One Problem With My Atheism

Nothing better to sit down with a member of the opposite sex and talk about our sad love lives.
(Author's edit a month later - being that this post gets a decent amount of hits, probably due to the pictures, I have to clarify how bitter I was during this post - I was very bitter. Clarification done. Presently though I am feeling much better, very happy, and in a good relationship, go me.)
This is mostly a personal post. Some believers who read this may see it as a victory for the cause of their god. Let me just say that religious gods do not exist except on paper, in people's minds, and other nooks and crannies of the human body. If they do exist, then I haven't seen a religion that wouldn't make me laugh. ... Take Pentecostals for example.

I've been beating around this topic for a while, but I finally feel embittered enough to bring it off - queue your angry screamo music now.

Love.

See, this is an area of my life that I've decided I will never recover from. I got really depressed three years ago, got real bitter last year and also very misogynistic, then had a ray of hope over winter, followed by heavy depression, then had a near recovery this last month, and now I am completely embittered. All dealing directly with love and relationships. As long as I feel this way now then I might as well write about it - for entertainment value, and because I find it easy to talk about this when I'm angry ... it feels more natural.

See, without eternity then love doesn't seem too meaningful. I don't know why, my logic tells me it should be MORE meaningful, but I don't feel that way. I feel like I shouldn't bother loving someone, just using them. Not completely though, getting to know someone is nice, being friends is nice. But why bother going for something more?

I fell in love with a girl, before mentioned as 'Auds' in my blog, in high school. We were high school sweethearts. Trying to make this brief - we had met years before, talked little, teased each other a lot, then one school year we began to actually flirt, grew close, realized we both liked each other, and started dating. After a month I told her I thought I loved her and she said the same, and by a year later we both felt we truly did love each other. While gone to college it was a struggle and we broke up once, for a day, over the phone. She also decided to cheat on me, set it up even, but then didn't keep going with it after she was in bed with the person and making out. Biggest mistake of my life - I forgave her.

Got back from college and we crossed all the lines in the half year before I left on my mission. Got to know each other in every way, all of our greatest desires, our horrible interests, our disturbing sides, our dreams and aspirations, and we helped each other a lot in getting over our faults and insecurities.

Went on my mission and within a year she broke up. Stopped talking to me for months, no reply, then she emailed me after my birthday, a friendly but loveless email. I had been in the denial phase up to that point, and after that I took the step over into rage. Pure rage. I was so distraught, filled with anger and sadness that me and my companion didn't go out for a week, and I actually lost a lot of weight. I have to mix sadness in cause I was beyond depressed, but I was also completely enraged and couldn't even bring myself to cry, not even once.

This post is a mix of explaining my atheism, a problem with it, and just putting more of my butt-hurt, bitter anger with my love-life. See, I never recovered from that moment. The rest of my mission was filled with apostasy cause I couldn't bring myself to be obedient again. And after going apostate I realized that no one knew, or much cared that I was apostate on my mission. We still got baptisms even. But my view of God had been traumatized, and I hated him for a long part of that.

Auds eventually wanted me back, and began talking about us when I would come back, she felt bad for what she had done. This inspired me to be more happy. I realized that me and her could be together, but also that it didn't matter as much if we didn't. However, not hating God made no difference. I couldn't 'feel' the spirit like I had. And I wasn't looking at 'miracles' the same anymore, or even faith. In those couple months of anger I had become disillusioned to faith and god. I had realized that my actions didn't have any effect on eternal matters. Everything I did on my own could bring 'natural' results. If I simply taught lessons, half-rate cause I slowly stopped bearing my testimony, the people could still be baptized if we just kept at it. Feeling slightly hypocritical, and unsure, I began reading lots of books, and this is how I read 85 during my last year of my mission, and even finding my first atheistic book.

Auds played 'jerk the chain' with me. She eventually stopped talking to me again and said she had a new boyfriend. Then she went back to college and started talking to me a lot more again. Then it died off, and the last month of my mission I never heard from her. By the time I got home our 'meeting each other' moment had dried up to me going over. She looked wonderful, gave me a hug, a looong hug, and we went into her room. I had burned her a cd, we talked for a while, then I asked why she had stopped talking to me again. She had been a shy girl when we had started dating and I had helped her overcome that to a degree, but she still is a people-pleaser (not a compliment) and was having issues telling me why she had stopped speaking again. I ventured a guess, and she said I was basically right. Then she looked at me, and told she never wanted to speak to me again, hear from me again, or have me involved in her life ever.

I was pretty depressed after that and we catch up to my earlier timeline I gave at the beginning of this post. Having someone as special as her tell me that to my face really affected my self-worth. In the last 6 months though I've gotten over that a lot, and her personally, but the whole matter is still stuck with me. I get a rush of blood to the head when I see a picture of her, I get saddened when I'm reminded of her in my weekly activities, and I feel very bitter towards girls in general.

Recently I got into a short relationship that rejuvenated me in a way, which others in the last 2 years hadn't. It meant something to me, and it brought a little life back to my 'heart.' But in the end it's ended and only left me with open wounds dating back to Auds.

So now I don't feel I have any need to look for love, or to expect anything from it if I think I feel the tingling beginnings of love in my mind. Thanks to Auds I was tipped away from God and once I began recovering I couldn't find my way back, eventually being true to myself and my views and becoming agnostic, then finally stepping over to atheism. Thanks to Auds I probably am broken and am carrying a lot of baggage, and what girl wants that? Perhaps some, and perhaps I'm being melodramatic, but I was fine being 'loose' last year, and I haven't been fine worrying about love during this last month. I think it's about time I stop worrying about love, and just do what I want, when I want. Not expecting anything out of anything I do in regards to relationships. Sure, love could 'find me' but I'm sure I'll be open to it when it does. Ha, maybe not though. For now, I'll be bitter, I'll be hurt, I'll be mean.

In the end, the primary 'tip' I got was a girl. Without that I probably would still be active in the LDS church, full of doubts, but still believing it was very extremely true. Without the mission I probably would be with Auds and still believing, forever stuck in lesser-Mormon limbo. So it's freed me as well as chained me down. From my chains I guess I'll just seek carnal 'love.' It worked last year and I was still slightly religious then.