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My Religion MAG
I have a magnet on my mirror stating, “Life is not about finding yourself – life is about creating yourself.” This is the statement I live by.
Many people do not believe me when I say I am an atheist. They don’t understand that I simply do not believe in any sort of god or afterlife. I also do not believe in the devil, in angels, or in souls. I believe in myself and the strength I have gained through the help of my parents, teachers, and friends – and my own hard work.
I am not going to try to dissuade anyone from his or her own opinions either. I know that people enjoy having religion in their lives; some need their faith to help them through hard times. And some do not want the responsibility of their misfortunes weighing down on their shoulders.
I do. I abhor the idea of fate – that everything is already planned out and you have no control to change anything. If you believe in fate, when bad things happen, it is not your fault; it’s just fate. When my life is not going well, I know that it is no one’s fault but my own. When I do well in school, when I fall in love, it is not fate and we are not soul mates. I worked hard and paid attention and did the homework. My love and I simply love each other – that is all it is, and for me that is all it needs to be.
For some, life is overwhelming. How can anyone be successful and happy in such a difficult, horrible world? They need someone to help them, someone to guide them, and someone to have faith in to make sure things get better. Placing my success and happiness in another’s hands breaks my heart. I need to be successful because of my efforts. I must be responsible for my own happiness. That is what I need from my religion.
Who will ever know what the truth really is? All I know is in the same way that some have full faith and trust in God to give them hope, I need to believe I am on my own to be truly happy – for how can I create myself if I spend my entire life just looking?
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JOIN THE DISCUSSION
This article has 764 comments.
Heather I have a question for you; You say that people who believe in God but not the bible aren't really true believers (that's at least how I took it) because the bible is the truth in your views. How do you know it is the truth? Other than your parents and a priest telling you?
TheEarlofZerces; I read about Solopsism recently in The Pleasures of Philosphy, along with other similar theories, I find it really interesting. The world is full of interesting theories.
I like the wording of this article very much. I myself am not athiest, but in all reality I should be a Christian, since my family is and I was brought up with it. I think I was in bible school almost every day when I was younger. However, the bible never took hold of me. The idea of a God and Jesus has always interested me, but not for the same reasons. Do I really believe that his sacrifice actually washed away our sins? No, but I think he made an amazing statement. And if it actually did happen that way and I'm wrong? Okay.
But that's about as far as I go in believing in the Christian religion. The bible itself is something I've moved away from because to me it doesn't not sound like it came from a God. Not that I'm claiming to have talked to Him, but there are so many contradictions in there. I can't place my trust in the words of a bunch of men that have been dead for over 2000 years or more.
However, I agree with you in that I know that many people have the need to have some kind of faith, whatever kind it may be. It just doesn't work for me. I may believe there is a higher being out there, but whatever problems I have just seem too small for someone like that to deal with in such a big world. I draw strength from what I see, what is directly around me.
Many peope think that without religion the world would go into chaos. Honestly I can believe that, which is really sad. To think that if some people didn't have a religion, they would believe they could do whatever the please just because there will be no eternal punishment in the end? It should be punishment enough that you are ruining a beautiful place that, whether it is 6,000 or 4.5 billion years old, should not just be thrown away like trash. Don't wait to ask for forgiveness later, because by then it's only for your own gain.
