seems to have been made.  I know I have been afraid of dying without the answers, fearing I would be doomed for Hell, which drove me to find the answers.  But even with all of this motivation to find answers, all of this obsessing and stressing out about it, my rational side tells me that it is HIGHLY unlikely that I will ever find any answers, anyway.  So it makes me wonder what the point of the search really is.  I will never find any answers if I give up on the search (at least not through the traditional means), but if I continue the search I most likely will not either (and I will spend the rest of my life obsessing and stressing and end up giving myself an aneurysm or heart attack).  When I think about it that way, I actually feel a sense of peace over where I am at, because I know this will likely be where I am at the rest of my life.  So there is no use stressing out over it.  Why not instead spend the time on something more productive, such as enjoying life?  Love is so much more important to me, anyway, so perhaps I should spend my time and energy on that (something that I could actually accomplish) rather than wasting it on a futile effort.

    I am wanting to abandon (or at least suspend indefinitely) my active search for religious answers.  I will still keep an open mind about it, and I will read sources I find interesting as I come across them, but I will no longer actively pursue it for the time being.  I am just going to call myself firmly agnostic, admitting that I can’t possibly ever know the answers, and move on with my life.  If a loving god does exist, surely that God wouldn’t want me to keep wasting my life, and surely that God would want me to at least get some joy out of life.  After all, that God gave me these desires of my heart, so surely he/she it would want me to act on them, and to find that special person he/she/it created for me.  And who knows?  Perhaps in the process of searching for love I may find answers to the religious questions in a way that I never expected before.

    I have many Christian friends and family (including many of my readers) that will not approve of this, saying that I need to keep searching.  In their belief, I am doomed for Hell and so I shouldn’t stop searching as long as I am not a Christian (of course, when I am Christian I suppose it is okay for me to stop then?).  But I have done all I can do, in my opinion, and there just comes a point where one has to let go of the past and move on with life.  I am going to start pursuing what (or who) I want in life, because I feel that will complete me and give my life meaning.  Besides, if those people really do care for me then wouldn’t they want me to feel good about my life?  Plus, when I do meet the love of my life (which will hopefully happen before too long) I want to be able to give her all of me rather than force her to share it with this other part that consumes so much of my energy and attention.  That is the kind of lover I am, and I feel the love of my life deserves nothing less than that.

    If you are still reading this, I thank you.  A lot of time and thought went into this, and I do feel quite a bit relieved now.  I also am feeling at peace with this decision, which is the first time I have felt any semblance of peace in many years.  Yet this is still a major decision for me, a major life change, and so I am sure the road may not be easy.  If you do have any comments or suggestions about it (or merely just encouragement) it definitely will help.

    Thank you for reading.  It means a lot to me.

    *EDIT:  I don’t know how many of you read my post about “E-mail Propaganda,” but some more has happened with that story in relation to this.  I replied to the relative who talked about stopping people from spreading lies, particularly lies about the Bible.  I had never been able to stand up to her about what I believe, but I finally was able to tell her that I am no longer a Christian and gave her my reasons for it.  I asked her some of the tough questions about the Bible and God, and how my conscience was unable to reconcile them.

    That was a week ago, and I hadn’t received any response.  Then I got a letter in the snail mail from her yesterday.  It had a little note saying something about how I had asked questions that she couldn’t answer, but perhaps this little booklet (a tract that she included) would help.  She didn’t say anything else to try and persuade me (though I am sure she has been praying), just said that she still loved me.  I read the booklet, and it of course just rehashed the same tired Christian arguments that have pushed me away from the beginning.  My initial response was to be angry, but that was quickly replaced by a peculiar sense of peace.  This was one of the relatives I was afraid of angering (probably the one I feared the most, actually), but her telling me she still loved me really made me feel better.  That and the fact that I did read the tract (trying to be as open-minded as possible), and it only made me more sure that I didn’t believe it.

    So I think I really am moving on from it, which really gives me a lot of inner peace about this decision.

  • Kudos to you, Serena (Smaranda)

    I debated a long time over whether or not I would write this, but I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and do it.  I know a lot of my readers probably won’t agree with what I am about to say, but I have to just say it.

    SerenaDante just posted a live Xanga TV feed the other day, in which she had casual conversation with several people and in the process of the feed progressively stripped down until she was completely nude.  She still has it posted there, if you wish to watch it.  The point she was trying to make is that nudity is not something we need to be ashamed of, not something we need to be afraid of, and it isn’t that big of a deal.  Now she is not advocating that we go around publicly nude all the time (at least not yet), but the human body is very beautiful and there is no need for us to be so prudish about it.

