Elusive Happiness

I have mentioned before how I feel about divisive and damaging rhetoric that comes from religion.  Instilling the idea in believers that anyone that doesn't agree with them is in need of what they have creates walls and barriers.  It automatically puts conditions on those relationships.  The dichotomy to these conditions comes from the other belief that the believers imaginary friend wants to love them, so believers argue that their outreach to save is out of love.  The big picture does not support this.  The big picture supports relationships established for the sake of mutual benefit of the two parties present.  I develop a friendship becuase we enjoy each other's company and the support we give in each other's lives.

These religious ideals to save souls makes another aspect of those relationships tiresome.  From the religious perspective, I am miserable, or at least not fully happy.  "True joy" is a common phrase they use.  I can never experience true joy without pretend Jesus by my side, washing my soul white with his magical blood.  After being mentally out of religious belief for a couple years now, I can state with 100% assurance that I have never experienced more consistent internal peace with myself.  The imposed guilt and shame whithered away, a cloud lifted and I see the world with less angst.  I see others as fellow humans with unique perspectives and value, rather than viewing them as people somewhere on an arbitrary salvation scale, trying to get through this 'test' to get back to some elusive sky-daddy.  I experience true joy when I see humans showing their humanity, not in correlating warm-fuzzies to an outdated religious text that tells me I am worthless.

My own personal dichotomy occurs with happiness.  Some that are close to me may not believe that I am much happier as a non-believer, and it is hard to articulate on the fly why they are wrong. Many of my struggles is with my children.  Watching them adopt these religious beliefs from mom and dad, just like I did from my parents, who adopted it all from their parents and so on.  Religous belief is mentally and emotionally crippling and it pains me to see that in my children.

Because religious belief is so divisive, it is an unavoidable wall in a marriage.  Some manage to poke holes in the wall, or even tear most of it down, but it is a pervasive, thick, tall and wide wall.  There is plenty of struggle in a marriage, so the addition of this wall doesn't make all of the other struggles very manageable.  This is one reason why it is a huge fallacy to attribute sadness or misery to a lack of religious belief in one's life.  Joy and self-worth isn't found in imagined relationships. Rather, it is found personally.  Whether it be found in real relationships, things you love to do, or somewhere else, joy is personal and cannot be judged or monopolized by external sources.