in which i give up

/ skirtonavent

I used to think life would be easier if I believed all the stuff I used to believe. Not believing has been damn hard.

So I’ve tried. Really I have. Tried for the sake of my family, my marriage, my community, my sanity. I’ve tried to re-believe what I thought I knew, what I was taught.

That the world was supposed to be perfect until people fucked it up, but it can be perfect again one day.

That people want to do good but are messed up and in need of redeeming, and even the worst of us are capable of being made whole.

That there is some great source of redemption that will make everything and everyone ok in the end. (Except for those it doesn’t. And then those fuckers would fry forever while the rest of us – assuming I’m not one of the assholes who needed to fry – get to live in fluffy eternity being all nice and happy and worshippy.)

That there are such things as souls, and that some people’s souls are tainted, but most people’s souls are good and that the devil makes us do and say the shitty things we come up with, but that there is still some kind of hope for all of us.

That ultimately there is a loving supreme deity who cherishes all of us and writes our names in his hand, even the names of the stupid fucks who abuse children and animals and old people, who bully and taunt and stalk people online, who create chemicals and sell advertising and poison water and rape land and rape people.

That there is some kind of hope for this world, even if it is in the sweet by and by, and when the roll is called up yonder I’ll be there.

Unfortunately I just don’t believe that anymore.

Which sometimes makes for a very bleak outlook on life.

Especially when people are mean and spiteful and ugly and unreasonable and irrational for no good goddamned reason.

Especially when it seems all the good done in the world is constantly being challenged and undone by a bunch of idiots who can’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground and who don’t give a damn about anyone or anything outside their tiny little pathetic spheres.

Especially when it seems there is just no hope.

None.

I wish I wasn’t raised to be a nice person. Nice can be very debilitating. Nice can be a fucking choke-hold on life, a creator of anxiety, a source of doubt, a governor on progress, a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen.

I want to believe that most people would like to be nice and good and kind. That most people have something redeeming about them. That maybe I’m not really as “nice” as I think I am, but that I am capable of being truly good, and that other people are, too.

But all it takes is challenging one idea – not even a BIG idea, just posting a suggestion on Facebook for how some small thing might be better – and boy, the trolls come out and pounce and accuse and ridicule and criticize.

And my thin skin made of nice veneer simply cannot hold up. Or out.

I wish there was Someone who could/would/should make this All Right.

I wish my influence could at least make a dent in the Right direction.

Once upon a time, faced with frustration and fear and sadness, I would have prayed and hoped and listened and persevered in hopes that one day everything and everyone would be Okay.

But right now, I fucking give up….

12 thoughts on “in which i give up”

  1. I’m sorry you’re feeling so down right now. As far as the trolls coming out on your facebook page, you can control that. I have my FB setting for friending, public, but only friends can view my FB page. This eliminates all trolling. If you’re commenting on someone else’s FB page, who is public, then I guess you take your chances.

    The thing is, we live in a fear-controlled country. For example, you won’t see this hopelessness about the state of the world in other countries, like the Nordic and Scandinavian countries or New Zealand. Most of my friends are from other countries, and I pity those who see the world as you described. They are not living. They have put their life on hold for some future paradise. Pity them, but try not to allow them to get under your skin. Life is too fucking short.

    *hug*

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      • I figured it had to have felt good to let that out. I’m glad to see you, Skirt. You’ve been away for a while. I’m still posting, and I think that acts as a release valve when I start to feel like a pressure cooker. Also, as you know, there is a kickass group of bloggers here who are supportive, informative and fun. That helps in a big way, otherwise I think I’d feel really lonely and I’d especially lack intellectual stimulation. I think Violet will start another blog one day. She misses it.

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  2. In a lot of ways it makes sense to want those things. To bring order out of the chaos. To bring meaning out of such senseless mayhem. But it’s a trap as I’m sure you know. The minute you put intention in the universe, then even if those with bad intention to suffer in a fiery hell you have to ask yourself, “why is this force for good…this Heavenly Father doing nothing to protect his children?” Even if a punishment and reward system is out there, why would a creator make any sort of world where suffering need to happen? Why should innocent children be murdered, raped, tortured? Is all that worth life just having some sort of supernatural organization to it all when these very same forces, we are told, could do anything they want and put a stop to it. In that case the universe doesn’t seem any more moral than it does without supernatural. In fact for me, knowing that the universe is indifferent gives me greater peace because then I don’t have to ask the question “Why is this all powerful and all loving God doing anything?”

