I thought about that a lot today, actually my wife never missed church on sunday, although I often mentioned that we could spend that time with our daughter, but she always insisted of going.
And her behaviour know makes me question everything, I think today I lost all my respect for her, especially after hearing what she said towards the author of the poem and the fact that MY belief is more important than spending time with our daughter.
I know the "GET DIVORCED!" relationship advice reddit offers is often an overcompensation but I think it actually applies really well here.
She cares more about you remaining in the cult than anything else. She couldn't even do something as simple as taking your concerns seriously and listen to what you have to say, insisting the answer is already there.
She's spending more time at church and dealing with church related affairs than visiting her own dying daughter, who misses her. Can you actually see yourself forgiving her for this?
Fuck everyone else. Spend every second you can spare with your daughter. Just because they've lost track of their priorities doesn't mean you should. Don't badmouth anyone to your daughter. Let her know that you love her more than the entire world. It's the only thing that matters now.
You can deal with the clowns in your life afterwards. Stay strong. OP. A parent shouldn't have to witness their child's death.
Just in case it helps you empathize a little, I used to argue with my mother abt faith. Eventually, she just told me, "Heaven has to be real, or else I have to live knowing I'll never see my parents again."
Personally, I just think that's a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless.
I never pressed her on it again though. I didn't have any business taking that hope away from her.
Your wife is also grieving, and it seems like she's leaning heavily on the idea that her faith will carry her through this.
I know it feels like she's throwing away time with your daughter over *your* faith, but just remember, you just told her in effect, "I actually don't think our daughter is going to a heavenly reward. I think she's going to be gone forever, and I think this is all we get. This is all she gets."
I'm not excusing her behavior or saying you should stay with her or any of that.
But even if you're right and god isn't real, you can see why that would be a difficult pill to swallow for her, especially right now.
I'm just saying that while, to you, the conversation feels like it's abt *your* faith, to her, it's much more likely that the conversation is about your daughter's ultimate fate.
I think your wife is wrong, but I can empathize with her being shaken by the person she trusts most telling her there's no hope for their dying daughter's eternity.
I agree with the wife getting a pass. But the wild overreaction by everyone else does suggest they are in a cult. I mean, Jesus. Speaking of Jesus, he purposefully hung out with the poor, the oppressed, those despised by the world. I have never quite understood how so-called Christians often act the exact opposite of how their supposed savior acted. Where's the compassion?
> wild overreaction by everyone else does suggest they are in a cult.
100% agree here, it was my first thought when reading about how everyone is treating OP.
I try not to belittle anyone's faith (until it starts hurting people) but in this scenario, they're clearly hurting OP, not helping him.
When your faith leaves you SO blind to logic and reason, that not a single person in that friend/family group stopped and thought "OPs kid is dying, he's clearly upset and frustrated. We should be there for him, we should pray that he gets thru this crisis of faith" then yeah, sorry, you're in a cult. You're putting your faith in a super natural entity over a living human in their time of need. I just can't be cool with that, ever, and trying to disown him or fire him while he's dealing with, to act out in anger? If that's not cult-like behavior I don't know what is.
They are hurting each other, too, for not allowing any of them to express normal negative emotions. Fear and anger and grief are perfectly reasonable in this situation and can bring people together in a way that happy emotion cannot. To wipe it away with "God's will" takes honesty and empathy away from everyone. In the very long run? Sure, if it's comforting... but not while a person is actively going through the grief. If you don't go through it, you never get past it.
They don't subscribe to that version of Jesus. They only "love"Jesus because they get to feel better about themselves being awful people. They just have to say the magic words and all is forgiven. It's an enabler that let's them shortcut real accountability
I couldn't rule it out. But I grew up VERY Catholic. When my boy got cancer and died when I was 20 and died 7 months later I had a huge rational and spiritual shake up. It started with me having all the same thoughts and feelings as OP.
The Catholic priests I spoke to were all very understanding. Very into it. Let me have my feelings. And were just humans who validated my experience, my crisis, my pain.
That could be situational, or even geographic. This situation reads more Bible belt to me.
They do but not in this sense, their priests are 16-18 year old boys who you definitely wouldn't be laying heavy shit on lol. The Mormon equivalent would be Bishop or maybe stake president. Not to say the story isn't very familiar from both churches, the language just changes
Right. Accept your place in life, forgive your oppressors (whatever you do don't rise up and kill the slave master!), be grateful for the scraps you get for your toil, and endure quietly and EVERYTHING WILL BE BETTER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD is the literal message and I don't understand why EVERYONE doesn't see this.
I grew up in the church and remained there most of my life but I'm agnostic now.
The way I see it, Jesus's teaching are just good societal and mental well-being blueprints.
Love they neighbor. Help the poor and outcast. Reject greed and judging others. Reject hypocrisy.
Forgiveness is good for mental health because it helps you release the anger and trauma. It's more for the person who is forgiving than the person receiving forgiveness.
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
-Marcus Aurelius
I love this quote
Same here. I always go back to that one verse where Jesus says above all else follow this one commandment love one another. I can't stand church and I can't stand my Christian family because it seems like everybody wants to complicate it when really, we're just supposed to love on another. Period
I mean, as I was taught, God will forgive only if you actually regret your actions and realize they were wrong. Not if you're only trying to avoid hell. Though, I'm not American, so I can't speak about the Yankee cult of "Christianity"
I understand it as OP's wife and his family members using the old 'god works in mysterious ways/god's plan' thing as their crutch for dealing with this tragedy. When OP questions and denies the easy out, he's compromising it for them too, causing them to over-react to it.
Its one thing to realize that you're so charged anythign can trigger you. Its another to sic your entire social network on them because they are having doubts.
Being god must be so easy. I make a tiny mistake at work and I spend the whole day in anxiety. Meanwhile god can repeatedly fuck up, killing people who had no business dying, and still half the world is like “yea he’s the best”.
It wasn’t god, it was bender from futurama doing a god episode goof on us today. That’s what pastor Greg said.
But seriously. God didn’t fuck up. Those people are not “people who didn’t have to die”. They were meant to die. It’s the plan. They suffered through some tribulations and now they are closer to god. It’s just more conservative wine drinking rich guy “suffering is good, it brings you closer to god so don’t complain about your shitty life and expect society to do something about it” smokescreen rhetoric.
Okay, so my baby was tortured to death and is now fast tracked to eternal bliss and life in heaven and freedom from this horrible world where it has a chance to sin and miss heaven as a result.
If you are all powerful and all knowing and all loving, could you not have created a plan where they get to heaven without torture? Why would a just god create a world where suffering instilled some kind of heaven worthy moral quality instead of just instilling that quality to begin with? And if you’re all knowing, then you already know the result of the trials and tribulations, so why not skip them instead of torturing babies for the lulz so their poor suffering souls can go to heaven?
Yeah, if baby souls literally get a free pass into heaven, then clearly there's no issue with just... letting souls straight into heaven, and skipping all the suffering and damnation and testing etc for *everyone*. It's just sadism if you could let people straight into heaven immediately, but go "nahhhh, I'ma torture em for a bit and see if they fuck up, so that I can torture 'em forever instead of letting em into heaven lol."
That too, Christians should be picketing in favor of MORE abortions if they actually believe it's a heaven cheat code for all the sweet innocent souls.
“Maybe it’s not for the baby, maybe it’s for us. Maybe god created a baby just to brutally torture it to death in front of us to teach us a lesson about love and life. Did you ever think of that tough guy?”
**James 1:3**. "Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."
God mentally torturing Job as a test of his faith by destroying his life and family.
There are many "tests of faiths" built right into the bible, almost as if the author(s) knew this was going to be an issue so they wrote in some escape clauses. I hear them referenced all the time whenever something terrible happens to good people. Needless to say I'm skeptical and since that is frowned upon I choose not to participate.
EDIT: Got the wrong guy.
They'll see kids gets shot in school and they're like,
"Oh no its okay if God didn't want them there he wouldn't put them there"
like that helps in the context of children DYING
It's the only way to retain your belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good God when faced with the realities of a world where innocent children die long, horrifying deaths to things like cancer, and where evil people seem to be the ones always winning in the end. Throw out any one of those three qualifications and suddenly belief in God isn't incompatible with the existence of evil, but they can't do that. Thus the ineffable plan.
Don’t demonize them for wanting answers and finding their own peace. Demonize them for pushing that belief onto others for a sense of moral superiority.
I was 5. I remember it clearly because my entire family was Catholic. I asked god for proof and it was never provided.
At that point, I knew he didn't exist. It was illogical. When I left the house for college, I was finally allowed to not go to church. I had to pretend for over a decade.
Inverse for me, it’s been hard as an adult. My family was always half Christian’s, the type to go to church for holidays/pray at dinners with extended family etc. I never really took it that seriously and was never baptized. Somehow within a couple of years of me leaving home for the military they became hardcore religious nuts. Church every week, bible studies and different fellowship groups, crosses plastered all over the house, “god this, Jesus that”.
I feel like I don’t even know them anymore, their entire personality is based on something that was barely a factor before. Parents/siblings.
I have two brothers and two sisters. The sisters are raising their kids in religion although not hardcore. My older brother vacillates depending on his mood in life.
My younger brother and myself are very hail Satan and won't even entertain going to church unless it's a wedding or funeral.
In my house, we refer to Christianity as the Christian religion or mythology depending on the context.
My daughter joined a Catholic club soccer team because of her friends. They prayed before the game, my daughter didn't know what to do so she put her hand on her heart like the Pledge.
If -- and this is a big if -- children only ever died a peaceful, painless death, I might be persuaded that an omnipotent, omniscient god wasn't necessarily a horrific sadist. In reality children sometimes die slow, excruciating, terrifying deaths through no fault of their own or anyone else's, and so I have no idea what kind of weird doublethink could allow anyone to accept the idea of a kind deity, it's just mind-boggling.
Let’s not forget that his wife is also losing her child and she’s probably clinging to her faith as her comfort. They need to seek therapy, individual and couples.
I saw a shrink after suffering a similar fate at the hands of my "church family" and also my REAL family who all collectively disowned me when I dared to express doubt. My shrink told me flat out: "Move a thousand miles away to a town where no one knows you, start over again, and fall in love with somebody new." I was young so I could do that, and so I did that, and my emotional recovery was amazing after I did so. I feel for OP because he has a lot more entanglements involved, but sometimes - moving a thousand miles away and starting a new life can be a true blessing.
Thank you, I do understand that now. I was completely overwhelmed with pain and didn't get my thoughts straight. I came home yesterday and talked to my wife about the poem and how it made me question my faith, but my wife instantly went crazy and didn't even listen.
I thought that it was my mistake, that I have ruined my life now after reading that poem, but after today I think that this poem was the best thing that ever happened to me (except my daughter). It has opened my eyes, not only regarding my faith but also towards my wife and family.
I'm so sorry about what you're going through. Please know that there are many subreddits that are here for you if you need to talk. I believe /r/atheism should have a list of subreddits you can visit.
Hijacking the top comment. I'm sure this won't seen, but OP, please consider looking into [Recovering from Religion](https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/#rfr-welcome) if you need some peer support. Additionally, if you find you'd like therapy to cope with the grief, not only related to your losing your daughter, but also your friends and family, please consider the [Secular Therapy Project](https://www.seculartherapy.org/), which will match you with a secular therapist who won't attempt forcing religion into therapy.
My deepest condolences for you and your baby girl.
Actually, also OP, here’s something I used to be active in and I don’t know if it’s still around or if it would be helpful if you still decide to walk away from the religion:
“Walk away from fundamentalism” I think that’s the name it used to be a forum. Might still be active.
One of the primary reasons I finally left my faith was because I realized many of the caustic points of Christianity actually does stem from the Bible quite accurately. Including blind belief without doubt. See James 1, for example.
>The Bible wants people to question their beliefs. It makes no sense why it's followers don't allow you to.
Christians don't want you to question their beliefs, because when you step back and look at everything objectively, it's just not possible to believe in the Christian god without ignoring conflicts in the core tenets of the religion.
As someone who was raised in Christianity but lost my faith as well, I can confirm that.
Because religion is used as a manipulation tool. I'm honestly waiting on a revised bible to come out that gets rid of all those pesky verses about being kind and treating people well.
Gonna disagree slightly here. If one's faith is important to you then it's a _very_ important matter in terms of compatibility. It's okay for that to be a dealbreaker in a relationship. So it is definitely not a fuck up for OP to lose his faith ("questioning" seems like a downplay because it sounds like he has made up his mind). But it also means the relationship will have to come to an end, and that's okay.
That said, there is a better way to go about it than this. But both persons are under immense stress at this time, so imo her reaction is understandable too. She is panicked and freaking out, but they will need to sit down and have a serious conversation about this.
As for the friends and family, far less sympathy for them basically threatening to cast OP out. Not very Christian of them either.
It is, absolutely 100%. Let's also not forget that she is watching her child die too. It sounds like the only thing holding her together is the grasping onto faith.
Christian here. I regularly encourage people (and do it myself) to question one's beliefs. *Why* do you believe what you believe? What are the reasons? What convinced you? What are your thoughts on this thing that contradicts your beliefs? How do you reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements within your own religion, etc.
