Faith is a Necessary Ingredient for Belief

I am currently reading Christopher Kitchen’s book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Page 71 hits home for me especially:

If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe IN something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished.

I have to admit, it is in the area of faith I most struggle with. I don’t believe. I keep trying, again and again and ultimately, I lack the very faith that is needed in order to fully believe in a deity, one that created the earth in six days, one that created man from dust and woman from his ribs, one that determines who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. I simply do not believe that such a deity exists. 

But what does faith mean? Looking it up on Google, I found the following definition: 

strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. 

Apprehension in this case means understanding. Rather than proof, that’s the rub. Faith is the substitute for proof because you need to have faith due to the absence of truth. In fact, in some cases, it is faith DESPITE proof, despite logic. Because if you look at some of these stories logically, they don’t make any sense. In order to make sense of them, you have to have faith. In order to believe, you have to have faith. I don’t have faith. I expect proof. I expect things to make sense and religion has never really made any sense to me despite how hard to try to make it make sense. I ask too many questions, too many difficult questions that no one can answer. And no one ever tries to. Why is that? Because they don’t need the answers, they already  have faith.

To be honest, the better question is why do I need faith? Why do I need to believe? Well, supposedly, it’s so that I don’t go to hell. But I don’t believe in hell either. Or heaven for that matter. When we die, we die. Our existence after death is no different than the existence we had before birth or rather lack thereof. It’s a horrifying thought only because we are alive now and the thought of not being alive can be rather frightening. And yet, there are people incredibly concerned about the state of my soul, more so than I am. And, rather ironically, these are people who should be far more concerned about the state of their own soul as, based on their system of beliefs, they are or have done things that are very much out of line with what they believe and yet, it is MY unbelieving soul they are worried about. Murder, adultery, lying, they can just ask their god for forgiveness and all is good but because I don’t believe, I have an automatic one way ticket to hell that these people feel if they can just get me to believe, if they can just get me to have faith, they will win one over to their side and save my soul from eternal damnation in the process.

If only it were that easy. But it’s not. I don’t have faith. I require proof. I want my morals to have a reason for being besides, “Because god says so!” That doesn't work for me. I need more than that. If anything, the proof has been the opposite. The stories are not based on reality but tales told by a primitive society to explain things that are now mostly explained by science. It is something that provides comfort to people, yes, but it is also something that is used to control people and stagnate process.

And yet, I still struggle with the fact I don’t believe. I fear rejection, something that happened in my own marriage because I did not believe as my husband wanted me to. And so anytime it comes up that someone may look down on me because of my lack of belief, I become very concerned. Trauma is triggered and I become very distraught and emotional, afraid of rejection from anyone who is close to me. I sense a good part of this is because my own belief system is still being formed, raw and unsure from the years of my marriage where I lost love, affection, and intimacy because I failed to believe.

However, the more I try to believe, the less I am able to. I search and I read and I end up determining that I cannot believe that which others want me to believe. It is too out there for me and the lack of evidence doesn’t help. There is no evidence for much of what is in the Bible. There simply isn’t. Belief requires faith and faith is something I just do not have.

The Final Countdown

🎶 He's leavin' for Korea

But still it's farewell

And maybe he'll come back

To the US, who can tell?

I guess there is no one to blame

He's leaving ground (leaving ground)

Will things ever be the same again?

It's the final countdown

The final countdown 🎶

I couldn't resist.

After less than 18 months in the United States, John is heading back to South Korea. It didn't take much. High inflation, housing prices, lack of connection with his children, all of these things pushed him to decide it just wasn't working out here and he would do better as a parent sending money from afar. 

Not that he really did all that much to try and connect with his children while he was here. But really, being here just kept him from doing what he enjoyed which was experiencing another culture, learning another language, and teaching ESL.

It's hard to not be bitter about it. It's hard not to feel that this is his way of punishing me for ending our marriage, by making sure I had to take care of the children and everything on my own. However, it sort of backfired on him because leaving for almost three years, the girls and I have become quite close and he lost the relationship he had with Isabelle. He blames me for that, that he's not close to either of them but even after he returned, he didn't make that much of an effort towards their relationship. He expected it to be easy, just as he did with our marriage, and he took them for granted.

