Ever since becoming an atheist, I'm having much more freedom to make my own choices. It's like being born again. I feel like a born-again atheist.
I used to leave things to fate, in a sense. I thought that God was in charge of my life, and that he would just lead me to the right paths. Isn't that what Psalms 23 says? So I kept watching out for the signs that God was supposed to be showing me. That must have led me down some rabbit holes.
Anyway, now that I'm an atheist I'm having to make all my own choices, and knowing that nothing happens unless I make it happen, and that there's no God out there orchestrating my affairs.
It's quite scary, actually, to only finally take control of your life at such a late age. It's like realizing that life is like riding a bike, and you have to watch out all the time that you do not fall out of balance. I used to just let things slide. It's also like an addiction that I have to overcome, to just let celestial forces act upon my life, rather than taking an active interest in my life and taking active steps to change it for the better. I must say though, that it's easier to get rid of that addiction compared to getting rid of a the real addiction of drugs. Hopefully being in control will feel natural after some time, and that I will get to like it. I think I already do.
Sometimes it can get a bit depressing too, to realize at last that there's no celestial force watching out for you, you just have to be fully responsible for your own life. And that sometimes when you catch a lucky break, it's just pure luck, and not because there's a loving being out there who decided to bestow some blessings upon you. Like GK Chesterton said, "The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank." It can be an unpleasant thought that the next time you're unlucky there's no being out there who's going to make sure that you get your luck back. The consolation is that the atheist is at liberty to do whatever it takes to get his life back on track.
I am my own God now, and there's no Satan to blame if I ever make the wrong choices.
3 comments:
I can definitely relate to experiencing the some of that fear, and surprise. And regrets about letting things slide before, it is challenging to watch out for yourself in ways you haven't had to before. It's worth it though, the freedom to think for yourself, to be able to learn truth instead of being fed someone else's lines.
The realization that there's no one to blame and/or no one to turn to who can make everything better again is hard to deal with at first. Even after 11 years of being free I still find myself wishing there was some more powerful being who could fix things. My car broke down to the tune of $400 and my daughter got laid off yesterday. Last night I went to sleep wishing there was someone to offer some comfort. I never actually got help back in my godly days but I felt better believing it was in his hands and that I didn't have to do anything myself. Delusional.
I wonder if there's any truth to the statement that people of faith tend to live longer.
But there are really some things in life that we can do nothing about, except wait and hope that a lucky break comes along. For Christians, they can pretend that they're just waiting on God, whereas we have no such pretension, and may get more stressed up as a result.
The universe is not kind, but neither is it cruel. The important thing to remember is that we can choose to be kind to ourselves, and we are free to do everything we can to make things easier on ourselves.
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