Gob Doesn’t Love Me and Earth is an Insignificant Ball Travelling through Cold, Dark Space

[Shawn]

My wife and I had an early morning talk. I have been feeling depressed and she told me that god loves me. I said, “I wouldn’t send our kids to another planet and wipe their memory of us. And I wouldn’t tell them, ‘You can talk to me through prayer, but you can’t talk to Mom.’”

My wife is being great, but she can’t accept that I no longer believe. Gob has not helped me feel valued, so I need to seek that another way. It’s hard when my current view is that Earth is an insignificant ball travelling through cold, dark space.

I understand you all don’t know me. I’m going to post an introduction soon.

[Fifi de la Vergne]

When you don't believe in an intimate, loving relationship with an all-knowing, all-loving god, the human relationships are even more important. It's especially tough to know that your spouse doesn't understand something so close to your heart. It's not a substitute to get that understand from internet strangers, but it can help a lot. And a lot of us get it.

Looking forward to reading your introduction.

[dispirited]

I have felt the same. Friends have tole me personal stories how God has answered their prayers, how he has helped them through tough times of their lives, and how they feel his love. I have tried and tried, but I haven't felt answered, helped, or loved. I agree, relationships with family and friends is something I can see feel and relate to.

[SeeNoEvil]

For many who believe in God, having a loved one stop believing in Him is like giving up that last piece of hope that you will come back to the church. It is that last step should you take which would cast you into the dark hole never to be found again. When I told my TBM DH I no longer believed the immediate look on his face was one of sheer terror. Then he said, "But.... you still believe in God don't you?" I didn't, but to prevent the WWIII that was brewing I said "No". He got that look of relief, let out a big sigh and said, "Oh, Good ... everything will be ok. All you need to do right now is believe in Him and He will make it all better."

God is what believers all through the ages have used to explain what they can explain, give thanks for the good things that come our way and accept the bad because it must be something we must learn. In my former TBM life I had known people who were atheists but was taught they were something to be feared and maybe this is what your wife is experiencing. It is hard to accept things when we don't know them and oft times we fear what we don't understand. Like my TBM DH "loosing my testimony" (oh I hate that phrase!) was more than enough, but for me to loose God as well would have put him into overload.

BTW Welcome! I look forward to hearing more of your story. As for your wife, sounds like she is accepting of your newly disaffected self but a bit more patience might be required on your behalf to give her more time to absorb everything and understand why you don't believe in God. She can't know what she doesn't know.

[Deepthinker]

Hey Shawn!

Welcome to NOM! I have read some of your posts on Staylds, so I know a little about your background. I feel for you and the situation you are in, our situations are similar. I have a TBM wife that doesn’t understand why my faith has transitioned.

I want to make the most of this life if this is all we have, and so my relationship with my wife has actually become more important. I’ve worked harder on our relationship than I ever have. That has made it harder when she isn’t ready at times to explore each other more deeply. Give your wife time, express what you can’t to her on here.

You have a big group that is rooting for you; we’ve been there or still are there.

What has really helped me is to become at awe with the universe, reading more science books, etc. I always have been to some degree, but it’s increased since I transitioned. Yes, the universe is dark for the most part, yes it’s cold. But there is so much beauty. We are, as a scientist once said, the universe becoming aware of itself. I see humanity as important still within that framework. There is something wonderful about being a conscious, aware, and alive human being. I even changed my definition of God to fit within this.

Within the framework that God is humanity, your wife is communicating that she loves you and that many others love you.

[Corsair]

My wife and I had an early morning talk. I have been feeling depressed and she told me that god loves me. I said, “I wouldn’t send our kids to another plantet and wipe their memory of us. And I wouldn’t tell them, ‘You can talk to me through prayer, but you can’t talk to Mom.’”

In my experience, it's a disconnect between what conservative religion tells parishioners and the contrast with what an un-indoctrinated mind actually observes. My dear and very faithful wife does tell me how God works in subtle ways in her life. I could respond with a skeptical response about confirmation bias and cherry picking of pattern recognition. But that would work poorly and simply communicate that I am truly a cold, uncaring apostate. Instead, I happily acknowledge her "divine" experience.

My wife is being great, but she can’t accept that I no longer believe. Gob has not helped me feel valued, so I need to seek that another way. It’s hard when my current view is that Earth is an insignificant ball travelling through cold, dark space.

You are judging your experience against a personal failure to see an angel like the LDS church implies so regularly. You have never been given permission to come up with your own view of the divine since it might not pass approval from the LDS correlation committee. Allow yourself to figure out a more optimistic view of a creative forced that is manifested in you as a living, cognizant being. Yes, the universe is cold and indifferent. But, as Carl Sagan said, "The meaning of life is to make life meaningful." You can still take joy in that tautology as you pursue what you actually want to do in your life.

[Hagoth]

Welcome, Shawn! I think I see your problem. You need to start praying god God to rescue you from the clutched of Gob!

My dear and very faithful wife does tell me how God works in subtle ways in her life. I could respond with a skeptical response about confirmation bias and cherry picking of pattern recognition. But that would work poorly and simply communicate that I am truly a cold, uncaring apostate. Instead, I happily acknowledge her "divine" experience.

Very similar for me. I have encountered the do-you-still-believe-in-God question from Mrs. Hagoth and others and I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. In a religious debate I almost always find myself siding with the atheists because they make more sense and give logical answers. But I do not feel like an atheist. but I'm no longer someone who can worship a guy on a throne who needs throngs of beings singing his praises for eternity and who punishes billions of people for not being sufficiently impressed by him.

I finally came to the realization that I'm just not a Yahwehist. I'm more of a pantheist. I explain it to my wife this way: I think the scriptures are the invention of men reaching out to God, not the other way around. I can't believe in a God who is just a white bearded guy on a throne who only cares about a tiny minority of his children who do the right kinds of gestures in the right kind of building, or who have the correct boxes checked on a file in a building in Salt Lake City.