And now he's leaving again. The girls are happy about it. I have a lot of mixed feelings. Nothing towards him personally, those feelings are dead and buried six feet under. But I hate how easy it seems for him to just leave, with no concrete plans as to when he will return. I strongly suspect that one of these times, he is not going to come back. He's just going to stay over there forever. I mean, why would he? Things aren't easy here right now. Over there, for him, they are much easier. As far as that all goes, I can't really blame him. It just puts this huge ass load on me that at times is just completely and utterly exhausting. 

But he never really did take on his share of the parenting. It was always on me to do it all and usually while also making sure he functions so that he didn't lose his job and out is into an even worse situation. So at least over there, he's a little more stable. Over there, he's not my concern so long as the child support gets here.

I know I got through all of this before and Natalie was the age Isabelle is now and Isabelle was in middle school. I was still working in the office and I had a lousy car and there were a lot of things I didn't know them that I know now. I have gotten through it all before and I have no doubt I can get through it again. I mean, we got through a pandemic for crying out loud. But it is definitely not going to be easy. There will probably be a lot of tears and a lot of anger towards him I won't be able to express to him. The resentment at times will come up and those will all be feelings I will have to deal with. I will have to juggle my job and the girls and figure out how I'm going to do it all when there really isn't anyone there for me to rely on. 

And at times, the utter loneliness will be hard as fuck to deal with. Because that's one of those things about having a co-parent and a spouse (if you're lucky), having someone to help carry some of that weight of day to day living, day to day taking care of the kids. Without one, you're just swimming in that vast ocean of life on your own, trying not to drown in the waves.

The necessity of having strong personal moral values.

Moral values tend to come up a lot when discussing the difference between believers and non-believers. It's often believed that non-believers do not have any values at all. That's simply not true. Us non-believers do have values; we do have morals. However, they are not based on a single text as it can be with many believers. That is not to say a non-believer can't draw morals from that single text because they certainly can. However, there are many places one can find morals and values to draw from. The important thing is that we decide what those morals and values are and stick to them.

If there is anything I have learned from life is that without deeply held personal morals, we are subject to the waves and winds of life, at risk of being dragged along by anyone who comes around. We can't always assume that those around us have the best of intentions for us. They might but ultimately, most people tend to think of themselves, their needs and wants, so it is best we go in ahead of time knowing exactly what is important to us, what values we hold dear so that we can stick to those values at those times we are tested by the difficulties and challenges of life that are sure to come at us.

Just because there isn't someone watching over us judging us and deciding on our final destination after death doesn't mean we can get off scott free here. Our values define who we are and the kind of person we want to be. Our conscious judges us and that can be just as bad if not worse than the idea of any deity judging us. After all, you're stuck with yourself for life. You should be able to at least like yourself.

I'm finding more and more the importance of this when I contemplate going back out into the dating world again. In the past, my morals haven't been very strong. I allowed things that in reality, I resented greatly. And the result of that was to be married to someone I found I really did not like. And now, I definitely don't like him. If I were to meet him at this stage of my life, I probably would not have gotten involved with him or would likely break the relationship off before it became too serious. I learned that certain things can be a big red flag and not to see just what I want to see but to look at if this person's values are compatible with my own.

It's not easy. I have spent much of my life being a people pleaser. I want people to like me, I want to be accepted. And sometimes, that has meant ignoring that little voice in my head that says something is not right here. Sometimes that has meant staying in something that wasn't good for me such as my marriage for far longer than I should have. Sometimes that has meant ignoring my needs and not taking care of them as I should. And by doing all of that, I'm not creating a life that is worth living for me. Instead, I'm placing myself into a hell of my own making and that's really not a good place to be.

So yes, morals and values should be important to non-believers. Not because there is some all seeing deity watching us like a creepy stalker but because going against those values do us more harm than good. But we can't even begin to defend those morals and values until we know what they are. That's the important piece of the puzzle.

Father's Day is never an easy day for me...

 ... neither is Mother's Day but Father's Day in particular is hard because it is just before the anniversary and tends to trigger the beginnings of the grief I tend to go through as that time draws near. 

This year, my mother called two days before and towards the end of our conversation, happened to mention that my dad was feeling lonely, that he feels forgotten by the Wisconsin side of his family (my sister and I) and would like to hear from us. I told her I would see but that this month is kind of difficult for that. 

