comforting thoughts
Previously, I had a religious phase. Some of you may remember that. One of the things I believed at that time was that God was terribly interested and very actively involved in every little aspect of life. That led to a lot of frustration and crises of faith, since bad stuff kept happening no matter how hard I prayed or how good I tried to be or how much faith I tried to have. Naturally, the people around me assured me that either I didn't pray hard enough for a miracle or that God had some mysterious good in mind that I couldn't understand. It sucked, because that meant that there was a reason for everything and God never saw fit to tell me. It seemed cruel. I eventually became much more agnostic and oddly enough, that's led to much more peace of mind. See, if God is more distant and lets us mostly do as we please, then the bad stuff is just a natural consequence of people's decisions, or just a natural occurance. Sure, God could still intervene, but if that isn't his way normally, then if he doesn't, no big deal. That's life. For instance, I am incredibly sad about my friend's death, but I don't feel any urge to blame God or ask "why?" Shit happens. Diseases exist, and people get them, and that's just life. God didn't do it, either directly or through a specific decision to let it happen. It just is. That's kind of nice, because I only have sadness to deal with and not guilt or anger. I have had no crisis of faith over it.