Hello, atheists! Thanks for reading this!
As you probably know, I’m a Christian.
Wait! Come back! I won’t try to convert you!
Even better: I (along with my incomprehensibly vast company of Christian readers) will actually listen to you.
Oh, stop it. A Christian actually listening to you isn’t that rare.
Now then, here’s my Big Question to you: As a zero-tolerance-for-God sort of person, how do you process your guilt? I promise I’m not being facetious, or playing any kind of ”Let’s trap the atheist” game; I’m genuinely curious. For the first 38 years of my life I was most emphatically not a Christian—I was and remain a huge fan of philosophy generally, Zen Buddhism particularly, and what I guess you could call the religion of art—and I never used to know what to do with my guilt.
I mostly just waited for it to fade away, and then disappear altogether.
Except my experience was that my guilt never faded away and disappeared altogether. Despite my determined efforts to shun it, it always just sort of … remained, hanging around inside me like some creepy, vaporous organ I could have totally lived without, disturbing my sleep.
Anyway, what I always did when I got serious about my guilt was to passionately resolve to do better. If I treated my wife snarkily, or … I don’t know … took too many long lunches at my job, or spent money I shouldn’t have buying booze or pot and then behaving in ways even less likely to win me any Husband of the Year award, I always fervently resolved to change my ways.
“That’s it! ” I would cry. “From this moment forth, I shall be a veritable pillar of strength! Strong! Resolute! Incorruptible! Insusceptible to temptation! I will become a man worthy of the woman I married!”
But, then … you know: Who can take a lunch in half an hour? I’m a chewer.
And am I not supposed to ever buy beer?
And if a friend of mine in the parking lot of the factory I work in offers to get me high before my shift starts, then … well, then I’ll be sittin’ in that guy’s car sharing whatever he’s got faster than you can say, “Um. Dude. Is that clock right?”
The point is: I personally always had exactly zilch in the Exert Your Will To Better Yourself department.
Which inevitably left me again suffering new, fresh guilt over the way I’d treated my wife, or my money, or my employer, or my body, or some other confounded thing or another.
And you, atheist, surely suffer guilt as I did. I know we Christians can sometimes seem awfully arrogant, but we’re not so arrogant that we think only we possess a conscience. We know that everyone has one.
We know what any fool does: All people hold within them expectations and desire for themselves that they constantly and inevitably fail to live up to.
We know that that’s one of the pains of everyone’s life. (Or we should know it, anyway, since it’s true.)
So. If you’re an atheist (or even a New Ager, if you would) what do you do with the guilt that you engender in yourself whenever, at someone else’s cost, you act selfishly, or greedily, or harshly, or arrogantly, or … secretly bad? (And please don’t say you never act that way, or never suffer guilt if you do. Even if you do think that, don’t ever say it. No one over the age of six will believe you. Well. Four.)
I daresay you know what we Christians do with our guilt. (Though I have to say how likely I think it is that you actually don’t know that. Which isn’t your fault! But it’s a fact that if we Christians have long failed at anything, it’s making clear to non-Christians what exactly we mean when we use words such as “repentance” and “confession.” Unless you’ve spent considerable time studying, reflecting upon, and actually experiencing what Christians mean by, say, those two particular words, trust that your relationship to them is equal to the relationship a person looking at a diorama of an African veldt has to actually being on an African veldt.)
So, again: How, atheist (or New Ager), do you process your guilt? What is the means by which, after you have in effect soiled yourself, you come to feel clean again?
And to again be clear: All respect to you. I’m truly curious.
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That’s a very good question. I suppose that I handle guilt through a combination of introspection and decided action. I understand that guilt is the manifestation of my unconscious believing that I’ve done bad. I know that my subconscious mind is not inherently right or wrong; it is simply a quilt of ideas – some ideas being innate, others learned. Knowing this, I try to identify what it is that I’m feeling guilty about. Often, I have been influenced to believe that i’ve done evil even when I haven’t (the perfect example of this is the pangs I’ve felt for having left Christianity). If I can idenifity what outside of me has caused this unsubstantiated guilt, I try to submlime it to anger, instead, and then go for a jog to get the frustration out. If I have indeed done something wrong, I usually have subconsciously catastrophized my misdeed. I remind myself of the mitigating factors that led to my mistake and how what I’ve done is not the end of the world. Then, I decide how I can do better in the future and/or what action I can take to remedy any damages I’ve caused. After admitting that I’ve made a mistake and deciding to take corrective action, the guilt disappears.
Hello….
I'm an atheist
I don't believe the existence of god
The only way to retrieve myself of guilt or to absolve my soul of sins, I search within myself.
There is peace in every man's heart. There is conscience. You don't need religion to tell you that….
Thanks.
fuseart@yahoo.com
boegil: I agree with you: no one needs God to realize they have a conscience.
We feel guilty because there’s a problem in our relationship with other people. We did something our friends, coworkers, loved ones, or the police wouldn’t approve of. What we did might have made their lives a little more difficult, or we have to keep our misdeeds secret from them, or both. Those things rightly make us feel stressed. When we confess to them, and they forgive us, we know they’re still okay with us, and our relationship is stable and cozy again. Maintaining stable relationships was vital to our ancestors, probably all the way back to the dinosaurs. So it’s reasonable that having an, honest, open, strong relationship is deeply satisfying in the same way that eating and breathing are.