She talked to my sister afterwards and she said the same thing, maybe but probably not during June because the PTSD tends to get really bad. And this prompted my mom to say she never realized it was that bad for us. And it led me to realize that being where they are, neither are really aware of the impact of that day for us. That we both still struggle with PTSD, that the memory of what happened that day is still very vivid in our mind and can be triggered by any number of things. 

Their current world is very small and narrow and they don't really have any concept of what's going on beyond the prison walls. And because of that, they really don't have an understanding of what it is we go through on a day to day basis. I'm not sure if they struggle with any issues from that day or not. I'm not sure I want to know. 

It's a tricky dance in the mind to have any kind of a relationship with them. That I have one at all is by establishing some pretty firm boundaries. Still, it takes some mental gymnastics to have anything to do with them. My brother hasn't had any contact with my mother since the day she was sentenced over 18 years ago. It was years after before I was able to visit my mother for the first time and I still have not nor do I plan to visit my father. Email is about the extent of it.

June comes and with it more of the reminders, more of the grief and emotions. And so that becomes a struggle and the lines blur and make it harder to connect to them at all.

And no doubt there will be those who wonder why it is even there, why remember, why not move on. And I wish it were that easy. But it's not. Big events like that change the fabric of your life in a monumental way. We still read the names of all those who died on September 11, still have that moment of silence. People are still impacted by what happened that day. This is no different except for the size. Only one person was killed, two families affected but it still is a major event and thus, not one so easily forgotten.

Some not so random thoughts on an Easter Sunday.

I'm currently sitting at work, waiting for calls to come in on a day that for many is a holiday or rather a holy day, one of the big ones the majority of Christians celebrate. To be fair, probably the holy day that differentiates Christians from any other religion. 

It has been years since I had gone to an Easter mass, decades I would say. John celebrated Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, not Easter. And it, like Halloween, was not a hill I really wanted to battle. Besides, the DofUB were a pain enough to deal with with the requirements of having to deleaven the house first and then go an entire week without any leavening at all. I just didn't bother unless the girls wanted to do something with it and then maybe I would put something together but Christmas was always the big one for me. And once I came to identify more as an atheist, I simply didn't see the point.

And so seeing everyone getting together for another holiday, there are a mixture of feelings. On one hand, I still very much struggle with the concept of the existence of a deity at all, much less one so fleshed out as the one in the Bible. There are still too many questions in my head, too many things that do not make any sense to me at all.

And yet, I do feel there is something beyond me. It's hard for me to really explain though. I don't know what it is, just something more. Maybe it's the sense of the vastness of space, of the universe. I don't know. There are things I feel the be true within me, things that are important to me, my values and morals so to speak. What exactly it is connected to, that I'm not so sure about.

It's something I never really got to explore being married to John. With him, I either believed what he believed or nothing. And that certainly didn't make things easy. It was just easier not to believe in anything at all, easier not to figure out what I did believe. Not that it mattered, whether I believed or didn't believe, it was a way for him to be morally superior over me because I didn't believe what he believed and his beliefs were the only true ones.

And now, after being divorced for almost 3 1/2 years and living on my own for close to four, I'm slowly starting to try and figure out just what I believe. It isn't easy. I'm realizing that there is a lot of baggage I carry from my marriage that has some effect. There are a lot of voices out there too. There is no one set of beliefs, one school of thought. There are thousands, perhaps even millions. Figuring out what I believe in the midst of that is a huge challenge.

But I feel it is something I need to figure out for myself in order to be true to myself and be the most authentic me I can be. 

Thoughts about Valentine's Day.

It's that time of year where social media feeds has everyone in a relationship going ga-ga over their significant other. On my fourth Valentine's Day post divorce I can't help but feel a little cynical. To be fair, even when I was with John, Valentine's Day had more issues than romance. Our first Valentine's Day was also our nine month anniversary. John was pulled over while driving on a revoked license. He was arrested. I was with him but couldn't drive so we ended up stranded in a small town in Wisconsin for the next almost 24 hours before we took a bus home. I then promptly dropped out of school to go down to Madison and live with him to help him out. And no one really tried to talk me out of this either which I find very strange now.

Subsequent Valentine's Days ended with John being fired from a job or illness, or something else. So I learned quickly to keep my expectations for that day very low. Nonetheless, who doesn't enjoy a little romance?

But that's kind of the thing. Romance or sex or what have you, but love is so much more than that. It's communication. It's being honest with the person you are with. It's following through on plans and promises you have made. It's commitment.