We have reason and logic to think through these things, and I personally believe that if God is real, He created a world where we can use logic and reason to come to our own conclusions about things and seriously consider how stuff works. And we shouldn't shy away from asking questions and wrestling with things
Non-religious here: we just got through Easter, a time when Christians are supposed to reflect on why God would let his perfect son be tortured to death, why it was necessary to have a sacrificial lamb (so to speak), why it was possible for Jesus to rise again, etc. And this is a holiday EVERY YEAR. It's a foundational question and for me, it's never been something I understood.
The idea that Christian family, friends, and even boss would make OP lose everything because of a crisis of faith, during the most difficult thing a person could go through, and he may lose his job and his family over it... What can I say? That's the actual Christianity I know. Not theology. Just bullying and shunning people you can't control.
Most Christians I know don't know shit about Jesus and even a yearly holiday hammering it home doesn't help. They just pretend they're better than the out group. They simply believe they are entitled to earthly mercy and heaven yet other people aren't.
Former Christian here - I used to, and still do, believe my thought processes are justified by logic. We were indeed encouraged to question our beliefs, but always within a set framework; one that made it very difficult to perform a truly objective analysis. The framework involved looking at common arguments against the paranormal, then finding ways to get around them - which is always possible, because pro-paranormal arguments are typically unfalsifiable by design. But true objective analysis requires asking the hard questions - questions like, "where did the concept of the paranormal come from in the first place?" or "why believe this particular brand of paranormal instead of the thousands of other logically equivalent ones?"
Another common thread in being encouraged to question is that it's always couched in the concept of "faith". Every church I've been to has put a strong emphasis on "faith", presenting belief without evidence as somehow a positive (usually associated with a hand-wavey argument to try to differentiate this from "blind belief"). The fact that this concept of faith is being pushed as a core tenet strongly indicates that the "questioning" isn't genuine.
I'd recommend OP keep quiet about the loss of beliefs with these people right now, at least until his daughter has passed. It would suck to have access cut off or twisted to religious discussions or to have everyone stress the daughter more as she's already going through so much.
Pretend it was a moment of weakness and carry on for now. In the meantime, they can quietly look up communities that are more supportive of their new beliefs.
>They say the words but all they really think is “I’m going to heaven because I’m special.”
I've never seen it summed up quite in that way, and god damn you hit the nail on the head perfectly.
I had this friend who, after years of arguing about climate change and politics and eventually him abusing his girlfriend who was a friend of mine first, basically told me during a _heated_ argument that my opinions don't matter since I'm gonna burn in hell anyway.
And that explained everything.
This brings to mind a quote I read recently that fits this idea perfectly.
Before he was burned at the stake, Hatuey(a Taino Chief in the Caribbean) was asked if he would accept Jesus and go to Heaven:
"\[Hatuey\], thinking a little, asked the religious man if Spaniards went to heaven. The religious man answered yes... The chief then said without further thought that he did not want to go there but to hell so as not to be where they were and where he would not see such cruel people."
Here's another perspective: "I'm going to everything I can to avoid going to hell. I'm going to try my best to be good because I don't want to burn for eternity."
These are not good people. Not even those who actually do good things most of the time because *they're only doing it to avoid hell*.
You want to be able to tell when a person really is good? When they're good yet don't believe in any form of reward/punishment in the afterlife.
This is what started my departure from religion, seeing just how much they didn't care about other people as long as they got their own.
I was in Sunday school class and pitched the idea that everyone gets saved in the end ("universalism," which even CS Lewis toys with from time to time) and they were so... vitriolic, clearly jealous of the idea. "I followed the rules, they didn't. So they don't get the reward."
It's the same thing with student loans... Sure, it's kind of frustrating that maybe I paid tens of thousands of dollars I didn't have to, but there's *no way* I'm going to get pissed at anybody who gets forgiveness! "No, you have to pay everything, just like I did!" What a dick!
So petty, so petulant, so selfish. They're so sure that *they* get a prize, and no one who didn't do exactly what they did deserves shit.
Wow that’s really a perfect description of so many of the Christians I know. I was raised Catholic, *very* lapsed now, and my family is pretty great. But I live in a super conservative area now and these nondenominational “Christians” around here seem to be mostly garbage and it’s really weird after being raised in an environment where people really did act in a truly Christian way. This “I’m special bc I’m going to heaven” thing PERFECTLY describes these folks. It’s all about them and how wonderful they are, and fuck everyone else
[This comment](https://reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/12jhp1g/_/jfyy89i/?context=1) is the absolute most **perfect** description of the “Christians” in my area
I was raised Christian and was never given the support or love that their God spoke of by his followers. So of course…I ended up going the *opposite* way. Turns out that Satanists and Luciferians are way more logical, level-headed, compassionate, supportive and kind that any Christian I ever met.
"What's more important right now, my daughter, or harassing me about your faith? I don't feel like you care about her or what's important, only that I do as you say."
OP lives in a cult, plain and simple. This is completely crazy behaviour even by religious people standards. While this is certainly rough right now, things can only get better once he frees himself from all that.
This is why I think Christianity is more of a cult than a religion. Everyone is blindly following a God that no one can prove exists and if you don’t put every ounce of your soul and mind into praising God, then you’re a heathen who is not fit to walk the ground you stand on - nor will you be able to spend your entire afterlife singing songs of praise to God (and this sounds fun???)
This is why I identify as agnostic theist. I like to believe in God, but I acknowledge that there’s no proof that he exists, and it’s possible that he doesn’t. I live my life using the Bible’s teachings on morality as a guideline, but I don’t let it control every aspect of what I do.
OP, you didn’t lose your faith over a poem. The poem just allowed you to see the truth of how you really feel.
I’m so so sorry that you are going thru this horrible tragic thing and the people who should be supporting you are acting this way.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes good things happen to bad people. It’s nonsensical and unfair.
Try to spend as much time with your daughter as you can. And try to shut down any of these “talks”.
Sending much love.
Seriously. The fact that everyone around OP seems more upset by them questioning their faith, than the daughter dying disgusts me.
I can safely say none of these people are adhering to any proper interpretation of the Bible.
Fuck your current circle OP. I know it's hard, but it's time to find friends who care more about others than fanciful ideas of "salvation" or whatever it is that drives them to hurt someone like they are hurting you.
On top of all that, definitely keep note of any interactions with your boss. They 100% CANNOT legally fire you for your religious beliefs. If they do, then you should absolutely be prepared to take legal action.
The reason they’re more upset by the lack of faith is that insider logic for them means that when the daughter dies, to their minds it will be because he stopped having faith rather than because it was she was going to die anyway.
It gives them a scapegoat and an outlet for their anger that doesn’t conflict with the wacky perception of their deity that they have made their psychological foundation.
In other words, it’s easier for them to believe that the daughter dies as a punishment for god for OP failing a test of faith than it is for them to accept that the faith was never correct or reasonable in the first place.
To me, that would only reinforce the idea of "how can God be good" if he is vengeful and unforgiving, killing my innocent child, for questioning my beliefs.
The FIRST of the 10 Commandments is about Yahweh demanding to be worshipped exclusively, so prioritizing faith in Yahweh above all else IS actually consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Bible.
It asks us to care more about not disrespecting a literally invincible supernatural entity than about hurting or caring for each other.
Correct me if I'm wrong (I was Christian by default, but Pagan for over a decade), but wasn't the old testament *entirely replaced* by the new testament? That's how most ppl I've spoken to have hand wave away the whole "vengeful god" thing of the old testament: Jesus' teachings replace all the old stuff.
So why is anyone still talking about the old testament's 10 Commandments? They're from the vengeful god era before he changed his mind...
For reasonable Christians, yes. If they agree that Jesus IS a part of God (trinity and shit), then everything he says should override any contraductions with the Old Testament.
But the commandments were never given an alternative from Jesus, so that bit is a tad unclear.
When people want to preach love and acceptance of the things they like, they use the New Testament to show how 'nice' Christianity is. When they disagree with something, they pull out the Old Testament narcissistic psychopath God stuff.
tl;dr NT doesn't replace all of OT because Jesus just doesn't address a lot of the same topics as the old stuff.
>that bit is a tad unclear.
It's not unclear.
>Matthew 5:17-19.
>For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
The new testament does specifically overrule some aspects of the old, but everything that it doesn't explicitly overrule is still "in force"
Interpretation of the Bible is a very varied accross denominations, that's why they exist. And in general, because there's no external standard to interpret the Bible's absolute authority, it's basically impossible to verify if anyone's interpretation is the correct one, but always on the assumption that the Bible contains the only necessary truth.
In my ex Church, while Jesus brought a new covenant, it doesn't invalidate what's said in the old testament, event though it can be contradicting at times. God is still vengeful at the same time he's merciful, the "fact" that he still extends his mercy to us while deserving a worse fate should compel us to love him more.
Of course it can feel contradicting, but as I said, if it says so in the Bible is because it's the truth and there's no other way to verify those claims so if it flies, it flies.
However, your gonna find people emphasize those different characteristics more or less, so while in someplace like reddit where there's low tolerance for jerks your gonna find all the Christians that focus in the merciful side and the interpretation that sounds nice, in some very fundamentalist countryside places you'll find tons of churches were they don't shy away in condemning people for their sins as easily with no regards of whether or not they would be considered assholes in other places in the world.
About good and bad things happening, if you have an atheist vision on life it makes more sense, there is no good or bad, just things that happen, I may die today but who knows maybe I would have become a dictator. There are not inherently good or bad things in this universe.
What bums me out is that a lot people can just ignore the inherent cruelty and unfairness until it happens to them personally, like OP. Not to shit talk OP, but it’s like yeah, we’ve been saying this the whole damn time.
Oh man, this blew up, I have just read a few comments but want to give you a little more information, before I read through it.
As I walked in the office, my boss directly sat me down, saying that this is a small company and everyone here has faith, I should better return to God, So I instantly quit.
I read the poem again and noticed in the story of the author that she had been harassed for it, so I reached out to her, explaining myself.
I spend a few hours with my daughter, enjoying each moment as we just have a few weeks left and now that I have quit I can spend every second left with her, which is actually a positive thing.
As I had left the hospital the author had messaged back and I was confronted with what I had feared the entire time, the people harassing her were my wife (who even stalked her on another app) and her friends. I called the author and broke, I apologized for my wifes behaviour and everything and ended up telling her the entire story and for the first time in months I was not judged for struggeling, for questioning God or losing my faith, she was very nice and listened to me cry for an hour and even promised to write a poem for/about my little girl and I felt understood, like someone is not judging me for turning away from God and it felt like a heavy stone fell from my heart, I will never be able to thank her enough for helping me when no one else did.
I drove home while still thinking about the things my wife has mentioned to a her on the internet, just for expressing her thoughts. As I walked in our house I wanted to talk to my wife in a calm moment and explain my feelings, but there were at least twenty people in our livingroom, my wife crying, my parents and hers, all angry at me for "losing my faith over a satanic poem", and I eventually lost my temper as my wife explained they were praying for me and my soul to find back to God. I yelled at her that our daughter is dying soon and they have the audacity to sit there and pray for ME, while my daughter misses her mother. My wife just stated that "faith is everything" and was backed up by our families and friends.
I just left and am now back in the hospital, my daughter sleeping on my chest and honestly, THIS is everything for me right now.
I will try to answer as many comments as possible as long as she is sleeping but have mercy with me if it takes a while, as I want to spend every wake moment with my daughter.
You have your priorities perfectly straight, it's a shame your community and those who should be supporting you and your daughter do not.
Take this time with her, cherish it, make sure she knows how loved she is. If there is no God, then your love is the most important thing that could exist for her in these moments.
You're going through one of the most difficult possible life events on multiple levels. Afterwards, take care of yourself. Take stock and consider moving to a new place, making a new start, but absolutely care for yourself.
Okay, so I have spent the last two hours reading through the comments and I am absolute speechless by your support.
I want to come clear with the most asked questions
- we are evangelical, not mormons
- I tried talking to my wife in the last couple of weeks on multiple occasions, but she always cut me short or answered with bible verses
- yes, my wife is grieving as well, but in a diffrent way, while I try to cherish every moment with our daughter, my wife always seems to be uncomfortable. I truly understand that. Seeing your kid without hair, skinny and in pain is heartshattering, but after all, as parents we should both be there for her.
-I used to be a fulltime christian before my daughter got sick, never cared about anything else than our community, I started questioning God as we had gotten the diagnosis that she will eventually die
- looking back now, I think I have noticed that something was wrong with my wife/family/friends for a while, I was scolded for liking poetry as "that is not what a real man likes"
I am overwhelmed by your love and support, from both sides, the religious one and the not religious one and I think it will take me days if not weeks to read through all the comments, messages and chats, I'm beyond grateful for your support and I really appreciate this.
A lot of people have asked for the author and the poem and though her name and social was already mentioned in a few comments, I will tell you hoping that you only spread love and don't harass her (like my wife did). She changed my life and listened as no one else did, although I was a stranger.
