Posted by Michael83 on December 8, 2007, at 4:10:13
Although logically, the concept of a personal God does not make sense to me, because of my intellectual humility I have reasoned that it is best to give God the benefit of the doubt and offer apologies for wrongs I have may have done.
However, I'm having the same problem I had before I had my "faith-breakdown" back in 2002, which lead to "religious downtime" for about 4 years.
The problem is that I'm constantly overwhelmed with guilt. For everything. For everything I did. For everything I could have done but didn't.
The truth is that we could all do more. I read a story once about 3 couples living in a house together (all of them with good paying jobs), sharing one car, and living modestly, only buying the things they need, and then donating all of their excess income to charity. They did this on basis of their religion. That impressed me.
Meanwhile, many many religious people who have high income with throw a thousand bucks or so into charity every year, but then go out and buy $40,000 SUVs, live in huge houses, and then go to church every Sunday thinking they're so kind and generous.
My problem is eventually I realized I could not lie to God, I had to be honest, and that I would never be happy living this modest life and donating everything you don't need to charity (which in my opinion, is what is asked of Christians). I could not grow up to be Ned Flanders. This lead to my religious downtime.
The process is starting all over again. Constant guilt. Everytime I read about a material object I want. Everytime I do something even slightly wrong.
Although I know I am an incredibly nice person to most, I'm also very patient and forgiving to most, I'm still constantly overwhelmed with guilt knowing that I can do more.
I only have one life, and I don't know if there is anything after this and I don't know if I'm being judged, and I don't know given my mental problems (which have gotten less extreme, but more consistent in the past 6 months) will be an alibi for my lifestyle.
Will I end up getting everything I want from life but only end up feeling guilty for having it?
If I could comprehend and know for sure that there is a God and something after this, the choice wouldn't be hard. But the human mind is fragile and our limited abilities to comprehend the nature of our existence makes it impossible for me to know anything is certain.
When thinking about religious and existential matters, it's to the point where logic and reason doesn't connect with me because my mind has an automatic reflex to think, "well what if...!!" and think up some extreme what if scenario. To the point where almost nothing is certain and facts don't exist.
I'm just confused and scared and I hope I don't fall into another big panic attack like what happened last time. Atleast no one has to worry about me hurting myself, my fear is death, so I guess that's an insurance policy against self harm. I was very careful how I worded this message because I didn't want to trigger any illogical "lines of thought" in others, like those that have plagued me. I just needed to vent. I'm so scared all the time. =( I wish someone would stop me from thinking so much about everything, especially so pessimistically.
poster:Michael83
thread:799474
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20071130/msgs/799474.html