Feeling is believing

Someone wrote the following words on their blog:

I'm not sure I would consider myself [a skeptic]. i.e. I want to believe, not feeling God's warmth leaves me cold and depressed. I can't imagine a world without God

Below is my reply.

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I used to smoke. I smoked since I was a teenager and I continued to smoke for almost 20 years. Sometimes I smoked as many as 2 packs per day. I smoked when I woke up, when in my car, at work, before and after meals, while by computer, before I went to bed - I smoked all the time. And then one day I quit, cold turkey, no patches, no acupunctures, and no group therapies – I just smoked the last cigarette in my pack and decided that it was it.

Next several weeks were very difficult. Physical cravings as bad as they were for the most part went away after just a few days. The worst part, however, was figuring out what to do with myself. Cigarettes became such a big part of my life that a complex set of rituals was associated with smoking and I followed them almost religiously. When I lost my “ability” to fill my time with smoking cigarettes I found myself at a loss. What do I do with all those times when I usually smoke? What do I do with my idle hands? What about smoke breaks at work? How do people live like that?

It took quite some time to re-adjust but I finally figured out what to do with all these “empty” time slots. I filled them with other useful or sometimes not so useful but still healthier activities. I re-aligned myself to new things in my life and I do not even think about smoking anymore.

I know many people who left religion and they all describe something similar to my experiences of quitting smoking. When your entire life from the early childhood is set up in such a way that religion is an integral part of it; when everything you’ve been taught and everything you know has the idea of god in the center of it; when you are told that there is no meaning to this life unless it comes from the teachings of bible, it is almost impossible to imagine living without those ideas. It is only natural to feel the need to believe that there is something to it or to feel the warmth of connection with god that you are so used to feeling.

The question, however, is whether believing something simply because it feels good is a smart thing to do. I happen to think that feeling good is nowhere near a good reason to believe. Smoking cigarettes sure felt good to me, but no amount of beliefs in the positive effects of smoking would change the fact that it was harmful to my body, people around me, was a stupid and unnecessary thing to do.

The good news is that just like I found something more useful and healthy to do with my time after I quit smoking, hundreds of millions of non-religious people all over the world have found meaning in their lives, as well as warmth, love, peace, friendships, excitement, personal connections, appreciation for beauty, sciences and awesome complexity of the world we live in – all without the need to resort to mysticism of supernatural, beliefs in afterlife or god hypothesis.

Sure, leaving the fold of religion is difficult on so many levels, but finding your own meaning and purpose, discovering the world with new eyes, freeing yourself from irrational fears and attachments is healthy, a lot of fun and most importantly – it is the smart thing to do.

Good luck in your search.

Thank you.