In the case of an atheist, apparently she can live comfortably in a community of mortals. We don’t need an ultimate person. At least, that’s the situation happy atheists are in. God help the ones with crappy relationships and no one to turn to.
For guilt about personal failures, which don’t affect other people, I’d say there’s no such thing. If I lived alone on an island, with no hope of ever helping or impressing another person, I’d never experience guilt.
Hello people,
I have to confess (no pun intended) that I haven’t read all the comments on this article so I may be redundant…if so please forgive (oops! there I go again). My observation here (with acknowledgment to CS Lewis) is that everyone, atheist, deist, Christian, whatever, seems to be operating on the unstated agreement that we share some basic notions of right and wrong, at least in the broadest terms. Without an admission that there is a standard of right and wrong by which we judge the actions, thoughts, intents, of ourselves and others we can hardly be expected to experience guilt or the desire for forgiveness because we would hold ourselves AND EVERYONE ELSE blameless by default. Saying to ourselves “I forgive me because nobody’s perfect and I’m gonna try harder to be good” forces us to extend that privilege to everyone else as well regardless of what they have done to us personally or to mankind as a whole. Part of the equation has to be how we respond when WE are the injured party. When wronged (in whatever way we define it) most of us have some desire to see justice prevail; otherwise we’d never complain that something was unfair or just plain wrong. We want the guilty party to make it right. Resolved guilt then results when the offended party receives satisfaction for a very real offense against him or her and releases the offender from all present or future liability. The atheist, living as he must in his world where ALL morality, ethics and definition of right and wrong ultimately resolves down to personal preference and majority rule can never truly resolve or be resolved of his guilt because he will not or cannot acknowledge a moral law OUTSIDE and APART from himself that tells him he has done wrong or that wrong has been done to him because then he must grapple with the question of where this moral law comes from, what does this law demand, who is the lawgiver and what authority does that law/lawgiver have over him in the first place. The question to me then boils down to “Is there actually Someone in the place of authority over us and within his right to hold us to a standard of morality and is this Someone offended when we deliberately violate that standard?” Whether we BELIEVE in this Someone or not does not affect the reality of the Someone’s existence or moral authority over us one whit. The experience of guilt familiar each one of us tells me that the answer to that questiojn is very much YES.
Tog: Sorry, don’t know what comment you’re referring to–which one you left before somewhere that I didn’t reply to.
If it’s any help, in this blog SOMEWHERE, to someone saying something about Buddhism, I replied this:
“…. And I certainly do agree with you that Christianity and Buddhism are not incompatible. I’m a huge fan of Zen Buddhism, which I practiced and studied for many years.”
John Wrote:
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amends to anyone we’ve wronged. The difference between non-Christians and Christians is that a Christian ALSO, in private, turns to God–or, more specifically, to Christ, whom he or she understands as the very spirit of humanity–and asks for the strength and wisdom not to AGAIN offend in that way. And asks to be forgiven not just relatively (as he or she was relative to the person they offended), but also, even, absolutely, via God.
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John, you didn’t reply to my last comment, where I corrected you about repentance in Buddhism. (I have been a practicing Buddhist for 28 years now.)
You bring up another fallacy. Christians are not alone in receiving and absolute power in private, asking for the guidance of compassion and wisdom. We have a multitude of Ultimate personages to commune with, each focusing on specific areas where you may need help. Something like Catholic Saints, which protestants don’t recognzie.
My Tibetan teacher gave me a personal guide, Green Tara. We met the year before and for a whole year, he carried two small bronze figurines for my wife and I and presented them to us a year later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_(Buddhism) She is known as the Buddha of enlightened activity.
We have prayers for wisdom and prayers for compassion, depending are what you might need to strengthen at that moment in time. Manjusuri is the wisdom factor while Avaloketisvara is the compassionate aspect.
What Buddhist recognize, is that any conceptualization we have of the Ultimate is limited, because our finite minds cannot hold the infinite nature of God. Therefor, the way we depict God, is filtered through our limited perceptions. This is why Buddhist cannot USE God as a weapon against others. We can only be USED by her.
Erin: Please go to the front page of this blog–to today’s post, which I just put up–to see my response to your very touching letter.
I’m not sure I can tell you anything to make you feel better. Are you responsible for your husband’s suicide? No–that was his choice and his choice alone. Were there things you could’ve done better to be there for him, etc? Maybe–you say yes, so I’ll defer to you. Is God’s forgiveness big enough to cover whatever your sin was in that situation? Absolutely.
