Uh, here is a confession. Twice in the last 6-7 years, at moments of extreme psychological distress, I talked to the God of my Catholic youth. Once I went to an empty church after a series of coincidences (running into two people from my Catholic grade school separately) that I thought was a sign from God. Really, embarrassing, right? It was like my mind segmented and the rationalist was put aside and the devout Catholic school boy was put in charge. The last time this happened was about four years ago.
I don’t know if this could still happen today (my atheism is probably more entrenched now). There have been plenty of periods of distress where this didn’t happen, so I don’t know what triggered it in particular. I think my brain must have really needed a God figure at that moment and didn’t know how to deal with the pain without one so it hacked itself and turned off the rationalist defenses. Or something, it seems so screwed up looking back on it.
Interestingly, I told my theistic-non religious girlfriend about this who in turn told her Christian best friend. Talking to me on the phone for the first time, the friend something along the lines of “I know you say you’re an atheist but B(my girlfriend) told me that you sometimes pray when you’re upset so I know you’re really a good person/God loves you.” In other words, I’m least wrong when I’m thinking least clearly.
Uh, here is a confession. Twice in the last 6-7 years, at moments of extreme psychological distress, I talked to the God of my Catholic youth. Once I went to an empty church after a series of coincidences (running into two people from my Catholic grade school separately) that I thought was a sign from God. Really, embarrassing, right? It was like my mind segmented and the rationalist was put aside and the devout Catholic school boy was put in charge. The last time this happened was about four years ago.
I don’t know if this could still happen today (my atheism is probably more entrenched now). There have been plenty of periods of distress where this didn’t happen, so I don’t know what triggered it in particular. I think my brain must have really needed a God figure at that moment and didn’t know how to deal with the pain without one so it hacked itself and turned off the rationalist defenses. Or something, it seems so screwed up looking back on it.
Interestingly, I told my theistic-non religious girlfriend about this who in turn told her Christian best friend. Talking to me on the phone for the first time, the friend something along the lines of “I know you say you’re an atheist but B(my girlfriend) told me that you sometimes pray when you’re upset so I know you’re really a good person/God loves you.” In other words, I’m least wrong when I’m thinking least clearly.