When I look around at many of the relationships I see today, my former marriage included, I don't see much of that. It is a very rare relationship I see that has this. I find that to be very sad and, to be a little honest, it has me rather cynical at times about the likelihood of finding a healthy and happy relationship of my own. Just doesn't seem very possible.

A Lot of Thoughts on my Mind These Days

Trying this on my phone. We'll see how it works. I've been getting back out there in as far as seeing what the possibilities are relationship wise. It's been eye opening to say the least. There are possibilities I never considered as far as relationships go and it has me asking myself a lot of questions including whether I even want a full time relationship. 

My years with John were difficult and not just for me but for the girls too. We did not feel safe to be who we were. Did not feel safe to explore and figure out what our values were. The last three years plus has given all of us space for that and one concern I continue to have is bringing anyone into that safe space full time, merging that person's life into ours and trying to adjust to their values and their beliefs.

It has me extra sensitive unfortunately. I did not feel safe to assert my independence living at home. Any attempt on my part to grow, to become more independent was met with anger and at times even rage. My parents' response could be very extreme because they wanted that control. So every step to independence was a threat to them.

When the murder happened, it stopped that process cold. I got married and had a family but I traded any desire for independence for a marriage that I became absolutely powerless in. And I played a part in that powerlessness because I was afraid to try and assert any independence. I did that and look what happened. Besides, I was supposed to do my part in being a good wife and independence within a marriage is not good, I thought.

It has taken a lot of years and a ton of therapy to question that and eventually start to have my own mind again. I came to realize that for me, having a life worth living started with becoming more independent so I did not need to rely on someone in my life.

And that was not an easy process. John fought me every single step of the way. He made attempts to sabotage me when I went back to school. He constantly berated me for not doing my duties as a mother and as a wife. He withdrew his affection.

And part of that process in becoming independent was realizing that the marriage could not be saved and part of that process included accepting the fact that I may be alone for the rest of my life if I left John. That that was a risk I would be taking. That I would be doing this alone. That may have been the hardest part for me.

Once I accepted that, I was able to move to the next step of ending the marriage. And for almost two years after that, I dealt with being alone.

And now, that next stage starts. Because I realize that there is a possibility out there, that maybe I can find someone again but with that comes a tremendous fear that I will make the same mistakes as before, that I will become desperate for that love and affection that I will start to give up those pieces of myself that are important to me.

And so at times, those fears have been triggered and a lot of emotions are coming up that I haven't had to deal with being alone. And they are at times very very difficult emotions and I find I am not handling them well.

I'm still trying to figure out who I am and what I believe and what my values are at the age of 41. Most people have this all figured out already but I don't because I never felt safe enough to. And at times, I do wonder if I will ever feel secure enough or safe enough to be fully in a relationship with someone. And right now, I really don't know.

And Yet, the Story Continues...

Fourteen months is entirely too long to update in a mere journal entry. Suffice to say, I'm still here, still moving day by day, still figuring out my place in this world and in this life I have. It's been interesting, to say the least. At one time, I honestly thought once my marriage was over that would be it, I would never have a snowball's chance in hell of ever finding anyone. But, while I'm not sure if I'll be ready to go into a relationship anytime soon, I do have more optimism that that day may come again someday and that John was not my only chance of finding love and being loved.

It is sort of fascinating though how things turn out. How a decision made one day leads to an opportunity another day. And that sometimes, the best thing to do is take a chance, take that risk, and see what happens. I did this when I went back to school, in hopes of getting a degree that would get me a job and help me be more independent whether I remained in my marriage or not. I did this when I decided to no longer wait for someone, that if I someday wanted a relationship, I needed to first go out and figure out what I want instead of just knowing what I did NOT want (there is a difference). And that has brought about some results that has me seeing myself differently and that has been rather empowering.

This year though has not been without it's massive challenges. We are still technically in the middle of a pandemic (though really it's pretty much endemic at this point). Last year the girls schooled virtually for a good part of the year. This was a huge challenge for both of them and they both really really struggled. John finally returned from Korea in April which added its own challenging especially as he has his own beliefs in as far as the pandemic goes and has no issues telling everyone just how he feels about it too whether they want to hear it or not. Tact and diplomacy has never been his strong points. And I don't think it would be so bad if it was adults he would rant to but he instead rants to the girls and they don't know what to do with that. They have to go along with what the adults tell them to do. They want nothing more than for things to be normal and things still aren't totally normal. That's just the reality.