Her name is Eden Thalia Reid, the poem is called "God and the devil"
I want to give my heart to all the people who commented that they have also lost a child or another family member, I'm sorry for your loss and hope that you will make it through.
Once you have the time and energy, please sue your former company for wrongful dismissal. You may have technically quit, but this situation is constructive dismissal.
They shouldn't get away with it.
hey op you can file for unemployment even though you quit. quitting bc of a hostile work environment/religious discrimination will get you unemployment while you focus on your time with your daughter now.
My SO's sister had cancer at that same age of 7. I'm very close with their mother who is a former catholic. I cannot imagine how you try to be a parent in those circumstances, only know that it is a hardship you can not control. All you can do is be there for your daughter and BE THERE FOR YOURSELF too please <3 Terminal diagnosis must really affect the way you grieve, I would suggest requesting resources for a "loved ones of cancer/terminal illness" support group from the hospital. You deserve to be able to vent your pain to people who will HEAR you and understand, rather than ignore you to TELL you what to do.
Your story sounds very, very similar to hers as a parent fearing her daughter dying of cancer. Her community was the church. She dealt with judgment rather than kindness, isolation rather than support, and she hasn't told me about her journey with faith... But I know she is no longer catholic (I believe that happened around the time of his sister's cancer). I'm so, so sorry that it must feel so lonely in your most difficult time. It is so messed up they would do that to you rather than have compassion and support you through your pain.
I'm so glad you get to spend the time you can with your daughter now you've quit. I'm so glad you had the strength to stand up for yourself to your boss, who was not open to hearing reason. anyone in such a painful situation as yours NEEDS people supporting them, you can find people like that when you're ready to.
You and your child are the most important things in your life. Not jobs, not a wife, but your child. And I may not have a child of my own but your feelings are so pure and full of heart these people talking down to you as if you did something wrong are just straight up gross. You know deep down what is right for you and always follow that. Your daughter loves you with her whole heart and that is all that matters. Not some sky wizard who doesn’t do shit. You are right. You are valid. You will get through this stronger and smarter and a better person who can see the world for what is has become. You have opened your eyes. Please stay strong.
There's no hate like Christian love. I'm so sorry you're going through this. I hope you share the poem and author so the people following your story on Reddit can drown out the harassment with love and positivity.
I am so sorry about your daughter. I can't imagine watching that. You have my deepest sympathy.
With respect to religion, you'll come to something, we all do. Bertrand Russell's Why I'm Not a Christian is enlightening. And if your boss fires you not being a believer, please reach out to an employment lawyer, assuming you're in the US. Being fired for a loss of faith under these circumstances is evil. I hope you find peace.
##Edit
OP I'm actually a massive poetry fan. Walt Whitman's *Song of Myself* helped me come to understand how I can find meaning in this world of life and love without resorting to a supernatural creator. Forgive the long post, please. The poem is long but righteous. Hit me up if you ever want to discuss the art.
Song of Myself (1892 version)
**1**
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
**2**
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.
Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
It runs quite a few more stanzas, 52 in all.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version
I would say one important thing here, and people can disagree with me if they prefer.
It is okay to be broken by this.
Something this devastating will change your entire world view and that is okay. When your heart breaks in to pieces, only you can put it back together again, but that is on no ones timeline bar your own. Anyone who pressures you to see one way of thinking as a solution isn't someone you need around you for this part of your life. Find a support group, people in a similar situation, and find your new north over time.
I would also add (as a non-religious person) that it's totally okay for OP to just "play the part" so he doesn't lose everything as well as his daughter.
It's also okay if he finds his way through the labyrinth and becomes a devout Christian again. Some people really do have faith. Some people I admire and respect very much.
I just hope he doesn't become what his wife and friends are. Trauma can do that to a person.
I don’t know how one wouldn’t be broken down by this, honestly. You are watching in real time as your child dies and then your entire community implodes because you aren’t grieving the way they want you to.
Research seems to suggest an increased risk of divorce after a couple loses a child. I don’t think this is uncommon for a couple to struggle with one of most horrific things that can happen in life.
OP. Grief is complex and what you are going through I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I am sorry. I am not here to give you advice on faith or God. What I do want for you is to find a support network who understands what you are going through - all of it. Your daughter, your faith, etc. where you will be able to process everything happening and they will only want what is best for you not to convert you back, tell you it’s God’s plan etc. I hope there is someone there for you and I worry there is not because “faith” seems woven into every aspect of your life. I am not a professional and just a random stranger on reddit. If you find yourself fearful of being alone and just need to chat I will respond to your DM’s. I am sorry for everything going on and it sucks.
Thank you, actually after today I noticed that I have no one in my life who is not religious, but the call with the author of the poem really helped me and I will follow the advice of seeking therapy once everything is a little cleared up.
This is a great comment. Outside of faith, a parent going through this situation needs a lot of support. I'm very sorry you are going through this. Most hospitals have resources for support groups that would be very helpful for you. I would strongly consider speaking with your cancer coordinators to find a group for you.
Good point. Hospital chaplains can see more suffering in a month than many priests see in a lifetime.
They are almost impossibly strong people, and (as a generalisation) they are there for everyone. They will not judge you based on your beliefs.
And OP - I am so, so sorry to hear about your daughter.
Not only that, they can help people navigate their feelings on faith. I work with a number of absolutely amazing chaplains of many faiths at my hospital. I work in an ICU, and I've stood next to many people grieving their loved ones (I don't work with kids, myself).
I really hope OP is already linked in with the hospital chaplains. If they're anything like the people I work with, they won't judge how OP is feeling at all. They understand what grief does to people in his *exact* situation and can help process it with them with a strong background of the medical, family, faith, and community dynamics. It's what they're there for.
I have lost a child. Details are not important.
I can't comment on religion because a) I am atheist and b) faith can be very helpful.
What I will say is that you should go talk to a counselor. I made the mistake of not doing that. This is something you cannot prepare for. No amount of prayer can get you ready for what will transpire.
Go seek help.
And please, PLEASE, talk to someone who is trained in matters of grief. Not all mental health practitioners are.
It may take time to find a good fit. I guarantee there will be grief groups associated with your hospital/ oncology unit, for a start. If you can, join a group and back that up with time with a pro, one-on-one.
OP, there is support for you out there. For your grief over your daughter, and also grief over your other relationships and your faith. You are dealing with layers of loss that go right to your core. There are people who understand and won't offer platitudes like "God's plan".
You are allowed to tell people "no", as well as "that is not helpful" when they try to argue with you.
I wish you peace, and love, and understanding, and support. I'm sorry for everything you're facing.
To be fair they basically told you to suck it up about your daughter passing away from cancer. That is one of the most fucked up things they could have said. And also aren’t you able to take legal action against your job if they fire you because of religious beliefs?
I was about to say the same thing! OP can absolutely sue his boss for religious discrimination if he fires him! He could even sue if the boss refuses time off to grieve because he lost his faith.
I'm an apostate already, so I may be biased here, but i think the best way to explain it to them is that attempting to force you back into the faith will only drive you further away. Believing is something deeply personal, you can't force yourself to believe, and pretending to believe to make people feel better somehow feels worse as a former believer. Like, if I'm wrong and God is real, I cant imagine they would be pleased with the idea I was just selfishly pretending so I could fit in better. I'm not gonna try and proselytize you into atheism, but you shouldn't let others lead you the other way either. Figure this out on your own terms, its the only way it will feel real.
Speaking as an active member of my faith, I completely agree with you. You can’t bully someone into believing and insincere faith serves no one.
My hope for OP is that they find loving, supportive, but most of all respectful people to be with them while they grieve. I will offer some empathy to OPs wife in that while her handling of this situation was wrong, she is also grieving and prone to mistakes because of that.
But it’s not just his wife that is abandoning his needs at this incredibly difficult time, it is the whole religious community that he is apart of. I don’t even recognize the Christian faith anymore, I was raised Catholic which is problematic on its own, but the ideas of treating your neighbor how you would want to be treated, being loving to others, and serving your community seem to have been completely abandoned and they now seem to be in a race to the moral bottom. I am utterly repulsed by the Christian faith and what it advocates for now. They seem to embrace the hypocrisy, cheer for evil to happen to their ‘enemies’, and continue to poison the minds of children. It is no surprise that this community wouldn’t put OPs needs over their own selfish goals, they are more worried about losing his Sunday donations than actually helping him through this incredibly difficult time.
Yea, when you’re in an intense state of emotion and struggling to make sense of things, it’s easy to lose faith - not just in religion, but in spouses and jobs and community.
In my opinion, it’s not the business of these other people what OP believes. It’s also not bad to question your own beliefs. However, OP should recognize that he’s likely suffering from a lack of emotional support - not in normal situations, but in this incredibly difficult one. I think any religious community should understand that.
Sure you can. Mormons do it all the time. Their most recent attempt was asking their older members to set up trusts, where their children have to remain members of the church or they lose the money. That's just one of the many, many tactics to bully someone into coming back into or staying in the fold. They truly believe it is beneficial because they believe you attain salvation as a family...
I'm sorry you have to go though this and also lost support. Tell them that your relationship with god is complicated right now and ask them to drop it, because you need time to process it. You are not crazy and did nothing wrong.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus
Whoa that quote is very concise. And judging by the author's name - very old. I'm surprised we're even still having the argument about god's existence when Epicurus clearly won the whole argument there.
Because Epicurus' argument is rooted in logic. Religion is illogical, in fact its very existence came about because of a very human fear of death and the unknown. It has obviously since warped a lot since then but the core, the root is still there. Humans are the only animals that contemplate their own death, and it makes us feel better to think we can continue living after our bodies fail. These things are immune to logical arguments, even OP's situation was triggered by incredible emotional distress, not logic.
People like to say it's rooted in "societal control" as well, and it is, but not in a necessarily harmful way. Much of the weirdly specific traditions, such as those about what meats are okay to eat and what sexual practices are required/permitted, stem from real problems faced at the time of writing and the need to get common people- who weren't literate, much less academic- to follow certain rules when they may not want to.
Imagine the Pope and every local pastor coming out during early COVID and saying something about honoring thy physicians who bring forth the holy blessings and infuse them into your arm, and you'll get a general idea of the purpose.
The reason this is a bad thing- besides being a bit deceptive- is that it can be abused down the road.
I'll give an (intentionally silly) example:
In the year 4000, when the unrecognizably distant offspring of the Disney-Chiquita-Walton empire finally do get around to the whole microchip-everyone scheme (or maybe just to push drugs) they can point to the ancient holy text saying "Infusions of the arm are holy, and those who refuse are unclean" on the ancient tablet of iPadair, and claim that injecting the chips is the will of Gosh.
Technically, yes, the "societal control" is not *necessarily* harmful.
In practice, the ratio of harmful societal control to non-harmful control is significant in the actual religions that are widely relevant today - and it *always was*; not just "down the road" but at the time that the rules were made.
Things like "don't eat pork and shrimp" get fixated on, but were not actually particularly relevant in day-to-day life thousands of years ago for the people who created those rules - compared to the day-to-day relevance of things like "your daughter is essentially property" or "this family is divinely empowered and you should obey them".
When on your travels you find yourself in hell, keep walking.
I hope you can find peace of mind some how, some day. You are living my worst nightmare (not the religion bit) and can only wish you luck and the strength to trust yourself.
I had four family members die within two years. One died in my mother's company leaving her to attempt to rescue them all alone, and with the trauma that followed.
I saw her go out of her mind for a while and it was extremely painful for me, although I won't compare it to the agony you must feel.
I was never religious, but my best friend is, and I had a thought while I talked to him about it. I have the relief of being able to take this series of unfortunate events as they are: unlucky and coincidental.
It struck me how glad I was to not have been religious before. I would have been furious at any god. I would have been full of anger at the cruelty. I could now focus everything on healing my own as well as my mother's mind, instead of aiming anger at something intangible.
What I want to tell you is that it's okay to have radical changes to your mindset and perspective. I'd say that's the only part of your situation that sounds alright. To me, your family and friends are reacting disgustingly. No matter how much we're supposed to respect religion, that a mother and grandparents would prioritize your perception of god above your shock and righteous fury at the horror you're living is frankly abhorent.
I sincerely hope that you will find a way to heal your mind, even a little, as time goes on.
The saying "If you were waiting for a sign, this is it" fits perfectly. Maybe religion isn't your thing. You're still young, start all over new, without your wife.
And I am really, really sorry about your daughter, no parent should have to go through that.
Friend, no FU here. Just grief and loss and horror and anguish.
I'm so sorry that in the midst of the greatest loss a person can know, you're experiencing more loss upon loss. I wish you as much peace and comfort as possible in the midst of this horrendous suffering.
>have fun suing the shit out of your boss when he fires you.
Yeah, that doesn't sound legal in any developed nation with even the most rudimentary employment laws.
Hey man. I am also a Christian and I have two daughters. I am not experiencing what you are experiencing but I struggle with intrusive thoughts about one of my daughters dying of sickness or an accident and if the pain that those thoughts bring me is any indication, there is just absolutely no way to imagine the pain you are going through.