    And maybe the bad in the world does have a reason? Maybe it’s all because we are evolved beings and the very things that have helped us survive this long are the very things that also cause harm. Fear can keep us alive, but it can also make us act irrationally. We evolved to look for patterns in the world which was essential to our survival, but when no patterns exist we still erroneously find them and then we make false connections about how the world works. And getting things wrong has a cost, even if when we successfully find patterns that are actually there it is a boon. Maybe the pain and grief we feel in this world are the unfortunate consequence to the love we needed to feel so that we could cooperate better and form attachments. The love we needed to feel to mate and raise these amazing little humans that are so helpless for so long. And maybe the good news is that over the course of human history we have learned and understood more. Those share human experiences of not only joy, but of pain, misery, and anger, have actually helped to bring us together and understand each other. Our evolved capacity for compassion has given us a more moral world than historical texts like the Bible describe. We live in a time when slavery is universally condemned, even if it does still happen. We live in a world where it least some countries have greater gender equality, equality for gay people, and people of different race. Far different from the past where it was generally considered okay to kill anybody who had different beliefs than you, and to treat women as property. And as our intelligence has brought us this information age, the information we hear isn’t always the greatest and we are bombarded with many more negative pieces of information giving us a false sense for the amount of evil in the world, forgetting that there are 7 billion people. An almost unfathomably large number for our human brains that evolved in groups of no more than a couple hundred. Our brains that were wired to take negative events seriously to preserve our lives since most humans are actually good, but good requires less memory because there is less to learn to keep ourselves safe.
    One has to work harder to find the good, but when you do put in the effort you’ll find that it’s a bit easier to stay sane. 🙂

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    • ‘Knowing that the universe is indifferent gives me greater peace because then I don’t have to ask the question “Why is this all powerful and all loving God doing anything?”’

      That is so true. It took me while to reach this point, but it is much less confusing and heart wrenching! The feelings I had yesterday made me consider that humans created myths and religion in the first place in order to cope with those same feelings, in an attempt to manufacture hope maybe…

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      • It doesn’t seem all that reasonable in least in terms of concept, all I expect the more organized aspect of religion might have had more dubious reasons for existing. Many times I feel like having this supernatural power of love and forgiveness is necessary in many humans for the reason of hope, but also to represent things that we are so bad at. There isn’t a lot of forgiveness in the world, and not enough love. In the end though it is us that has to get better at those things, because nobody else is going to do it for us. 😦

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  3. Hi Skirty…I have missed you too, and blogging, and all my blogging friends! ❤

    The problem here is when you lose your faith, you lose 99% of your coping. Religion is an entirely emotional way of coping, and atheists cope in mostly intellectual ways, and sometimes it's hard to get the two to meet in a way that makes sense to deconverts. I like Swarn Gills explanation a lot (it makes total sense to me), but it doesn't quite give the emotional soothing balm of a god who can forgive you and make everything right in the by and by. This is what makes religion tricky, sneaky, and false…we have been conditioned to lean on it emotionally and never think for ourselves. It's hard to swap out your heart for your head, and I wonder if those of us who left religion late in life can ever achieve such a thing.

    I think I'm the only person in the world not on facebook, but I'm not on it for exactly the issue you bring up here. One little comment and people can bash you badly…it's not worth the emotional aggravation for me. Though I understand people find it useful for keeping in touch.

    I hope you're having a better day today…take care and have a hug.

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    • Swapping out my heart for my head – great point. I’m working on it, trying to find a balance between relying on my emotions and intuition without being an irrational softhearted pushover,and relying on my intellect without becoming a cold heated analytical bitch. I’m still married and have neither killed nor been killed by loved ones, so I think my balancing act is improving! Miss you ♡

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    • Violet, meet the other person in the World not on Facebook (or nosybook as Carmen calls it), me.

      I am very glad I have not been on Facebook as I have struggled through the Deconversion process..I am still on Linked-In, but have the barest of footprints there.

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  5. Like you I have struggled with the transition to finding purpose in life post faith. However I do think that Swarm Gill has put forward the correct perspective. If we think an all powerful deity has control of every one’s life then a lot of the truly awful things that happen which seems to be no-one’s fault like a Baby being still born or a freak accident are very hard to understand. These sort of tragedy’s make more sense if we are in a deity free universe.

    As to being a nice person or not, I have found that invariably the self depreciating people tend to be the nicest and the self promoting the most problematic. When we question whether or not we are a nice or a good person we will invariably find that others see us in a far more positive light then we see ourselves.

    I was glad to see that you have resumed blogging. I hope one day that Violet might dip her toe back into the water also.

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