And, while I had hoped that him returning would mean maybe a little more time to myself, a little more of a break, that has yet to materialize. He has no ability to have the girls overnight. He picks them up from school and takes them on occasion for a couple of hours to go bowling or out to eat. That's it. So, still the parent who does it all pretty much except now I deal with accusations that I'm deliberately keeping the girls from him or excluding him from their lives. Someday, I will radically accept that I will never ever win with him. When that day comes, I will be able to leave behind a lot of that stress. Whether that will happen before or AFTER the girls grow up, that remains to be seen.

In the meantime, I keep on keeping on. Somedays, I have my breakdowns and outbursts. But then, I stand up, dust myself off, and continue on. All I can do. I've made it this far having dealt with worse.

I can't do this anymore.

 I'm holding by the very thinnest of threads, trying to scream, my voice silent or it seems to be because no one seems to hear me. Can anyone hear me? I say I'm not doing well. I haven't been able to work for most of this month. I'm lonely, SO damn lonely for human contact, for someone, SOMEONE to give a damn and spend some time with me, actually ask me how I am doing and be there for ME without me having to give SO MUCH in return. I try and I try and I try to give people what they want but I never get back nearly what I give and it hurts, it HURTS. I just want someone to care what actually happens to me. If I were to disappear, would anyone even notice? Would anyone even care? I don't know anymore. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of being strong. I'm ALWAYS having to be strong. I'm sick to death of it. I don't want to be strong and have to keep going on in the face of all this shit. Because no one notices when you're strong, no one is there for you when you're strong. They just ignore you. I'm so tired of doing this all alone. It wasn't supposed to be this way. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Have I not gone through enough in my life? Do I not deserve some fucking happiness? I'm just so so damn tired of it all.

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

It's one of those pivotal events in world history. That moment where, again, the world is turned upside down. Assumptions you had of your world are shaken and you don't quite know what to do. That was September 11th for me. And to this day, I still think it had a major effect on my parents and led to the events that occurred less than 2 years later.

I do remember that day though. I was a resident assistant at the time at the local Catholic university. I had been on rounds the night before and the last set of rounds are at midnight so by the time I got to bed it was pretty late. I was running a little late turning in my pager and the on-call binder so I was rushing. I had an appointment later that morning and needed to get ready. I remember hearing the radio when I came in and putting away the pager and binder. I'm just about to leave when the head of residence life stopped me. He asked if I heard that two planes had been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center. Now, color me a tad clueless because I didn't know exactly what buildings those were but I knew it was a huge deal and the first thought that crossed my head was to call my mom.

I rushed back to my room which was on the fifth floor of the adjoining building. I tried to call my mom (back then, it was still good old landline telephones on the wall with cords) but didn't reach her. I called John, told him to turn on the TV. I called my mom again. This time she answered. I told her what happened and her response was, "What?" in her typical fashion. She did eventually either get the TV on or the radio going and got the news. I still had my appointment so I got ready as did she since she was taking me to my appointment. She picked me up a short time later and we sit in the car and listen to the news on the way to my appointment.

Later, we're back on campus and she's having lunch with me. The large TV in the student union is playing scenes of the towers' collapse over and over. Students are quiet, not boisterously loud as they usually are. It was surreal and I remember sitting with my mom eating lunch and her commenting that it reminded her of when John F. Kennedy was killed. She was a senior in high school at the time.

Another thing I remember that day is how blue and clear the sky was. It was a beautiful September day and any days like that now reminds me of the tragedy. It's hard to believe that it's been 19 years now. My oldest daughter obviously was not yet around, would be another 4 years before she would be born. And they've learned about it, heard about it of course but it's a story to them. In fact, we were watching an episode of Criminal Minds that was on something regarding biological chemical warfare and anthrax was mentioned. I happened to say I remember when all of that went down in 2001. And Natalie looks at me and was just astounded. She thought it was just something made up on a show. No, it was very much real but for these kids, it's just a part of history.

And now, they're living in their own history in the making with Covid-19. All of these stories, all of these things that happen in our lifetimes that become part of the history of the world, but really when it comes down to it, outside of those events, life moves on, people move on, and the world continues.