Note: In November 2018 I was diagnosed with severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea.Check my most recent posts on sleep apnea.
I just posted this message on the Chronic Fatigue Treatments Forums, and thought it was too good not to repost here:
Jj85 wrote: “I’ve often wondered if there’s any correlation between this disease and not believing in God.”
There is a good reason that the irrational belief in God has been around for sooooo long, and still persists even in today’s modern, scientific society. A big part of it is driven by the desire to relieve fear; a desire to control an emotion so strong and debilitating, that it over-rules even the most rational thinking. Try debating the existence of God with a fundamentalist of any theistic persuasion, and you come up against this immediately: the fear is so strong, they’re not going to even consider the possibility that the God they think of as looking out for them might not be there. Or the eternal life. Or the 72 virgins. Or whatever.
As an atheist, I don’t have God to fall back on and make me feel better about situations which I appear to have little control over. I do think this makes us more susceptible to anxiety-based conditions like CFS. I probably wouldn’t have conceded this before spending the last 2-years feeling like a train wreck; I would have been too busy “correcting” all those foolish theists and trying to “help” them see the errors of their ways.
Ultimately, the spiritual path I’m on isn’t about finding God: it’s about finding and believing in my true self. Any time we rely on external sources for our own happiness and well-being, whether they be ideas like God, or doctors, or friends, or family members, society, whatever… we place ourselves at the mercy of someone else. Maybe this is just inherent to the human condition. Or maybe I’d have a stronger belief in myself if I hadn’t been indoctrinated into placing my trust in a deity who doesn’t come through with the goods time and again, when I was a kid. Who knows. Either way, the only path forward for me is to learn to trust not in some external God or some universal life force or other new age bullshit, but in myself.
If I can make this the reason and purpose for my CFS, then maybe it’s all worthwhile in the end.
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6 Comments
Nansi · January 18, 2010 at 8:59 PM
Ha! It’s alright for you to correct me though, it seems!
Graham · January 19, 2010 at 12:14 PM
Hey, you’re a guest in my reality. 😉
Nansi · January 16, 2010 at 8:17 PM
Interestingly, you repeatedly speak of God as ‘external’, whereas God is also internal, in the heart of every living being. It’s not possible to be separate from God, we are part of him and he is everything. Everything = God.
Well, I know you’re not interested, but I can’t help always wanting to correct people’s lack of theology!
Graham · January 16, 2010 at 8:25 PM
The notion of God is ‘external’ in the sense that it’s an idea you’ve been taught by someone else; someone outside yourself. They may have taught you things about yourself that were true, or things that were not true. My experience was that just because I realised this, I didn’t immediately identify the things about myself that I had taken onboard which were untrue.
Theology is a human construct, made up be people. Everyone’s is unique. So attempting to “correct” someone’s theology is a bit… well… think about it. 🙂
lo there · January 16, 2010 at 2:00 PM
It is a worry. What if our minds aren’t suited for dealing with reality? Not just in terms of religion, but all of the other funny little beliefs people use to delude themselves about the nature of reality.
If you have to choose between madness or disability, which will it be?
Graham · January 16, 2010 at 8:34 PM
Good point. There may be evolutionary reasons why living in a fantasy world is beneficial to our genetic survival. So our minds may well be predisposed towards delusional beliefs… The prevalence of astrology and theology seems to be evidence to support this.
Consciously I think I’d choose madness over disability; assuming it’s only a mild form. We’re all delusional at some level anyway. As mental illnesses go, a belief in fairies, angels and gods would probably be fairly benign, provided I kept it to myself! But adopting a new belief that we earnestly think has no foundation is likely to be rather challenging.