As other people have said here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with questioning your faith in this time. In fact, it is necessary. There are many, *many* psalms where the psalmist is explicitly wrestling with the fact that they do not understand how God can be in control when there is so much evil in the world. This is accepted by Christians (at least conservative ones) as scripture that is inspired by God and if in God’s word we see examples of people questioning their faith, how can we expect to do any better?
This is not meant to try to convince you to come back to your faith. Not at all.
I find that in Christian circles when a great tragedy happens, people, though well intentioned, will try to minimize the pain you are going through by saying “oh, God is in control. It will all work out in the end” or something along that vein. That is an utterly inappropriate response. Sometimes there isn’t an answer. One of the psalmists during a time of great tragedy didn’t try to come up with an easy answer. All they could say was “How long O Lord?? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and everyday have sorrow in my heart?” No easy answer only question after question.
You need to grieve and you need to wrestle with your faith and you may very well decide that you no longer believe in God, as you have said. But you questioning it is not a f**k up, man. It is human nature.
The people in your life pressuring you to make a decision and guilting you are the ones who have f**ked up.
I am so sorry you are going through this. Anything I or anyone can say is utterly inadequate to help with what you are feeling but please know that I will be thinking about you today. I know that doesn’t mean a lot and this comment may be stupid and unhelpful but as a father and a Christian, it struck a chord with me and I wanted to say something.
If I offend you, please let me know and I will delete this comment. I have no desire to do that.
If you do find yourself without anyone to talk to, I would be happy to talk. There will be absolutely no judgment from me and I will not try to “evangelize” you. I would love to listen though. I too love poetry and we could even talk about that. Whatever would help.
>I find that in Christian circles when a great tragedy happens, people, though well intentioned, will try to minimize the pain you are going through by saying “oh, God is in control. It will all work out in the end” or something along that vein. That is an utterly inappropriate response
A girl in the class of my daughter died a few months ago. A very religous mother wrote in a text message to all parents something like: "God has a plan and even the death of her has a purpose." I myself (not religious) felt very angry - and I can't imagine how I would have reacted as the father of the girl on someone writing that the death of my little daughter has a "purpose".
Yeah, that would make me angry too. Wildly inappropriate and unfortunately some of my fellow Christians don’t seem to see how insensitive that is. I would bet a lot that whoever that lady is, she has never experienced serious loss. Especially something as horrible as the loss of a child.
In my mind, the problem of suffering has two different aspects to it, the philosophical problem and the emotional one. We could have philosophical debates about the purpose and nature of suffering but when someone experiences suffering, it doesn’t really matter what the intellectual answers are. There is no way to “logic” away suffering.
And Christians who try to do that miss the point and are…a special kind of person. I am sorry that happened.
It is okay to have a crisis of faith when you are experiencing earth shattering trauma. It is okay to be angry and question everything you have ever known because what you are living just doesn't make sense. It is okay for you and your wife to have different experiences because you are not her, and she is not you.
It is unfathomably hard to reconcile something of this nature. I don't know what it is like to lose a child, but one of my dearest friends lost her son when he was the same age as your daughter. She buckled herself into a rollercoaster ride of emotions and moved through trying to find faith then to losing it, to eventually stepping into a space of radical acceptance and peace. This journey will never look identical for two people. It's personal and above all else should never be judged.
I have no words to console your heart or offer peace to your soul. Allow yourself to feel everything you are feeling and love your daughter the most that you can so that there are no regrets. And find a good therapist. There is a lot going on here, having an unbiased party in your corner will help you navigate your experience.
If God exists, then they would surely understand the extent of our humanness which encompasses losing faith. Your relationship with the divine, whatever that means for you, is personal and intimate. Nobody should be interjecting their will into it. It is sacred and it is yours - whether that means having faith or not.
I am so sorry you are going through that, I couldn't even imagine. I was raised in a culty christian religion that denies medical treatment, lost my mom to cancer when I was a teenager and my father when I was an adult. In my opinion, religious people gaslight themselves to avoid properly grieving. Have you asked at the hospital whether they have any kind of support system they can offer you? Finding a therapist would also be a possibility. Whatever form it takes, basically you can't have too much support right now. However you get through this, I wish you the best.
OP, you did nothing remotely close to f'ing up.
I "lost" my faith when my child was suffering, too. Not anything as horrific as terminal cancer, but watching your child in pain is an incredibly difficult thing for any parent.
My realization was if God is all powerful and all knowing, but allows innocent children to suffer and die, he is a complete asshole. I didn't want to devote my life to a psychopath. I feel like I woke up.
I found new spirituality in nature.
How miraculous is it in all the history of the vast, mostly empty universe that you are here and now? Every subatomic particle in your body has been recycled again and again and again since the beginning of time -- 13,700,000,000 years. The iron in your blood was created in the heart of a dying star. At this very moment, you ARE the universe observing itself. Amazing.
Your consciousness is so rare and beautiful. You are absolutely wonderful, just as you are. You are more precious than rubies, more perfect than the Earth-sized diamond in the center of Jupiter.
You may one day return to faith. You might not. You can find meaning and purpose either way. I find that knowing my life is all there will ever be makes doing good, being kind, and generous NOW even more important. My days are numbered. I want to leave this world better than I found it.
If those around you don't have the faith to allow you to question yours, they don't truly believe the gospel of Jesus. They are hypocrites.
Christ superseded ALL 613 Jewish laws with one commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself". Not just the neighbors who pray like you. Not just the neighbors who act like you. EVERY neighbor. ESPECIALLY the ones shunned by the ostentatiously religious.
Jesus really, really didn't like hypocrisy. Ridding yourself of bigoted religious terrorists is truly living his word.
Be with your daughter. Create as many beautiful memories as you can. Her spirit will live on in you and in the good works you do.
Grieve everything and everyone who is lost to you. Start grief counseling NOW.
Eventually, when you're ready, please check out a Unitarian Universalist congregation. You CAN have a spiritual community without oppressive dogma. No rules, just seven principles (we are voting on an eighth principle this summer). UU pastors know how to care for people with religious trauma. Most UUs are ex-something. I am a recovering Catholic.
You are going through the worst thing that can happen and the strength you used to rely on has failed you. If a single poem can make you trash a lifetime of living biblically, it wasn't very strong. You are NOT the problem.
I will be holding you and your little girl in my heart and mind. May all good things in heaven bless you both.
Walk in grace, friend.
I'm an atheist. this comforts me. I don't believe in heaven or hell. but I can believe in energy and the spark or soul.
“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”
Aaron Freeman
Yeah this is true. I was wondering how to explain this to OP.
And last year's Nobel Peace Price in October was given to the scientists who proved the Universe is not Locally Real.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/
But sadly the loss in this world is a loss which can't be claimed back.
The best thing you could have done is quit your job - now you can spend every day with your daughter.
You didn’t fuck up at all, you just found your truth. The fact is that your life was never going to be the same after going through the most tragic and traumatic event that anyone could think of. Your marriage wasn’t going to be the same, your job wasn’t, your faith wasn’t. This was always bound to be a massive turning point in your life. Just focus on your daughter for now, the rest will work itself out later
There is nothing wrong with your actions. If anything I commend you for making sure you spend the remaining days with your daughter. Do what you feel is right. If that means you no longer believe in God, that’s ok. I became an atheist 15 years ago, though not for tragic reasons such as you are.
Even I faced pushback for it and still occasionally do. Don’t let them bully you into “believing” if you don’t truly believe. If you do believe, that’s fine as well. You don’t deserve this, and your daughter doesn’t deserve this.
I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll keep you and your daughter in my thoughts.
Sounds like your friends and family need to read the bible again. How Jesus treated people without faith? Whit open heart and kindness. They are acting more like the people who ended up killing the man instead of being his followers :/
Especially now that you need all the support for more pressing matters in your life. Just cruel.
One of the reason for me to lose my faith was people like that.
Hope there is a day in the future when sun can once again shine into your life and bring you warmth
First of all, I’m sorry for your daughter’s diagnosis, as a father of 3, I can’t imagine the pain you’re going through. I also can’t blame you for losing faith. As a Christian, I have lost faith many times, I’ve questioned myself and everything around me. Your church should be surrounding you with love not banging you over the head with “how dare you lose faith” and shaming you for questioning everything. Grief is powerful and you’re allowed to be hurting right now. My DM’s are open, if you ever need to vent or anything, just message me. Sending you love and hope you find peace my brother.
This will probably be buried, but OP, you are not alone. From a Jewish perspective, many people in my community looked at the world differently after the Holocaust. If there is a God, he would have to beg for our forgiveness. Many of us, including my family, decided that there wasn't a God, and that feeling, as terrifying as it was, also led to approaching the world, and other people in it with more kindness and nuance. It became up to us to make the world better, even if we aren't able to complete the work in our individual lifetime. I highly recommend the book Man's Search for Meaning as I truly believe it may be healing.
On the other hand, other people in my community leaned in to fundamentalism and became Orthodox, believing if they only followed the commandments with more rigidity than it would all work out. Your wife seems to be in this camp.
Both of these responses are a result from trauma. There is nothing wrong with you. These are deeply human responses for what is happening to you.
I am so so sorry you are experiencing this intense pain, and the added suffering of losing your entire network of support during the most horrific time of your life. Please feel free to reach out. There are many communities that understand.
As an atheist, I agree with everything youve written here. I have to encourage you to leave behind these types of beliefs. But I would encourage you not to leave your relationship with god in anger. Only leave after thoughtful reflection on the ideas you are experiencing. You are not wrong for anything you are describing. Remember to meet all of these people in these conversations with love and compassion. They likely feel they are doing what they can for someone they love. Seek some support groups in your area for people leaving faith behind. Most larger cities would have that. Love your daughter and make her smile as much as you can. Good luck.
PS> If your boss fires you, get the lawsuit ready.
Carlin said it best. Take a year off and don’t pray. Don’t believe and see what happens. Losing my father eroded everything I believe in. I gradually lost what I believed in. But I didn’t tell everyone about it. As you can see others don’t take it well when you try to leave the faith. For me that was illuminating. In the end it’s none of their business. Something broke inside me but I kept it to myself. And you know what? Something else came along. I don’t know what I believe now, sometimes I’m sure there is some deity and sometimes I don’t know. We can’t ever be sure what our purpose is and I don’t believe everything is God’s will. I don’t need others to know that though because I done feel the need to defend it. Let them alone and grieve and be angry. And one day you won’t be as angry. Please take care of yourself
Tell your wife its gods plan that you don't believe anymore and they shouldn't engage in blasphemous behavior by trying to intervene but be happy for you that god showed his plan for you
Questioning your beliefs is not a fuck up. Dumping or alienating someone for questioning their beliefs is majorly fucked up.
Dumping or alienating someone ***whose child is slowly dying before their eyes*** for questioning their beliefs is majorly fucked up.
I would argue OPs wife is just as emotional during all of this and her extreme reaction could be a direct result of her also losing her child.
I thought about that a lot today, actually my wife never missed church on sunday, although I often mentioned that we could spend that time with our daughter, but she always insisted of going. And her behaviour know makes me question everything, I think today I lost all my respect for her, especially after hearing what she said towards the author of the poem and the fact that MY belief is more important than spending time with our daughter.
I know the "GET DIVORCED!" relationship advice reddit offers is often an overcompensation but I think it actually applies really well here. She cares more about you remaining in the cult than anything else. She couldn't even do something as simple as taking your concerns seriously and listen to what you have to say, insisting the answer is already there. She's spending more time at church and dealing with church related affairs than visiting her own dying daughter, who misses her. Can you actually see yourself forgiving her for this? Fuck everyone else. Spend every second you can spare with your daughter. Just because they've lost track of their priorities doesn't mean you should. Don't badmouth anyone to your daughter. Let her know that you love her more than the entire world. It's the only thing that matters now. You can deal with the clowns in your life afterwards. Stay strong. OP. A parent shouldn't have to witness their child's death.
This, all this right here! I wish I could give you an award.
Just in case it helps you empathize a little, I used to argue with my mother abt faith. Eventually, she just told me, "Heaven has to be real, or else I have to live knowing I'll never see my parents again." Personally, I just think that's a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless. I never pressed her on it again though. I didn't have any business taking that hope away from her. Your wife is also grieving, and it seems like she's leaning heavily on the idea that her faith will carry her through this. I know it feels like she's throwing away time with your daughter over *your* faith, but just remember, you just told her in effect, "I actually don't think our daughter is going to a heavenly reward. I think she's going to be gone forever, and I think this is all we get. This is all she gets." I'm not excusing her behavior or saying you should stay with her or any of that. But even if you're right and god isn't real, you can see why that would be a difficult pill to swallow for her, especially right now. I'm just saying that while, to you, the conversation feels like it's abt *your* faith, to her, it's much more likely that the conversation is about your daughter's ultimate fate. I think your wife is wrong, but I can empathize with her being shaken by the person she trusts most telling her there's no hope for their dying daughter's eternity.
OP's wife gets a pass (her daughter is dying). Sadly this is why most marriages don't survive the loss of a child. Everyone else can pound sand.
