01-28-03 @ 11:16 am EST

Various posts of mine from an online message board...replies excluded. I don't know why I post them here. Maybe because it's so much an ingrained part of me. As much as I wish it wasn't.

My first post was too identifying of certain people on this site so I will not include it. Basically I outlined my rage concerning organized and even unorganized religion. Why do I feel such rage and discomfort when others profess their faith? Why do I feel so confused regarding my own "faith" (such as it is)? I have no idea. I wish I knew.

Responses: Asking me how I became programmed into the Christian mindset, and offering advice on overcoming that.

The rest of my posts following...

I'm not certain how I became programmed into the Christian mindset though. I've never attended church, and my parents are about as far from religious as you can get. :/ One wouldn't even know if they believe in God or not; all I know for sure is my mom worries about me reading about Satanism, as if she thinks I'm going to convert just because I read about it or something...bleh. (For the record, the Satanists I've met online seem a lot less pushy than many Christians!)

And the anger was already there before I had any highly religious friends; the earliest one I can remember was from high school, and I deliberately tried not to get involved in talks with her about the subject.

I've read much on the Kemetic and Northeast Woodlands religions, and know somewhat about the pagans; you can barely cross a Christian holiday without seeing all the pagan references. (Yule logs, Christmas trees, the Easter bunny, Easter eggs, etc. etc.--why they grouse so much about just Halloween is beyond me. :P ) Pagan religions seem a lot less threatening than Christianity (probably because there is much less emphasis on proselytizing), though I've found that even when I see pagans and members of other religions talking indepth about their faith, it makes me anxious, as if I don't belong there or shouldn't be listening.

So I guess I'm rather confused...

Responses telling of how happy they can be when viewing the comfort others obtain from their faith, even if they do not follow the same path.

I find myself jealous of people who are comfortable in their faith, rather than happy for them.

:(

I can't even listen to the Christian music program on the radio...the DJ tells a happy story of faith, and all I can do is grouse, "Yeah, RIGHT!" Like I cannot believe any of it is real.

A response telling me that all I have to do is have faith; and other responses stating that it looks as if this is what I want to do; perhaps I should seek out my own path?

Edited: I sincerely hope I'm not sounding rude saying this, as I don't mean to. But if it were as simple as me simply having faith in something, I would have done that so long ago to spare myself all of this agonizing. It's much the same as my lack of confidence in myself. I can tell myself as many times as I wish that I'm good enough at something, and everybody else can tell me the same thing, but I just can't bring myself to believe it. :( I remember one time a long time ago, after hearing about people being "saved" by Jesus, I sat in my room and cried and cried and begged for Him to save me. I never felt a thing...nothing happened. I had no clue how people could tell they were "saved" if nothing happened. I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't meant to happen to me. It's the same with other religions. I will stumble upon something I like, then when I learn more about it...more and more rules and regulations fall into place that exclude me, and I have to leave yet another path behind as one that's just not right. Maybe I expect too much from a religion, but if it doesn't even offer me comfort when I'm in pain, I don't see what good it is. I see others gaining strength from God when they're weak...why not me? I've tried to have faith but it doesn't work, so I came to the conclusion that God does not care for me. Because I can't bear to come to the conclusion that He doesn't exist.

You are both right in that I do want something to have faith in. If not, I probably would have just declared myself atheist or some such, and I know this wouldn't bother me the way it does. Many times I've gone over in my head what I believe in, but it never clarifies into anything I can seek comfort from. There are parts of many faiths that strike a chord with me--most recently, I remember walking through nature and feeling comforted in the thought that there might be a "manitou" in every living thing around me--but whenever I look into them more closely, I just feel shut out. Like I can never belong in any faith because I don't measure up. I can't even come up with my own spirituality, as I have the feeling it'll never be the right one. What if I turn out to be wrong? (The fear of angering God again.) I would feel like I'm tossing a bunch of junk and half-ideas together in the hopes of creating my own thing, when in fact I'm just recycling things I don't even understand properly. Anyone can toss a bunch of ingredients into a pot and call it stew, but that doesn't make it wholesome. I feel the same way about coming up with my own path.

(I hope I'm not being offensive here. I'm just trying to explain the way it feels from my point of view.)

I just don't trust myself enough to come up with my own path, and the paths of others never feel right for me.

I must confess that I am envious of all of you because it seems as if you have all reached a comfortable point in your own faiths. That's something I just seem unable to do, though I want to, so much.

I guess that I am just not meant to be comfortable in any faith...and that realization hurts me deeply. Because I really do want to believe in something beyond myself, because I can never believe in me. :*(

And I cry now, because if I can't believe in me, and if God can't believe in me, then who else is left? And what DO I believe in? And how?