I believe in something bigger than that. I believe ghat God is everything and that there is nothing that separates God from nature, because God is nature, is the cosmos. In the same way, there's nothing that separates me from God, me from nature, you from me, you from nature, or you from God. Over the past 14 billion years the universe evolved from a tenuous cloud of hydrogen and helium to the amazingly complex and varied universe that we live in, complete with brains that can contemplate it. That creative force is as awe-inspiring to me, and as worthy of reverence and adoration, as any any giant glowing man throwing lightning bolts.

For a while after my disaffection I really had a hard time praying with my wife, but I don't any more. When she prays, she talks to a personal being who knows and loves her and can fix the little problems in our lives and I express my gratitude and aspirations to the cosmos for bringing all of this into existence.

It seems to work both of us and we each give the other a wide berth in our perspective on life, the universe and everything.

[trophywife26.2]

I'm still learning to deal with these type of feelings. It is hard, but I think it gets better over time.

[Hagoth]

One thing Mormonism does very well, especially if you have served a mission, is to convince you that no other church or philosophy could possibly have truth and that no other kind of God is believable, so once you lose your testimony of the Mormon God that Joseph encountered in the grove, and the authority of the LDS priesthood, you're pretty much left with nowhere to go, since you already lost your testimony of any other options long, long ago.

When a church convinces its members there is nowhere else to go they shouldn't be too surprised that disillusioned members just walk away from supernatural beliefs altogether once they realize they can no longer trust those teachers who they once considered the only source of truth.

[Zadok]

When a church convinces its members there is nowhere else to go....

They will then trot out one of their Apostles who will ask you "Where will you go?" The only questions they ask are the ones they have pre-programmed you to answer.

[trophywife26.2]

I often feel like what you wrote in the OP. It is hard to feel that way at times. I'm not sure I have any real advice. I know what I really need is therapy for this existential crisis I have been through. I've tried reading various self help books, therapy books, meditation, science books, podcasts, etc.

The best thing I've done for my mental health frankly is try to just get caught up in the living of life and not think about it, but I think we know how hard that is. Don't think about pink elephants! I'm sure it's even harder if your spouse is on a different page than you are.

I want to write something significant here for you, but I don't have much other than to say you're not alone and it gets better. At least I think it does. We're here when you need to talk.

[fh451]

The best thing I've done for my mental health frankly is try to just get caught up in the living of life and not think about it, but I think we know how hard that is. Don't think about pink elephants! I'm sure it's even harder if your spouse is on a different page than you are.

Yes, this is some of the most difficult stuff you can deal with as a new non-believer and sometimes the best you can do is distract yourself for a while. Time certainly helps, and indeed you do "get used to it" to some extent. I've found that trying to understand what/who we are in a scientific and philosophical way is actually comforting - I enjoy reading what excellent philosophers are saying about consciousness, morality, and free will and it gives me an appreciation for just how amazing the human mind is and how improbable, yet fantastic the human experience can be. Last year I read Douglas Hoffstadter's book "I Am a Strange Loop" where he tackles the tough subjects of death and our desire for immortality. He had to deal with the death of his wife at a fairly young age. He doesn't sugar coat the pain of loss, but offers some thoughts about how our influence carries on in others, even imprinted in very real ways on the minds of all the others that have interacted with us. The thing that makes us who we are - the patterns of our mind - contains bits and copies of those around us. So the survival of our friends and family does give survival to our own mind patterns. No, it's not quite as good as "eternal life in the celestial kingdom," but I have more confidence in it's reality.

fh451

[glass shelf]

If someone pins me down, I'll tell them I'm an agnostic atheist because I don't know if there's a god, and I see no real evidence that there is. I have another family member who still believes in God, but also left the church. They have no interest in going to another church. I've asked them what the functional difference is between our lives--answer none. We both believe in being good people and living by our moral compasses. We both believe there's a lot of purpose to be found in caring for others and contributing to society. We both believe that individuals can and should seek after self-improvement.

I'm just happier not believing that there's a God out there who either totally ignores me or fits any definition of religion that I've come across. My family member is happier believing there is some kind of higher power. Without knowing that, though, you wouldn't be able to tell that different from our external actions. It makes no difference in how we behave on a daily basis.

[Hagoth]

I am always quick to defend the word "agnostic." It's a great word and it applies to every one of us. No matter how much personal conviction a person has that their particular version God exists they still can't really know for certain. We are all agnostics of one form or another, and we are certainly all agnostic about other peoples' gods, just as they are about ours.

It's too bad modern religious teachers have commandeered the word and redefined it as a synonym for atheist. The idea of agnosticism is more dangerous to them in some ways, if you understand what it really is, so they do their best to take that option away from people.

[Red Ryder]

I'm happy to label myself as an apathetic agnostic too intellectually lazy to move from my comfortable position.

Life is too short to worry about any of this stuff in the context of convincing anyone I'm right. I figure I'll know more after I die. Then I can make decisions and go from there.

Being a human being is tough sometimes when we start to think ourselves into some future existence with great expectations of exaltation and thrones. We tend to enlarge the carrot at the expense of the things we could do in this life. Here and now.

[Shawn]

Hey everyone, thanks for all the replies.

For many who believe in God, having a loved one stop believing in Him is like giving up that last piece of hope that you will come back to the church. It is that last step should you take which would cast you into the dark hole never to be found again.

The crazy thing is that my wife doesn't see it that way. She didn't seem too disturbed when I expressed my doubts about god some time ago, or when I recently told her I just don't believe in god anymore. She got more upset when I said negative things about prophets and told her I don't want to pay tithing.