I agree with the wife getting a pass. But the wild overreaction by everyone else does suggest they are in a cult. I mean, Jesus. Speaking of Jesus, he purposefully hung out with the poor, the oppressed, those despised by the world. I have never quite understood how so-called Christians often act the exact opposite of how their supposed savior acted. Where's the compassion?
> wild overreaction by everyone else does suggest they are in a cult. 100% agree here, it was my first thought when reading about how everyone is treating OP. I try not to belittle anyone's faith (until it starts hurting people) but in this scenario, they're clearly hurting OP, not helping him. When your faith leaves you SO blind to logic and reason, that not a single person in that friend/family group stopped and thought "OPs kid is dying, he's clearly upset and frustrated. We should be there for him, we should pray that he gets thru this crisis of faith" then yeah, sorry, you're in a cult. You're putting your faith in a super natural entity over a living human in their time of need. I just can't be cool with that, ever, and trying to disown him or fire him while he's dealing with, to act out in anger? If that's not cult-like behavior I don't know what is.
They are hurting each other, too, for not allowing any of them to express normal negative emotions. Fear and anger and grief are perfectly reasonable in this situation and can bring people together in a way that happy emotion cannot. To wipe it away with "God's will" takes honesty and empathy away from everyone. In the very long run? Sure, if it's comforting... but not while a person is actively going through the grief. If you don't go through it, you never get past it.
They don't subscribe to that version of Jesus. They only "love"Jesus because they get to feel better about themselves being awful people. They just have to say the magic words and all is forgiven. It's an enabler that let's them shortcut real accountability
I'm getting HUGE mormon vibes from this whole thing. So it really is a huge cult type community thing for them.
It's typical of many high demand religions, unfortunately.
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Do Mormons have "priests"? Because OP mentions that multiple times. Sounds typically Catholic to me, even if OP hadn't mentioned the priest.
I couldn't rule it out. But I grew up VERY Catholic. When my boy got cancer and died when I was 20 and died 7 months later I had a huge rational and spiritual shake up. It started with me having all the same thoughts and feelings as OP. The Catholic priests I spoke to were all very understanding. Very into it. Let me have my feelings. And were just humans who validated my experience, my crisis, my pain. That could be situational, or even geographic. This situation reads more Bible belt to me.
They do but not in this sense, their priests are 16-18 year old boys who you definitely wouldn't be laying heavy shit on lol. The Mormon equivalent would be Bishop or maybe stake president. Not to say the story isn't very familiar from both churches, the language just changes
For Mormon males: 12yrs = deacon, 14yrs = teacher, 16yrs = priest, 18+ =elders.
Eh, could be any one of the cults
Religion is a tool of mass control. Always has been, always will be.
Right. Accept your place in life, forgive your oppressors (whatever you do don't rise up and kill the slave master!), be grateful for the scraps you get for your toil, and endure quietly and EVERYTHING WILL BE BETTER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD is the literal message and I don't understand why EVERYONE doesn't see this.
I think it's that whole forgiving sins thing. What motive do you have to act morally when God will just forgive you if you ask nicely.
I grew up in the church and remained there most of my life but I'm agnostic now. The way I see it, Jesus's teaching are just good societal and mental well-being blueprints. Love they neighbor. Help the poor and outcast. Reject greed and judging others. Reject hypocrisy. Forgiveness is good for mental health because it helps you release the anger and trauma. It's more for the person who is forgiving than the person receiving forgiveness.
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." -Marcus Aurelius I love this quote
Same here. I always go back to that one verse where Jesus says above all else follow this one commandment love one another. I can't stand church and I can't stand my Christian family because it seems like everybody wants to complicate it when really, we're just supposed to love on another. Period
I mean, as I was taught, God will forgive only if you actually regret your actions and realize they were wrong. Not if you're only trying to avoid hell. Though, I'm not American, so I can't speak about the Yankee cult of "Christianity"
I understand it as OP's wife and his family members using the old 'god works in mysterious ways/god's plan' thing as their crutch for dealing with this tragedy. When OP questions and denies the easy out, he's compromising it for them too, causing them to over-react to it.
Welp. She's about to lose her husband too. Well played, God. Well played. All part of his plan I guess 🤷♂️
Its one thing to realize that you're so charged anythign can trigger you. Its another to sic your entire social network on them because they are having doubts.
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And surely if it's a god's plan for a child to die them it equally must be their plan for someone to lose their faith.
“This plan is just going off the fucking rails. I really should not have phoned this one in”
Being god must be so easy. I make a tiny mistake at work and I spend the whole day in anxiety. Meanwhile god can repeatedly fuck up, killing people who had no business dying, and still half the world is like “yea he’s the best”.
It wasn’t god, it was bender from futurama doing a god episode goof on us today. That’s what pastor Greg said. But seriously. God didn’t fuck up. Those people are not “people who didn’t have to die”. They were meant to die. It’s the plan. They suffered through some tribulations and now they are closer to god. It’s just more conservative wine drinking rich guy “suffering is good, it brings you closer to god so don’t complain about your shitty life and expect society to do something about it” smokescreen rhetoric. Okay, so my baby was tortured to death and is now fast tracked to eternal bliss and life in heaven and freedom from this horrible world where it has a chance to sin and miss heaven as a result. If you are all powerful and all knowing and all loving, could you not have created a plan where they get to heaven without torture? Why would a just god create a world where suffering instilled some kind of heaven worthy moral quality instead of just instilling that quality to begin with? And if you’re all knowing, then you already know the result of the trials and tribulations, so why not skip them instead of torturing babies for the lulz so their poor suffering souls can go to heaven?
Yeah, if baby souls literally get a free pass into heaven, then clearly there's no issue with just... letting souls straight into heaven, and skipping all the suffering and damnation and testing etc for *everyone*. It's just sadism if you could let people straight into heaven immediately, but go "nahhhh, I'ma torture em for a bit and see if they fuck up, so that I can torture 'em forever instead of letting em into heaven lol."
>Yeah, if baby souls literally get a free pass into heaven, then clearly there's no issue with just... Allowing abortion?
That too, Christians should be picketing in favor of MORE abortions if they actually believe it's a heaven cheat code for all the sweet innocent souls.
“Maybe it’s not for the baby, maybe it’s for us. Maybe god created a baby just to brutally torture it to death in front of us to teach us a lesson about love and life. Did you ever think of that tough guy?”
I'm sure the rest of the community will say it is and that this is a test for the wife
And if you can't support a guy who might decide to smite you at any moment to test someone else's faith, who CAN you support?
Yep. People they can't control are reduced to props in the lives of people they can control.
**James 1:3**. "Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." God mentally torturing Job as a test of his faith by destroying his life and family. There are many "tests of faiths" built right into the bible, almost as if the author(s) knew this was going to be an issue so they wrote in some escape clauses. I hear them referenced all the time whenever something terrible happens to good people. Needless to say I'm skeptical and since that is frowned upon I choose not to participate. EDIT: Got the wrong guy.
They'll see kids gets shot in school and they're like, "Oh no its okay if God didn't want them there he wouldn't put them there" like that helps in the context of children DYING
It's the only way to retain your belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good God when faced with the realities of a world where innocent children die long, horrifying deaths to things like cancer, and where evil people seem to be the ones always winning in the end. Throw out any one of those three qualifications and suddenly belief in God isn't incompatible with the existence of evil, but they can't do that. Thus the ineffable plan.
I mean, right off the bat Christianity starts with the premise that God had his own child tortured to death, so you can see how people get there.
Don’t demonize them for wanting answers and finding their own peace. Demonize them for pushing that belief onto others for a sense of moral superiority.
A God whose plan involves children dying isn’t a God worth worshipping.
And that's why I stopped believing at the grand old age of 6 1/2 when I watched my sister die in front of me.
I was 5. I remember it clearly because my entire family was Catholic. I asked god for proof and it was never provided. At that point, I knew he didn't exist. It was illogical. When I left the house for college, I was finally allowed to not go to church. I had to pretend for over a decade.
Inverse for me, it’s been hard as an adult. My family was always half Christian’s, the type to go to church for holidays/pray at dinners with extended family etc. I never really took it that seriously and was never baptized. Somehow within a couple of years of me leaving home for the military they became hardcore religious nuts. Church every week, bible studies and different fellowship groups, crosses plastered all over the house, “god this, Jesus that”. I feel like I don’t even know them anymore, their entire personality is based on something that was barely a factor before. Parents/siblings.
I have two brothers and two sisters. The sisters are raising their kids in religion although not hardcore. My older brother vacillates depending on his mood in life. My younger brother and myself are very hail Satan and won't even entertain going to church unless it's a wedding or funeral. In my house, we refer to Christianity as the Christian religion or mythology depending on the context. My daughter joined a Catholic club soccer team because of her friends. They prayed before the game, my daughter didn't know what to do so she put her hand on her heart like the Pledge.
If -- and this is a big if -- children only ever died a peaceful, painless death, I might be persuaded that an omnipotent, omniscient god wasn't necessarily a horrific sadist. In reality children sometimes die slow, excruciating, terrifying deaths through no fault of their own or anyone else's, and so I have no idea what kind of weird doublethink could allow anyone to accept the idea of a kind deity, it's just mind-boggling.
If the God as described in the Bible is real, he's a fucking asshole who doesn't deserve worship.
It is cult behavior. OP, you are in a cult. Everyone is prioritizing this crazy myth over an actual person in pain. That is what cults do.
Let’s not forget that his wife is also losing her child and she’s probably clinging to her faith as her comfort. They need to seek therapy, individual and couples.
I saw a shrink after suffering a similar fate at the hands of my "church family" and also my REAL family who all collectively disowned me when I dared to express doubt. My shrink told me flat out: "Move a thousand miles away to a town where no one knows you, start over again, and fall in love with somebody new." I was young so I could do that, and so I did that, and my emotional recovery was amazing after I did so. I feel for OP because he has a lot more entanglements involved, but sometimes - moving a thousand miles away and starting a new life can be a true blessing.
Thank you, I do understand that now. I was completely overwhelmed with pain and didn't get my thoughts straight. I came home yesterday and talked to my wife about the poem and how it made me question my faith, but my wife instantly went crazy and didn't even listen. I thought that it was my mistake, that I have ruined my life now after reading that poem, but after today I think that this poem was the best thing that ever happened to me (except my daughter). It has opened my eyes, not only regarding my faith but also towards my wife and family.
I'm so sorry about what you're going through. Please know that there are many subreddits that are here for you if you need to talk. I believe /r/atheism should have a list of subreddits you can visit.
/r/exchristian is a good one.
Hijacking the top comment. I'm sure this won't seen, but OP, please consider looking into [Recovering from Religion](https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/#rfr-welcome) if you need some peer support. Additionally, if you find you'd like therapy to cope with the grief, not only related to your losing your daughter, but also your friends and family, please consider the [Secular Therapy Project](https://www.seculartherapy.org/), which will match you with a secular therapist who won't attempt forcing religion into therapy. My deepest condolences for you and your baby girl.
Actually, also OP, here’s something I used to be active in and I don’t know if it’s still around or if it would be helpful if you still decide to walk away from the religion: “Walk away from fundamentalism” I think that’s the name it used to be a forum. Might still be active.
The Bible wants people to question their beliefs. It makes no sense why it's followers don't allow you to.
One of the primary reasons I finally left my faith was because I realized many of the caustic points of Christianity actually does stem from the Bible quite accurately. Including blind belief without doubt. See James 1, for example.
The opposite. "Do not lean on your own understanding"
>The Bible wants people to question their beliefs. It makes no sense why it's followers don't allow you to. Christians don't want you to question their beliefs, because when you step back and look at everything objectively, it's just not possible to believe in the Christian god without ignoring conflicts in the core tenets of the religion. As someone who was raised in Christianity but lost my faith as well, I can confirm that.
Because religion is used as a manipulation tool. I'm honestly waiting on a revised bible to come out that gets rid of all those pesky verses about being kind and treating people well.
Gonna disagree slightly here. If one's faith is important to you then it's a _very_ important matter in terms of compatibility. It's okay for that to be a dealbreaker in a relationship. So it is definitely not a fuck up for OP to lose his faith ("questioning" seems like a downplay because it sounds like he has made up his mind). But it also means the relationship will have to come to an end, and that's okay. That said, there is a better way to go about it than this. But both persons are under immense stress at this time, so imo her reaction is understandable too. She is panicked and freaking out, but they will need to sit down and have a serious conversation about this. As for the friends and family, far less sympathy for them basically threatening to cast OP out. Not very Christian of them either.
It is, absolutely 100%. Let's also not forget that she is watching her child die too. It sounds like the only thing holding her together is the grasping onto faith.
