The Loud Mind Of A Quiet Person

Chapter II-God

     I remember being young, around the age of ten, and before sleeping I was scared by these questions: "What happens after I die? Is it all black like right now when I have my eyes shut? I do not want to die". But In Christianity there is hell and there is heaven and I tried to use this to calm myself. Then I asked myself: But what if there is nothing after death? I had these back and forth conversations in my mind from a young age. I was scared and hated to see, either in my city other in my Grandparents' village people carrying a deceased person to the grave. I often went to Church by my own will Sundays and I did confessions in the period of fasting before Easter and Christmas. I had a normal Christian live. But for three or four years I was very conflicted when I thought about it so I stopped practicing it. I believe God created the world yet I do not believe in hell or heaven. And I also believe that He has no impact on our lives. It is so wrong that I feel somehow ashamed of that. My family is very religious and feels God's help. I am really happy for them. I even wish God exists too, otherwise I feel like our lives loses meaning. It would be nice to go either to heaven or hell based on your life on earth, but unfortunately I do not feel they exist. So I am not a religious person, but I am not an atheist either. I hate atheist who think they are superior just because they are atheists. I do not know how to identify myself as but I do not even care that much. I tried, and so far it works, to become indifferent: God does not exist? Ok. Does God exist? Fine too. Even better for me because, as I said, I wish He does. But God's existence or absence does not change the way I live. I just try to be a kind person. I know a lot of religious persons who are very mean. If I am a good person but I do not fully believe in God I go to hell anyway? If someone dies prematurely, it does not because God decided to. Of course, He can do whatever He wants. But I do not believe He involves Himself. But that is not good too. If he exists, how can he let young people or people who cannot defend themselves die? How can he let catastrophes happen? No matter how I put the problem, I cannot get to an ok answer for me. Do animals have hell and heaven too? If yes, should not they all go to heaven? I mean...you cannot put predators in hell just because they are predators. I do not feel God's presence in my life or in this world in general. I believe he created the world and just let us live and maybe judge us all at the end. I do not like at all the idea that my life is predetermined. I do not believe in fate. If I die, I die because of an accident, because of illness or of old age (which is ideal for anybody) but not because it was written somewhere that it has to happen in that way. We are results of our actions. I remember being young and asking my mom how does God see what we all do on earth because we are a lot of people. Of course, the answer was that he is all-knowing, all-seeing. I understood that, and when I was younger and had a stronger belief, I wondered how. Like when you are young and believed in Santa but still ask yourself how he can arrive to everyone's home in a single night. I strongly disagree when someone dies prematurely and people say "this is how it was meant to be". I feel caught in the middle: If I see a Church and do not make the cross sign I feel bad. If I do it I feel like a hypocrite. If I pray at night, I feel false. If I do not, I feel ashamed. After long debates in my head, I decided to stop doing it. I was going nowhere. Is Chester in hell now no matter how many lives he helped just because he committed a sin highly punishable for Christianity? He was punished by mental illness during his life more than enough. Why should a person who takes such a tragic decision be punished even more after life?

I do not believe in Karma either. I wish a greater force that makes things even would exist but again, I do not feel like it. If, let's say, an evil person does horrendous things and is not caught by the police or not judged properly, it does not mean that somehow that person will pay for what he did during his life. If you are an evil person, you are more exposed to bad things happening to you because you live a dangerous live, that is all. If something bad happened to me, it does not mean that automatically, something good would happen to me. That is at least how I see things on this subject. If Karma exists, it is awesome. It would mean a general equity. But why should it exist in the first place? Did God create it? But there are people who do not believe in God but believe Karma exists. Why would God create Karma anyway since He can balance by Himself the good and evil in one's life? For me, Karma and God's involvement in our lives is the same thing.

To connect music with religion, Eminem is a Christian, Chester was too. You can find in Twentyonepilots' songs a lot of mentions about God. They were even considered a Christian band. NF was signed by a Christian label. Only Bring Me The Horizon is an atheist band. Atheist or not, how you treat one another matters the most. You do not need religion to be a good person and you should not judge a person by religion. It is all about respecting each other's beliefs. I just wish one day I will stop feeling guilty that I do not believe 100% in God. I cannot change how I feel by simply wanting to. I just try to be real. At least my fear of dying decreased a little. I figured out that the worst thing is not death, but not living enough, and by living, I mean fully taking advantage of life, not just breathing. At least about this I feel some control, unlike what happens after we die.