The question you seem to be asking, though, is how to not feel so terrible about it anymore, or how to ‘feel’ forgiven. And regardless of all the subtleties and interactions within that relationship, your husband’s death is a terrible and hurtful situation, and I’m sad with you about it. I can’t imagine the hurt you feel at your loss. Unfortunately, the ‘feeling better’ is so subjective there isn’t any one thing I can tell you to make it better. As a Christian I would encourage you to talk to God about it…and be brutally honest with him. He can handle your strongest words and emotions–he’s big that way. I would also encourage you to get some help ‘somewhere’…because you can’t heal in a vacuum. That could be therapy, or a GOOD church/support group, or close friends…but again as a Christian I caution you to be careful who you listen to. Anyone who piles on more guilt or says you need to ‘do’ something to somehow absolve your guilt is not speaking from God or the Bible. At the same time, anyone who dismisses your feelings and/or gives you empty platitudes in hope that you’ll say “Oh! Thanks! I’m fixed now” is just as wrong. Find a place that speaks of grace, healing, and protection…someplace you can dig into your deepest feelings and feel safe, because healing is painful and usually takes a while. You can’t do it if you don’t feel safe. I’m lucky to have a home church that offers all sorts of support to people with various ‘issues,’ and I have had lots of help in general in the form of therapy, friends, etc. I know the help is out there, because I’ve received so much of it.
I should probably qualify this since it’s on an atheist-related post…and I say this with respect. If you are an atheist, or you are thinking long and hard about whether or not God exists amidst your profound pain, one option is to decide that he doesn’t. You did something you regret, we’re not perfect, and certainly no one’s going to condemn you for not being perfect, and maybe that can give you the comfort you need to ‘move on’ with life. Which is certainly your prerogative…but even if that is the case, you’re still hurting, and I still encourage you to find someplace to help you work out your hurt. Therapy, a support group, friends, etc…pretty much everything I said before but in this instance you wouldn’t need to look for ‘Christian’ anything.
Obviously since I’m a Christian I vote for the former–I feel that not only does God exist and wants to help you through this, he wants to know you, and for you to heal and be able to live your life without a constant oppressive guilt-feeling. And please understand, I’m not just giving religious lip service–I really. do. believe. that is the case.
Regardless of the path you take, I hope you are able to work through your hurt somehow and come out alive, functional, and healed on the other end.
What happens when you do something that you can’t get forgiveness for?
My husband committed suicide three years, four months, and 14 days ago. He needed me, and I wasn’t there. I was too wounded, I was masking it, I pushed him away and he couldn’t hold on. I left him at the precise moment he needed me the most.
He is gone, forever gone. I’ll never see him, we’ll never speak, I can never say I’m sorry. He can never forgive me. I will live with it forever.
I asked God to forgive me, so I guess he did, right? Great. Honestly. But in this lifetime, I don’t imagine I’ll ever feel any better for knowing that. I can’t go back and change things. I did not do everything I could have done. I am guilty, trust me on this one. I can’t forgive myself. That’s what guilt is right? So, really there is no way to process it.
Also wanted to add that research has been done into what I described as my being at one with the universe. Scientists have been able to duplicate that “God” experience in the lab using a helmet.It could be decreased activity in the brain’s parietal lobe,which helps regulate the sense of self and physical orientation.Religion prompts divine feelings of love and compassion possibly because of changes in the frontal lobe caused by heightened concentration during meditation.The brain is set up in such a way to have spiritual and religious experiences. The brain is predisposed to having these experiences and that’s why so many people believe in God. Believers are offended by the notion that God is a creation of the human brain, rather than the other way around.Researchers have taken brain scans of Tibetan Buddhist mediators as they sat immersed in contemplation. After giving them time to sink into a deep trance, they injected them with a radioactive dye. Pattern of the dye’s residues in the brain were later converted to images. Certain areas of the brain were altered during meditation. These areas included the front of the brain that were altered during deep concentration. but found decreased activity in paietal lobe, one of the parts of the brain that helps orient a person in 3 demensional space.. When people have spiritual experiences they feel they become one with the universe and lose their sense of self. Possibly because of what is happening in that area-if you block thAT AREA YOU LOSE THAT BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE SELF AND THE REST OF THE WORLD. rELIGIOUS EXPERiences follow epileptic seisures.Could Jesus’s conversations with God have been a mental delusion?4 in 5 people report a mystical experience, the feeling that there is a sentient being or entity standing behind or near them.Some talk God, others talk of demons or spirits.Religion is a property of the brain, only the brain has little to do with what’s out there. Those who believe the new science disproves the existence of God say they are holding up a mirror to society about the destructive power of religion. Religious wars, fanaticisim andintolerance spring from dogmatic beliefs that particular gods and faiths are unique, rather than facets of iniversal brain chemistry.It truly is irrational and dangerous when we see how religiosity affects us. During times of prosperity we are contented. During times of depression, we go to war. When there isn’t enough food to around , we break into our spiritual tribes and use aor gods as justifications to kill one another.So I am not thrilled with religion or with the hypocritical people that swarm around me. My friend who belongs to a bible study class but will buy thing, wear them then take them bacj to the store , tell them she’s never worn them and gets her money back and has her 17 yr old daughter do this as well. She also has a boyfriend and she is married. She justifys this by the fact that her husband goes to bed at 800 pm and doesn’t give her any attention. She is always telling me the Lord will take care of this and that. It’s nauseating.
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