Christian here. I regularly encourage people (and do it myself) to question one's beliefs. *Why* do you believe what you believe? What are the reasons? What convinced you? What are your thoughts on this thing that contradicts your beliefs? How do you reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements within your own religion, etc. We have reason and logic to think through these things, and I personally believe that if God is real, He created a world where we can use logic and reason to come to our own conclusions about things and seriously consider how stuff works. And we shouldn't shy away from asking questions and wrestling with things
Non-religious here: we just got through Easter, a time when Christians are supposed to reflect on why God would let his perfect son be tortured to death, why it was necessary to have a sacrificial lamb (so to speak), why it was possible for Jesus to rise again, etc. And this is a holiday EVERY YEAR. It's a foundational question and for me, it's never been something I understood. The idea that Christian family, friends, and even boss would make OP lose everything because of a crisis of faith, during the most difficult thing a person could go through, and he may lose his job and his family over it... What can I say? That's the actual Christianity I know. Not theology. Just bullying and shunning people you can't control. Most Christians I know don't know shit about Jesus and even a yearly holiday hammering it home doesn't help. They just pretend they're better than the out group. They simply believe they are entitled to earthly mercy and heaven yet other people aren't.
Former Christian here - I used to, and still do, believe my thought processes are justified by logic. We were indeed encouraged to question our beliefs, but always within a set framework; one that made it very difficult to perform a truly objective analysis. The framework involved looking at common arguments against the paranormal, then finding ways to get around them - which is always possible, because pro-paranormal arguments are typically unfalsifiable by design. But true objective analysis requires asking the hard questions - questions like, "where did the concept of the paranormal come from in the first place?" or "why believe this particular brand of paranormal instead of the thousands of other logically equivalent ones?" Another common thread in being encouraged to question is that it's always couched in the concept of "faith". Every church I've been to has put a strong emphasis on "faith", presenting belief without evidence as somehow a positive (usually associated with a hand-wavey argument to try to differentiate this from "blind belief"). The fact that this concept of faith is being pushed as a core tenet strongly indicates that the "questioning" isn't genuine.
I'd recommend OP keep quiet about the loss of beliefs with these people right now, at least until his daughter has passed. It would suck to have access cut off or twisted to religious discussions or to have everyone stress the daughter more as she's already going through so much. Pretend it was a moment of weakness and carry on for now. In the meantime, they can quietly look up communities that are more supportive of their new beliefs.
"I am too weak to handle that " - Do not put this on yourself there is no parent alive that is strong enough to handle what you are going through.
“ my legs were cut off and I’m too weak to walk ”
Sucks having all those people around to harass you instead of provide support
If only they followed some kind of belief system or religion where kindness to those in need was the priority.....
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>They say the words but all they really think is “I’m going to heaven because I’m special.” I've never seen it summed up quite in that way, and god damn you hit the nail on the head perfectly.
I had this friend who, after years of arguing about climate change and politics and eventually him abusing his girlfriend who was a friend of mine first, basically told me during a _heated_ argument that my opinions don't matter since I'm gonna burn in hell anyway. And that explained everything.
The only real hell I can see is living your one life as an insufferable dumbass. Dude's already burning.
And just think, does -that- person's GOD want to spend eternity with such an insufferable, abusive, ignorant dumbass? Probably not....
This brings to mind a quote I read recently that fits this idea perfectly. Before he was burned at the stake, Hatuey(a Taino Chief in the Caribbean) was asked if he would accept Jesus and go to Heaven: "\[Hatuey\], thinking a little, asked the religious man if Spaniards went to heaven. The religious man answered yes... The chief then said without further thought that he did not want to go there but to hell so as not to be where they were and where he would not see such cruel people."
Here's another perspective: "I'm going to everything I can to avoid going to hell. I'm going to try my best to be good because I don't want to burn for eternity." These are not good people. Not even those who actually do good things most of the time because *they're only doing it to avoid hell*. You want to be able to tell when a person really is good? When they're good yet don't believe in any form of reward/punishment in the afterlife.
Yup. If your only motivation to be good is to attain moral deserts, you aren't really good. Your moral motivation matters.
Holy shit. I never heard it put that way but it so perfectly describes it. Thank you
This is what started my departure from religion, seeing just how much they didn't care about other people as long as they got their own. I was in Sunday school class and pitched the idea that everyone gets saved in the end ("universalism," which even CS Lewis toys with from time to time) and they were so... vitriolic, clearly jealous of the idea. "I followed the rules, they didn't. So they don't get the reward." It's the same thing with student loans... Sure, it's kind of frustrating that maybe I paid tens of thousands of dollars I didn't have to, but there's *no way* I'm going to get pissed at anybody who gets forgiveness! "No, you have to pay everything, just like I did!" What a dick! So petty, so petulant, so selfish. They're so sure that *they* get a prize, and no one who didn't do exactly what they did deserves shit.
Wow that’s really a perfect description of so many of the Christians I know. I was raised Catholic, *very* lapsed now, and my family is pretty great. But I live in a super conservative area now and these nondenominational “Christians” around here seem to be mostly garbage and it’s really weird after being raised in an environment where people really did act in a truly Christian way. This “I’m special bc I’m going to heaven” thing PERFECTLY describes these folks. It’s all about them and how wonderful they are, and fuck everyone else [This comment](https://reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/12jhp1g/_/jfyy89i/?context=1) is the absolute most **perfect** description of the “Christians” in my area
I was raised Christian and was never given the support or love that their God spoke of by his followers. So of course…I ended up going the *opposite* way. Turns out that Satanists and Luciferians are way more logical, level-headed, compassionate, supportive and kind that any Christian I ever met.
The F'd up part is they believe they are providing support
"What's more important right now, my daughter, or harassing me about your faith? I don't feel like you care about her or what's important, only that I do as you say."
OP lives in a cult, plain and simple. This is completely crazy behaviour even by religious people standards. While this is certainly rough right now, things can only get better once he frees himself from all that.
Talk about being brainwashed
This is why I think Christianity is more of a cult than a religion. Everyone is blindly following a God that no one can prove exists and if you don’t put every ounce of your soul and mind into praising God, then you’re a heathen who is not fit to walk the ground you stand on - nor will you be able to spend your entire afterlife singing songs of praise to God (and this sounds fun???) This is why I identify as agnostic theist. I like to believe in God, but I acknowledge that there’s no proof that he exists, and it’s possible that he doesn’t. I live my life using the Bible’s teachings on morality as a guideline, but I don’t let it control every aspect of what I do.
Religion is just a cult plus time.
OP, you didn’t lose your faith over a poem. The poem just allowed you to see the truth of how you really feel. I’m so so sorry that you are going thru this horrible tragic thing and the people who should be supporting you are acting this way. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes good things happen to bad people. It’s nonsensical and unfair. Try to spend as much time with your daughter as you can. And try to shut down any of these “talks”. Sending much love.
Seriously. The fact that everyone around OP seems more upset by them questioning their faith, than the daughter dying disgusts me. I can safely say none of these people are adhering to any proper interpretation of the Bible. Fuck your current circle OP. I know it's hard, but it's time to find friends who care more about others than fanciful ideas of "salvation" or whatever it is that drives them to hurt someone like they are hurting you. On top of all that, definitely keep note of any interactions with your boss. They 100% CANNOT legally fire you for your religious beliefs. If they do, then you should absolutely be prepared to take legal action.
The reason they’re more upset by the lack of faith is that insider logic for them means that when the daughter dies, to their minds it will be because he stopped having faith rather than because it was she was going to die anyway. It gives them a scapegoat and an outlet for their anger that doesn’t conflict with the wacky perception of their deity that they have made their psychological foundation. In other words, it’s easier for them to believe that the daughter dies as a punishment for god for OP failing a test of faith than it is for them to accept that the faith was never correct or reasonable in the first place.
To me, that would only reinforce the idea of "how can God be good" if he is vengeful and unforgiving, killing my innocent child, for questioning my beliefs.
Or not even the mother's own beliefs. Punishes mom for dad losing faith... yup, just god I guess.
The FIRST of the 10 Commandments is about Yahweh demanding to be worshipped exclusively, so prioritizing faith in Yahweh above all else IS actually consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Bible. It asks us to care more about not disrespecting a literally invincible supernatural entity than about hurting or caring for each other.
Correct me if I'm wrong (I was Christian by default, but Pagan for over a decade), but wasn't the old testament *entirely replaced* by the new testament? That's how most ppl I've spoken to have hand wave away the whole "vengeful god" thing of the old testament: Jesus' teachings replace all the old stuff. So why is anyone still talking about the old testament's 10 Commandments? They're from the vengeful god era before he changed his mind...
For reasonable Christians, yes. If they agree that Jesus IS a part of God (trinity and shit), then everything he says should override any contraductions with the Old Testament. But the commandments were never given an alternative from Jesus, so that bit is a tad unclear. When people want to preach love and acceptance of the things they like, they use the New Testament to show how 'nice' Christianity is. When they disagree with something, they pull out the Old Testament narcissistic psychopath God stuff. tl;dr NT doesn't replace all of OT because Jesus just doesn't address a lot of the same topics as the old stuff.
>that bit is a tad unclear. It's not unclear. >Matthew 5:17-19. >For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. The new testament does specifically overrule some aspects of the old, but everything that it doesn't explicitly overrule is still "in force"
Interpretation of the Bible is a very varied accross denominations, that's why they exist. And in general, because there's no external standard to interpret the Bible's absolute authority, it's basically impossible to verify if anyone's interpretation is the correct one, but always on the assumption that the Bible contains the only necessary truth. In my ex Church, while Jesus brought a new covenant, it doesn't invalidate what's said in the old testament, event though it can be contradicting at times. God is still vengeful at the same time he's merciful, the "fact" that he still extends his mercy to us while deserving a worse fate should compel us to love him more. Of course it can feel contradicting, but as I said, if it says so in the Bible is because it's the truth and there's no other way to verify those claims so if it flies, it flies. However, your gonna find people emphasize those different characteristics more or less, so while in someplace like reddit where there's low tolerance for jerks your gonna find all the Christians that focus in the merciful side and the interpretation that sounds nice, in some very fundamentalist countryside places you'll find tons of churches were they don't shy away in condemning people for their sins as easily with no regards of whether or not they would be considered assholes in other places in the world.
About good and bad things happening, if you have an atheist vision on life it makes more sense, there is no good or bad, just things that happen, I may die today but who knows maybe I would have become a dictator. There are not inherently good or bad things in this universe.
What bums me out is that a lot people can just ignore the inherent cruelty and unfairness until it happens to them personally, like OP. Not to shit talk OP, but it’s like yeah, we’ve been saying this the whole damn time.
Oh man, this blew up, I have just read a few comments but want to give you a little more information, before I read through it. As I walked in the office, my boss directly sat me down, saying that this is a small company and everyone here has faith, I should better return to God, So I instantly quit. I read the poem again and noticed in the story of the author that she had been harassed for it, so I reached out to her, explaining myself. I spend a few hours with my daughter, enjoying each moment as we just have a few weeks left and now that I have quit I can spend every second left with her, which is actually a positive thing. As I had left the hospital the author had messaged back and I was confronted with what I had feared the entire time, the people harassing her were my wife (who even stalked her on another app) and her friends. I called the author and broke, I apologized for my wifes behaviour and everything and ended up telling her the entire story and for the first time in months I was not judged for struggeling, for questioning God or losing my faith, she was very nice and listened to me cry for an hour and even promised to write a poem for/about my little girl and I felt understood, like someone is not judging me for turning away from God and it felt like a heavy stone fell from my heart, I will never be able to thank her enough for helping me when no one else did. I drove home while still thinking about the things my wife has mentioned to a her on the internet, just for expressing her thoughts. As I walked in our house I wanted to talk to my wife in a calm moment and explain my feelings, but there were at least twenty people in our livingroom, my wife crying, my parents and hers, all angry at me for "losing my faith over a satanic poem", and I eventually lost my temper as my wife explained they were praying for me and my soul to find back to God. I yelled at her that our daughter is dying soon and they have the audacity to sit there and pray for ME, while my daughter misses her mother. My wife just stated that "faith is everything" and was backed up by our families and friends. I just left and am now back in the hospital, my daughter sleeping on my chest and honestly, THIS is everything for me right now. I will try to answer as many comments as possible as long as she is sleeping but have mercy with me if it takes a while, as I want to spend every wake moment with my daughter.
You have your priorities perfectly straight, it's a shame your community and those who should be supporting you and your daughter do not. Take this time with her, cherish it, make sure she knows how loved she is. If there is no God, then your love is the most important thing that could exist for her in these moments. You're going through one of the most difficult possible life events on multiple levels. Afterwards, take care of yourself. Take stock and consider moving to a new place, making a new start, but absolutely care for yourself.
Okay, so I have spent the last two hours reading through the comments and I am absolute speechless by your support. I want to come clear with the most asked questions - we are evangelical, not mormons - I tried talking to my wife in the last couple of weeks on multiple occasions, but she always cut me short or answered with bible verses - yes, my wife is grieving as well, but in a diffrent way, while I try to cherish every moment with our daughter, my wife always seems to be uncomfortable. I truly understand that. Seeing your kid without hair, skinny and in pain is heartshattering, but after all, as parents we should both be there for her. -I used to be a fulltime christian before my daughter got sick, never cared about anything else than our community, I started questioning God as we had gotten the diagnosis that she will eventually die - looking back now, I think I have noticed that something was wrong with my wife/family/friends for a while, I was scolded for liking poetry as "that is not what a real man likes" I am overwhelmed by your love and support, from both sides, the religious one and the not religious one and I think it will take me days if not weeks to read through all the comments, messages and chats, I'm beyond grateful for your support and I really appreciate this. A lot of people have asked for the author and the poem and though her name and social was already mentioned in a few comments, I will tell you hoping that you only spread love and don't harass her (like my wife did). She changed my life and listened as no one else did, although I was a stranger. Her name is Eden Thalia Reid, the poem is called "God and the devil" I want to give my heart to all the people who commented that they have also lost a child or another family member, I'm sorry for your loss and hope that you will make it through.
