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You are here: Wild Ideas > Madhouse > Library >
No Faith?
By Lynna
Landstreet
Posted on the "Depression and Spirituality"
forum at Wing
of Madness,
Wed, May 16, 2001.
Posted by another forum member:
i have no faith in "god" at all. he is an asshole! if
he really cared about me or you then why the hell are we in all this
pain. god is fake! he is NOT REAL! i hate him for not helping me.
i prayed and went to church every day and i never ever broke any of
his stupid laws and he didn't do a damn thing in return. and don't
give me that it's a test of my faith crap cause this must be a damn
long test cause it's been going on for 5 years now! so "god" can shove
his bible straight up his candy ass cause i don't give a damn about
him! if any one else agrees with me then let me know and if you don't
agree then give me a damn good reason.
My reply:
have a bit of a different perspective. I'm not, and never have been,
a Christian, so I don't see following rules or going to church or adhering
to any particular book as being what spirituality is all about.
And
I don't believe in a single, all-powerful deity that chooses to either
help us or not help us. I believe in a myriad of different deities representing
both the positive and the negative sides of life. There are deities
of war, death, disease, despair, and probably depression as well. And
I believe that on some underlying level, they are all interconnected,
and interwoven with the brighter deities of love and happiness as well.
The
world is not a simple, logical, unified place, nor is the human psyche.
And neither is the divine. All are not only more complex than we understand,
but more complex than we can understand. And I believe that the dark
and terrifying aspects of each of these are integral parts of the whole.
I'm not so sure that the world really operates on the basis of any kind
of justice, and I don't think that the reason for "bad things happening
to good people" is as simple as it being just a test. Rather, I tend
to believe that the existence of pain and suffering is part of the natural
balance of things -- that it's intrinsic to the way things are. If we
couldn't feel pain, then we couldn't feel pleasure. If we never experienced
sadness, we wouldn't know what joy was. And the Gods, in my view, don't
control the world -- they're a manifestation or emanation of it, an
expression of its divine nature.
Why
some of us experience more than our share of darkness, I don't know.
But it seems to disproportionately happen to creative, intelligent and/or
spiritual people, and I tend to think that the capacity for depression
is tied in with those qualities. People who are more conscious, more
sensitive, more fully alive, experience the dark side of life with much
greater intensity, because we have the capacity to experience everything
with greater intensity! So it may in a strange way be as much a blessing
as a curse -- though I know it never feels like it at the time!
Anyway,
those are some of my thoughts on the matter -- whether they'll help
you at all, I don't know. I've found that this perspective has helped
me to understand my own depression, but it may or may not be the right
approach for you...
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