    I give you kudos, Serena (Smaranda) for doing this, because I think it is an important message that we should really take seriously.  I don’t know if my posting this will be a good thing for you or not, since a great portion of my readers will surely disapprove.  But I really admire your courage, and I think you did a good thing by doing this, and I hope it helps the world start seeing nudity in a more positive light.  I give you all the eProps I can give.

  • E-Mail Propaganda

    The other day I received an e-mail from a relative, sent to most members of our family.  Later on, another relative also forwarded the same e-mail to me (and others).

    It is an e-mail about how schools in the United Kingdom are no longer teaching about the Holocaust because it is offensive to Muslims who don’t believe it happened.  The e-mail then goes on to show all these gruesome pictures of the Holocaust, talking about how Dwight Eisenhower had all of these pictures taken because he knew that some “son of a bitch” would one day try to say it never happened.  The e-mail ends with talking about how we must never forget this horrible chapter of our history, and never allow people to try and erase it out of the history books.  And finally (like all e-mails of this kind) it says to pass it on to everyone we know so that people will not be able to forget.  Both relatives also said in the text of their message that they knew people (family members) who had fought in WWII and had seen the atrocities in the concentration camps, trying to give more personal reasons why we should further spread this hate propaganda.

    First of all, this isn’t true.  I’m not one of those people that think the Holocaust didn’t happen.  I wasn’t around back then, but with all of the pictures I have seen, with all of the stories I have read about it, with all of the people I have met who were either there or helped liberate the camps, I think it probably did happen.  However, the United Kingdom is NOT removing it from their history books.  This e-mail has been out for a long time, even including editions about the University of Kentucky (another UK), and both Britain and the University of Kentucky have flatly denied it and even offered proof of their curriculum.  From what I read on Snopes.com, there was one classroom in some school in the UK that stopped teaching it, and that was apparently how this e-mail got started.

    This isn’t the first time I have received propaganda e-mails from members of my family, but this time I decided that I would say something about it.  I sent an e-mail to both of the people who sent it to me, telling them that this was a hoax and even giving them the URL for the Snopes article.  I told them that it was a nice attempt to try to generate hate toward Muslims, but that was all it was.  I received a message back from one of them, thanking me for telling them that it was a hoax, but saying that the Holocaust most definitely was not a hoax.  She said there are people who are trying to discredit it, trying to say that it never happened just because it is uncomfortable for them, and she said we need to make sure that nobody is allowed to do that.  It went on (as a lot of this relative’s messages do, especially to me it seems) to talk about how there are also many people out there trying to say that the Bible isn’t true, that Jesus never existed, and she said that it is obviously true and we need to stop people from spreading such lies.

    How are e-mails like this furthering a good cause?  Yes, it helps to ensure that people never forget, but it does that by rubbing their faces in it.  Just because something horrible happened doesn’t mean we need to constantly remind people, nor does it mean we need to specifically rub it in the faces of people who don’t want to believe it.  E-mail propaganda like this (and like a lot of other e-mail propaganda in general) is not being sent around so that people won’t forget; it is being sent around to offend people, and to attempt to foster hatred for the people who would say they don’t believe it.  Both of these people that sent the message to me are Christians, and I couldn’t help but wonder how they would react if I started some sort of e-mail chain reminding everyone about the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, and extremely bloody parts of the Bible (a book that they believe is true).  But all of it did happen right?  And it was all pretty horrifying, so I guess we need to remind people to make sure that they don’t forget, right?

    Seriously people, it is very doubtful that people are going to forget about this anytime soon.  Whether the Holocaust happened or not, there are plenty of people who claim to be eyewitnesses and plenty of stories going around about it.  There is so much there that it isn’t going to be fading out of our history anytime soon.  Case in point?  The Spanish Inquisition and Salem Witch Trials that I mentioned before.  I am sure many Christians would like to just forget that those things happened, but they did.  And both of them happened centuries ago, yet we still know about them.  So I highly doubt that something like the Holocaust, which only happened less than 70 years ago, is going to be forgotten in our lifetimes or for centuries beyond.

  • Perhaps God Doesn’t Want Our Worship?

    A common assumption always made about God is that as an omnipotent being who created us, He/She/It would have created us for the purpose of worship.  On the surface, the reasoning seems obvious, but in my wandering thoughts recently I have started to wonder if this is really the case.  For the sake of this argument, I am going to define “God” as male, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, the traits that seem to be most commonly ascribed to God (particularly in the religious community).