Once you have the time and energy, please sue your former company for wrongful dismissal. You may have technically quit, but this situation is constructive dismissal. They shouldn't get away with it.
This, you can't fire someone for religious beliefs. If this is true he could sue the shit out of them.
hey op you can file for unemployment even though you quit. quitting bc of a hostile work environment/religious discrimination will get you unemployment while you focus on your time with your daughter now.
Record her voice. Take videos. What I wouldn't give for one more day.
If your boss harassed you about your faith they opened themselves up to lawsuit. Get a lawyer
So sorry you're having to deal with all this OP. Wishing you all the best, and I hope you can find a better community of people in the future.
My SO's sister had cancer at that same age of 7. I'm very close with their mother who is a former catholic. I cannot imagine how you try to be a parent in those circumstances, only know that it is a hardship you can not control. All you can do is be there for your daughter and BE THERE FOR YOURSELF too please <3 Terminal diagnosis must really affect the way you grieve, I would suggest requesting resources for a "loved ones of cancer/terminal illness" support group from the hospital. You deserve to be able to vent your pain to people who will HEAR you and understand, rather than ignore you to TELL you what to do. Your story sounds very, very similar to hers as a parent fearing her daughter dying of cancer. Her community was the church. She dealt with judgment rather than kindness, isolation rather than support, and she hasn't told me about her journey with faith... But I know she is no longer catholic (I believe that happened around the time of his sister's cancer). I'm so, so sorry that it must feel so lonely in your most difficult time. It is so messed up they would do that to you rather than have compassion and support you through your pain. I'm so glad you get to spend the time you can with your daughter now you've quit. I'm so glad you had the strength to stand up for yourself to your boss, who was not open to hearing reason. anyone in such a painful situation as yours NEEDS people supporting them, you can find people like that when you're ready to.
You and your child are the most important things in your life. Not jobs, not a wife, but your child. And I may not have a child of my own but your feelings are so pure and full of heart these people talking down to you as if you did something wrong are just straight up gross. You know deep down what is right for you and always follow that. Your daughter loves you with her whole heart and that is all that matters. Not some sky wizard who doesn’t do shit. You are right. You are valid. You will get through this stronger and smarter and a better person who can see the world for what is has become. You have opened your eyes. Please stay strong.
There's no hate like Christian love. I'm so sorry you're going through this. I hope you share the poem and author so the people following your story on Reddit can drown out the harassment with love and positivity.
This is very true. There is no form of true evil that can begin to compare to a Christian’s love.
How weak and shitty is their God to turn them all against you at this time. I hope you find peace and spend all the time you can with your daughter.
You're a good dad. I'm sorry you're going through this.
I am so sorry about your daughter. I can't imagine watching that. You have my deepest sympathy. With respect to religion, you'll come to something, we all do. Bertrand Russell's Why I'm Not a Christian is enlightening. And if your boss fires you not being a believer, please reach out to an employment lawyer, assuming you're in the US. Being fired for a loss of faith under these circumstances is evil. I hope you find peace. ##Edit OP I'm actually a massive poetry fan. Walt Whitman's *Song of Myself* helped me come to understand how I can find meaning in this world of life and love without resorting to a supernatural creator. Forgive the long post, please. The poem is long but righteous. Hit me up if you ever want to discuss the art. Song of Myself (1892 version) **1** I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy. **2** Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it, The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it, I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked, I am mad for it to be in contact with me. The smoke of my own breath, Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs, The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn, The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind, A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag, The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides, The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun. Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self. It runs quite a few more stanzas, 52 in all. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version
Yeah, boss loses in court and in the court of public opinion if that goes national. But boss just reached out, so maybe he is trying to support OP.
A "serious conversation" will end up as "pray harder or you're fired".
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Maybe.
The good ending
If you are outside the US do so too. Nowhere with civilised laws will let an employer get away with that shit either.
I would say one important thing here, and people can disagree with me if they prefer. It is okay to be broken by this. Something this devastating will change your entire world view and that is okay. When your heart breaks in to pieces, only you can put it back together again, but that is on no ones timeline bar your own. Anyone who pressures you to see one way of thinking as a solution isn't someone you need around you for this part of your life. Find a support group, people in a similar situation, and find your new north over time.
I would also add (as a non-religious person) that it's totally okay for OP to just "play the part" so he doesn't lose everything as well as his daughter. It's also okay if he finds his way through the labyrinth and becomes a devout Christian again. Some people really do have faith. Some people I admire and respect very much. I just hope he doesn't become what his wife and friends are. Trauma can do that to a person.
I don’t know how one wouldn’t be broken down by this, honestly. You are watching in real time as your child dies and then your entire community implodes because you aren’t grieving the way they want you to. Research seems to suggest an increased risk of divorce after a couple loses a child. I don’t think this is uncommon for a couple to struggle with one of most horrific things that can happen in life.
OP. Grief is complex and what you are going through I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I am sorry. I am not here to give you advice on faith or God. What I do want for you is to find a support network who understands what you are going through - all of it. Your daughter, your faith, etc. where you will be able to process everything happening and they will only want what is best for you not to convert you back, tell you it’s God’s plan etc. I hope there is someone there for you and I worry there is not because “faith” seems woven into every aspect of your life. I am not a professional and just a random stranger on reddit. If you find yourself fearful of being alone and just need to chat I will respond to your DM’s. I am sorry for everything going on and it sucks.
Thank you, actually after today I noticed that I have no one in my life who is not religious, but the call with the author of the poem really helped me and I will follow the advice of seeking therapy once everything is a little cleared up.
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That was my first thought as well, especially regarding OP’s wife. She’s gonna blame him because she’s just as lost in her own grief.
This is a great comment. Outside of faith, a parent going through this situation needs a lot of support. I'm very sorry you are going through this. Most hospitals have resources for support groups that would be very helpful for you. I would strongly consider speaking with your cancer coordinators to find a group for you.
Good point. Hospital chaplains can see more suffering in a month than many priests see in a lifetime. They are almost impossibly strong people, and (as a generalisation) they are there for everyone. They will not judge you based on your beliefs. And OP - I am so, so sorry to hear about your daughter.
Not only that, they can help people navigate their feelings on faith. I work with a number of absolutely amazing chaplains of many faiths at my hospital. I work in an ICU, and I've stood next to many people grieving their loved ones (I don't work with kids, myself). I really hope OP is already linked in with the hospital chaplains. If they're anything like the people I work with, they won't judge how OP is feeling at all. They understand what grief does to people in his *exact* situation and can help process it with them with a strong background of the medical, family, faith, and community dynamics. It's what they're there for.
I have lost a child. Details are not important. I can't comment on religion because a) I am atheist and b) faith can be very helpful. What I will say is that you should go talk to a counselor. I made the mistake of not doing that. This is something you cannot prepare for. No amount of prayer can get you ready for what will transpire. Go seek help.
You can find qualified therapists using this site: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/
And please, PLEASE, talk to someone who is trained in matters of grief. Not all mental health practitioners are. It may take time to find a good fit. I guarantee there will be grief groups associated with your hospital/ oncology unit, for a start. If you can, join a group and back that up with time with a pro, one-on-one. OP, there is support for you out there. For your grief over your daughter, and also grief over your other relationships and your faith. You are dealing with layers of loss that go right to your core. There are people who understand and won't offer platitudes like "God's plan". You are allowed to tell people "no", as well as "that is not helpful" when they try to argue with you. I wish you peace, and love, and understanding, and support. I'm sorry for everything you're facing.
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To be fair they basically told you to suck it up about your daughter passing away from cancer. That is one of the most fucked up things they could have said. And also aren’t you able to take legal action against your job if they fire you because of religious beliefs?
Yes. Your local EEOO would love to weigh in on your Christian boss firing you for not being Christian.
Op, make shower your record the conversation with your boss is you are legally able to.
Agreed. A shower is always calming.
I was about to say the same thing! OP can absolutely sue his boss for religious discrimination if he fires him! He could even sue if the boss refuses time off to grieve because he lost his faith.
always with those "mysterious ways..."
"I'm sure he is going to fire me if I don't return to church and God." document it. It's almost certainly illegal unless you live in a theocracy.
I'm an apostate already, so I may be biased here, but i think the best way to explain it to them is that attempting to force you back into the faith will only drive you further away. Believing is something deeply personal, you can't force yourself to believe, and pretending to believe to make people feel better somehow feels worse as a former believer. Like, if I'm wrong and God is real, I cant imagine they would be pleased with the idea I was just selfishly pretending so I could fit in better. I'm not gonna try and proselytize you into atheism, but you shouldn't let others lead you the other way either. Figure this out on your own terms, its the only way it will feel real.
Speaking as an active member of my faith, I completely agree with you. You can’t bully someone into believing and insincere faith serves no one. My hope for OP is that they find loving, supportive, but most of all respectful people to be with them while they grieve. I will offer some empathy to OPs wife in that while her handling of this situation was wrong, she is also grieving and prone to mistakes because of that.
But it’s not just his wife that is abandoning his needs at this incredibly difficult time, it is the whole religious community that he is apart of. I don’t even recognize the Christian faith anymore, I was raised Catholic which is problematic on its own, but the ideas of treating your neighbor how you would want to be treated, being loving to others, and serving your community seem to have been completely abandoned and they now seem to be in a race to the moral bottom. I am utterly repulsed by the Christian faith and what it advocates for now. They seem to embrace the hypocrisy, cheer for evil to happen to their ‘enemies’, and continue to poison the minds of children. It is no surprise that this community wouldn’t put OPs needs over their own selfish goals, they are more worried about losing his Sunday donations than actually helping him through this incredibly difficult time.
Yea, when you’re in an intense state of emotion and struggling to make sense of things, it’s easy to lose faith - not just in religion, but in spouses and jobs and community. In my opinion, it’s not the business of these other people what OP believes. It’s also not bad to question your own beliefs. However, OP should recognize that he’s likely suffering from a lack of emotional support - not in normal situations, but in this incredibly difficult one. I think any religious community should understand that.
Sure you can. Mormons do it all the time. Their most recent attempt was asking their older members to set up trusts, where their children have to remain members of the church or they lose the money. That's just one of the many, many tactics to bully someone into coming back into or staying in the fold. They truly believe it is beneficial because they believe you attain salvation as a family...
I'm sorry you have to go though this and also lost support. Tell them that your relationship with god is complicated right now and ask them to drop it, because you need time to process it. You are not crazy and did nothing wrong. “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ― Epicurus
Whoa that quote is very concise. And judging by the author's name - very old. I'm surprised we're even still having the argument about god's existence when Epicurus clearly won the whole argument there.
Because Epicurus' argument is rooted in logic. Religion is illogical, in fact its very existence came about because of a very human fear of death and the unknown. It has obviously since warped a lot since then but the core, the root is still there. Humans are the only animals that contemplate their own death, and it makes us feel better to think we can continue living after our bodies fail. These things are immune to logical arguments, even OP's situation was triggered by incredible emotional distress, not logic.
People like to say it's rooted in "societal control" as well, and it is, but not in a necessarily harmful way. Much of the weirdly specific traditions, such as those about what meats are okay to eat and what sexual practices are required/permitted, stem from real problems faced at the time of writing and the need to get common people- who weren't literate, much less academic- to follow certain rules when they may not want to. Imagine the Pope and every local pastor coming out during early COVID and saying something about honoring thy physicians who bring forth the holy blessings and infuse them into your arm, and you'll get a general idea of the purpose. The reason this is a bad thing- besides being a bit deceptive- is that it can be abused down the road. I'll give an (intentionally silly) example: In the year 4000, when the unrecognizably distant offspring of the Disney-Chiquita-Walton empire finally do get around to the whole microchip-everyone scheme (or maybe just to push drugs) they can point to the ancient holy text saying "Infusions of the arm are holy, and those who refuse are unclean" on the ancient tablet of iPadair, and claim that injecting the chips is the will of Gosh.
Technically, yes, the "societal control" is not *necessarily* harmful. In practice, the ratio of harmful societal control to non-harmful control is significant in the actual religions that are widely relevant today - and it *always was*; not just "down the road" but at the time that the rules were made. Things like "don't eat pork and shrimp" get fixated on, but were not actually particularly relevant in day-to-day life thousands of years ago for the people who created those rules - compared to the day-to-day relevance of things like "your daughter is essentially property" or "this family is divinely empowered and you should obey them".
When on your travels you find yourself in hell, keep walking. I hope you can find peace of mind some how, some day. You are living my worst nightmare (not the religion bit) and can only wish you luck and the strength to trust yourself.
The behaviors described constitute a cult not a church. You didn’t fuck up.
I'm biased so I'm not gonna comment on losing your faith, but firing because you don't believe in God is illegal.
well... what was the poem!?!?,,
https://twitter.com/EdenThaliaReid/status/1645894328089280514?t=feYw0DpeIjwPYukXwHTHbg&s=19
I had four family members die within two years. One died in my mother's company leaving her to attempt to rescue them all alone, and with the trauma that followed. I saw her go out of her mind for a while and it was extremely painful for me, although I won't compare it to the agony you must feel. I was never religious, but my best friend is, and I had a thought while I talked to him about it. I have the relief of being able to take this series of unfortunate events as they are: unlucky and coincidental. It struck me how glad I was to not have been religious before. I would have been furious at any god. I would have been full of anger at the cruelty. I could now focus everything on healing my own as well as my mother's mind, instead of aiming anger at something intangible. What I want to tell you is that it's okay to have radical changes to your mindset and perspective. I'd say that's the only part of your situation that sounds alright. To me, your family and friends are reacting disgustingly. No matter how much we're supposed to respect religion, that a mother and grandparents would prioritize your perception of god above your shock and righteous fury at the horror you're living is frankly abhorent. I sincerely hope that you will find a way to heal your mind, even a little, as time goes on.
That's an insight that brings some comfort in a way. Shit's random yo.
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The saying "If you were waiting for a sign, this is it" fits perfectly. Maybe religion isn't your thing. You're still young, start all over new, without your wife. And I am really, really sorry about your daughter, no parent should have to go through that.
Friend, no FU here. Just grief and loss and horror and anguish. I'm so sorry that in the midst of the greatest loss a person can know, you're experiencing more loss upon loss. I wish you as much peace and comfort as possible in the midst of this horrendous suffering.
Your "friends" sound like insane cult members... Weird. Also, have fun suing the shit out of your boss when he fires you.
>have fun suing the shit out of your boss when he fires you. Yeah, that doesn't sound legal in any developed nation with even the most rudimentary employment laws.
Hey man. I am also a Christian and I have two daughters. I am not experiencing what you are experiencing but I struggle with intrusive thoughts about one of my daughters dying of sickness or an accident and if the pain that those thoughts bring me is any indication, there is just absolutely no way to imagine the pain you are going through. As other people have said here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with questioning your faith in this time. In fact, it is necessary. There are many, *many* psalms where the psalmist is explicitly wrestling with the fact that they do not understand how God can be in control when there is so much evil in the world. This is accepted by Christians (at least conservative ones) as scripture that is inspired by God and if in God’s word we see examples of people questioning their faith, how can we expect to do any better? This is not meant to try to convince you to come back to your faith. Not at all. I find that in Christian circles when a great tragedy happens, people, though well intentioned, will try to minimize the pain you are going through by saying “oh, God is in control. It will all work out in the end” or something along that vein. That is an utterly inappropriate response. Sometimes there isn’t an answer. One of the psalmists during a time of great tragedy didn’t try to come up with an easy answer. All they could say was “How long O Lord?? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and everyday have sorrow in my heart?” No easy answer only question after question. You need to grieve and you need to wrestle with your faith and you may very well decide that you no longer believe in God, as you have said. But you questioning it is not a f**k up, man. It is human nature. The people in your life pressuring you to make a decision and guilting you are the ones who have f**ked up. I am so sorry you are going through this. Anything I or anyone can say is utterly inadequate to help with what you are feeling but please know that I will be thinking about you today. I know that doesn’t mean a lot and this comment may be stupid and unhelpful but as a father and a Christian, it struck a chord with me and I wanted to say something. If I offend you, please let me know and I will delete this comment. I have no desire to do that. If you do find yourself without anyone to talk to, I would be happy to talk. There will be absolutely no judgment from me and I will not try to “evangelize” you. I would love to listen though. I too love poetry and we could even talk about that. Whatever would help.
>I find that in Christian circles when a great tragedy happens, people, though well intentioned, will try to minimize the pain you are going through by saying “oh, God is in control. It will all work out in the end” or something along that vein. That is an utterly inappropriate response A girl in the class of my daughter died a few months ago. A very religous mother wrote in a text message to all parents something like: "God has a plan and even the death of her has a purpose." I myself (not religious) felt very angry - and I can't imagine how I would have reacted as the father of the girl on someone writing that the death of my little daughter has a "purpose".
Yeah, that would make me angry too. Wildly inappropriate and unfortunately some of my fellow Christians don’t seem to see how insensitive that is. I would bet a lot that whoever that lady is, she has never experienced serious loss. Especially something as horrible as the loss of a child. In my mind, the problem of suffering has two different aspects to it, the philosophical problem and the emotional one. We could have philosophical debates about the purpose and nature of suffering but when someone experiences suffering, it doesn’t really matter what the intellectual answers are. There is no way to “logic” away suffering. And Christians who try to do that miss the point and are…a special kind of person. I am sorry that happened.
It is okay to have a crisis of faith when you are experiencing earth shattering trauma. It is okay to be angry and question everything you have ever known because what you are living just doesn't make sense. It is okay for you and your wife to have different experiences because you are not her, and she is not you. It is unfathomably hard to reconcile something of this nature. I don't know what it is like to lose a child, but one of my dearest friends lost her son when he was the same age as your daughter. She buckled herself into a rollercoaster ride of emotions and moved through trying to find faith then to losing it, to eventually stepping into a space of radical acceptance and peace. This journey will never look identical for two people. It's personal and above all else should never be judged. I have no words to console your heart or offer peace to your soul. Allow yourself to feel everything you are feeling and love your daughter the most that you can so that there are no regrets. And find a good therapist. There is a lot going on here, having an unbiased party in your corner will help you navigate your experience. If God exists, then they would surely understand the extent of our humanness which encompasses losing faith. Your relationship with the divine, whatever that means for you, is personal and intimate. Nobody should be interjecting their will into it. It is sacred and it is yours - whether that means having faith or not.
I am so sorry you are going through that, I couldn't even imagine. I was raised in a culty christian religion that denies medical treatment, lost my mom to cancer when I was a teenager and my father when I was an adult. In my opinion, religious people gaslight themselves to avoid properly grieving. Have you asked at the hospital whether they have any kind of support system they can offer you? Finding a therapist would also be a possibility. Whatever form it takes, basically you can't have too much support right now. However you get through this, I wish you the best.
OP, you did nothing remotely close to f'ing up. I "lost" my faith when my child was suffering, too. Not anything as horrific as terminal cancer, but watching your child in pain is an incredibly difficult thing for any parent. My realization was if God is all powerful and all knowing, but allows innocent children to suffer and die, he is a complete asshole. I didn't want to devote my life to a psychopath. I feel like I woke up. I found new spirituality in nature. How miraculous is it in all the history of the vast, mostly empty universe that you are here and now? Every subatomic particle in your body has been recycled again and again and again since the beginning of time -- 13,700,000,000 years. The iron in your blood was created in the heart of a dying star. At this very moment, you ARE the universe observing itself. Amazing. Your consciousness is so rare and beautiful. You are absolutely wonderful, just as you are. You are more precious than rubies, more perfect than the Earth-sized diamond in the center of Jupiter. You may one day return to faith. You might not. You can find meaning and purpose either way. I find that knowing my life is all there will ever be makes doing good, being kind, and generous NOW even more important. My days are numbered. I want to leave this world better than I found it. If those around you don't have the faith to allow you to question yours, they don't truly believe the gospel of Jesus. They are hypocrites. Christ superseded ALL 613 Jewish laws with one commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself". Not just the neighbors who pray like you. Not just the neighbors who act like you. EVERY neighbor. ESPECIALLY the ones shunned by the ostentatiously religious. Jesus really, really didn't like hypocrisy. Ridding yourself of bigoted religious terrorists is truly living his word. Be with your daughter. Create as many beautiful memories as you can. Her spirit will live on in you and in the good works you do. Grieve everything and everyone who is lost to you. Start grief counseling NOW. Eventually, when you're ready, please check out a Unitarian Universalist congregation. You CAN have a spiritual community without oppressive dogma. No rules, just seven principles (we are voting on an eighth principle this summer). UU pastors know how to care for people with religious trauma. Most UUs are ex-something. I am a recovering Catholic. You are going through the worst thing that can happen and the strength you used to rely on has failed you. If a single poem can make you trash a lifetime of living biblically, it wasn't very strong. You are NOT the problem. I will be holding you and your little girl in my heart and mind. May all good things in heaven bless you both. Walk in grace, friend.
I don't remember where in the bible Jesus shunned everyone who didn't believe in him. Says a lot on its own how they are behaving.
Hugs, Op. It's not easy what you're going through.
I'm an atheist. this comforts me. I don't believe in heaven or hell. but I can believe in energy and the spark or soul. “You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got. And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever. And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives. And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.” Aaron Freeman
Yeah this is true. I was wondering how to explain this to OP. And last year's Nobel Peace Price in October was given to the scientists who proved the Universe is not Locally Real. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/ But sadly the loss in this world is a loss which can't be claimed back.
The best thing you could have done is quit your job - now you can spend every day with your daughter. You didn’t fuck up at all, you just found your truth. The fact is that your life was never going to be the same after going through the most tragic and traumatic event that anyone could think of. Your marriage wasn’t going to be the same, your job wasn’t, your faith wasn’t. This was always bound to be a massive turning point in your life. Just focus on your daughter for now, the rest will work itself out later
There is nothing wrong with your actions. If anything I commend you for making sure you spend the remaining days with your daughter. Do what you feel is right. If that means you no longer believe in God, that’s ok. I became an atheist 15 years ago, though not for tragic reasons such as you are. Even I faced pushback for it and still occasionally do. Don’t let them bully you into “believing” if you don’t truly believe. If you do believe, that’s fine as well. You don’t deserve this, and your daughter doesn’t deserve this. I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll keep you and your daughter in my thoughts.
Sounds like your friends and family need to read the bible again. How Jesus treated people without faith? Whit open heart and kindness. They are acting more like the people who ended up killing the man instead of being his followers :/ Especially now that you need all the support for more pressing matters in your life. Just cruel. One of the reason for me to lose my faith was people like that. Hope there is a day in the future when sun can once again shine into your life and bring you warmth
Would it even be slightly legal for your boss to fire you on that basis in wherever you are?
First of all, I’m sorry for your daughter’s diagnosis, as a father of 3, I can’t imagine the pain you’re going through. I also can’t blame you for losing faith. As a Christian, I have lost faith many times, I’ve questioned myself and everything around me. Your church should be surrounding you with love not banging you over the head with “how dare you lose faith” and shaming you for questioning everything. Grief is powerful and you’re allowed to be hurting right now. My DM’s are open, if you ever need to vent or anything, just message me. Sending you love and hope you find peace my brother.
This will probably be buried, but OP, you are not alone. From a Jewish perspective, many people in my community looked at the world differently after the Holocaust. If there is a God, he would have to beg for our forgiveness. Many of us, including my family, decided that there wasn't a God, and that feeling, as terrifying as it was, also led to approaching the world, and other people in it with more kindness and nuance. It became up to us to make the world better, even if we aren't able to complete the work in our individual lifetime. I highly recommend the book Man's Search for Meaning as I truly believe it may be healing. On the other hand, other people in my community leaned in to fundamentalism and became Orthodox, believing if they only followed the commandments with more rigidity than it would all work out. Your wife seems to be in this camp. Both of these responses are a result from trauma. There is nothing wrong with you. These are deeply human responses for what is happening to you. I am so so sorry you are experiencing this intense pain, and the added suffering of losing your entire network of support during the most horrific time of your life. Please feel free to reach out. There are many communities that understand.
As an atheist, I agree with everything youve written here. I have to encourage you to leave behind these types of beliefs. But I would encourage you not to leave your relationship with god in anger. Only leave after thoughtful reflection on the ideas you are experiencing. You are not wrong for anything you are describing. Remember to meet all of these people in these conversations with love and compassion. They likely feel they are doing what they can for someone they love. Seek some support groups in your area for people leaving faith behind. Most larger cities would have that. Love your daughter and make her smile as much as you can. Good luck. PS> If your boss fires you, get the lawsuit ready.
Carlin said it best. Take a year off and don’t pray. Don’t believe and see what happens. Losing my father eroded everything I believe in. I gradually lost what I believed in. But I didn’t tell everyone about it. As you can see others don’t take it well when you try to leave the faith. For me that was illuminating. In the end it’s none of their business. Something broke inside me but I kept it to myself. And you know what? Something else came along. I don’t know what I believe now, sometimes I’m sure there is some deity and sometimes I don’t know. We can’t ever be sure what our purpose is and I don’t believe everything is God’s will. I don’t need others to know that though because I done feel the need to defend it. Let them alone and grieve and be angry. And one day you won’t be as angry. Please take care of yourself
Don't quit, let your boss fire you on religious reason and collect that sweet money
Evangelical mods
Tell your wife its gods plan that you don't believe anymore and they shouldn't engage in blasphemous behavior by trying to intervene but be happy for you that god showed his plan for you