    First of all, why would a being so ultimately powerful want or desire worship from beings so vastly inferior to himself?  Yes, he created us and loves us (using the assumptions above), but we are so much below him and our worship would seem to be meaningless.  It is like a human being worshiped by an ant colony.  It would be nice to have beings who worship you, but would it really do you any good?  More importantly, would you even care?  Religious people will argue that it is different because God created us.  But if that is the case, wouldn’t it do more good to create beings that are more powerful?  Wouldn’t their worship seem to be more productive and more meaningful?  Perhaps we have the potential to eventually become more powerful, which would make our worship more meaningful.  But again, wouldn’t it just make sense to create us like that in the first place?  Even if you bring in the free will argument about how God wanted beings to voluntarily choose to worship him, why not create a being whose worship would be more effective, especially when they do it voluntarily?  It certainly doesn’t seem to make sense to create us as some sort of “pet” race, bred solely for worship.  Does God’s power somehow derive from our worship?  That would seem to be quite a limitation, because if the beings do not worship you, you no longer have any power.  If God is omniscient, then he would be able to see this potential limitation ahead of time.  All of this also begs the question:  if God doesn’t need our worship because it really doesn’t do any good, then would a lack of worship really make a difference, either?

    It also seems quite selfish for God to expect to be worshiped.  Yes, I know, God is the highest power, so he therefore has the right.  But just bear with me for a second.  Religious people always assume that since God is the highest power he would demand to be worshiped.  They often say that we were created by God for the very purpose of worshiping him.  Many even go on to say the reason we were given free will was a sort of “experiment,” as God wanting to see if we would still worship him freely rather than as automatons.  God gets “more glory” that way, right?  As stated in the above paragraph, God really doesn’t need our worship.  So why create us to worship him if it doesn’t do him any good?  Is God some insecure little kid that constantly needs our reassurance that he is a “good” god?  Once again, if God is omniscient then he would know he is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, and wouldn’t need our assurances.  When you combine this with the doctrine of Hell found in many religions, it really adds fuel to the fire.  God already has billions of people who worship him, but he is jealous that he doesn’t have my worship.  So he threatens me with Hell as a means of trying to get it.  It seems similar to a scene of some spoiled kid who has all the toys in the world, yet he sees one that someone else has and wants it, and when they don’t give it to him (because it is their only one) he throws a fit and perhaps even gets violent.  Does God need to learn the concept of sharing?  Does God need to be grateful for what he has?  Does God perhaps need some of his “toys” taken away so that he appreciates the ones he has more?

    It seems to me that the most logical explanation is that religion (made by selfish people) wanted people to worship them, and they just portrayed it as worshiping a God so that people wouldn’t balk at the idea of worshiping other people.  If that really was the goal, then it seems to have been accomplished quite well.  You see people doing something you don’t like so you say that God doesn’t like it and they need to stop.  They fear God (or you, as the case may be) so much that they stop.  You and other people even go to the trouble of writing a huge book full of all these things people can’t do, and say it is the “Word of God” so that people won’t question it.  Yet you portray it as a message of “love,” (an ingenious ploy, by the way) saying that God loves people but just wants them to be “pure.”  It just seems to be a convenient way to get people to do what you want, and make them feel loved (or scared) so that they don’t want to leave.

    Another possible explanation is the fact that a lot of religion came from the archaic idea that sacrifices needed to be made in order to “appease” the gods.  You toss someone into a volcano so that it won’t erupt.  You toss someone into the ocean or river with a millstone around their neck to prevent floods.  You go around doing crazy dances and cutting yourself so that it will rain.  Or you sacrifice a person every day just so the sun will rise the next day.  One of the major problems with worshiping a god is trying to determine what that “god” wants.  Since the “god” usually isn’t that forthcoming, it basically boils down to making a guess and seeing what happens.  If more extreme measures seem to “appease” the god, then those extreme measures are continued.  This is all based on fear, being scared that a being more powerful than you will hurt you or other people if you do not appease it.  Could it be that all the religious ideas of “worshipping” God are simply a derivation of this archaic notion of fearing a perceived, supernatural, superior being?  The “loving god” element could have just been another natural progression of determining what that “god” wants, thinking that the “god” may not really want us to make such extreme sacrifices and will take care of us anyway.  If that is the case, the idea still has a long ways to go before it takes hold because there are still so many elements of divine retribution still present in religion.

    Yes, I know it is probably sacreligious and at least borderline blasphemous for me to say such things.  But this has all been on my mind lately, and I thought I’d throw it out there.  I welcome feedback, positive or negative.