u/Fair-Impress9283

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How can I handle it myself?

Some people are spiritual but not religious, but personally, I feel like if you believe in the supernatural ( karma, chakras, energies, vibes) without believing there is a God protecting you, It's a much weaker form of psychological protection than believing in God.

So far my life has been relatively stable and normal, but I've thought a lot about: what if later in life I have a health problem; how will I handle it?. Prayer is a coping mechanism. It probably doesn't do anything, but when you believe it does, or when you believe in heaven, you have a coping mechanism.

Would I pray out of desperation? Even though, God, if he was real, probably wouldn't like me or help me, due to me not being a good Christian/ not praying/ not going to church.

I was always taught that it was hypocritical and wrong to ask God for help with your problems even if it is a health problem, if you don't go to church or pray. In this case it is worsened by the fact that I am a non believer.

Emotionally I feel like I should confess my sins, pray, and go to church because I have a moral obligation to God and I also want his protection, maybe because I was always psychologically conditioned since my early childhood to feel this way, but rationally I know God commands genocide in the bible and I shouldn't seek a relationship with such a person.

I don't even know if I need spirituality or if I should seek it, through something like spirituality or another religion because it probably does feel good psychologically but it lacks evidence. Or if I should just ignore every negative part of the bible and every indication that Christianity is false, in hopes that I will recover the peace of mind that comes with religion.

Have any of you been in a similar situation? Where maybe you liked some rituals of religion or spirituality but you believe that Christianity is false and some of its teachings are harmful? Maybe you also felt an inclination, as a result of psychological conditioning or guilt, to go through the process of penance/ confession and you wanted the peace of mind that comes with religion but you believe it's probably false.

Thank you for reading my post and I find any personal experience/ testimony to be really valuable in this regard. Even if it doesn't include advice.

History spans a lot of civilizations and periods. It is impractical to try to have a detailed understanding of all of human history without sacrificing knowledge in other areas.

My goal is to understand the major milestones of civilization that took humanity to the point where it is today ( metallurgy, trade, state formation, economic evolution) without getting lost in the details such as in what year was X Roman emperor killed.

At first I thought I should read a book about every major civilization, which for me are: Persia, Rome, Italy, Greece, America, China, Sumer, India, Egypt, Mongolia the Arab world, France and Britain.

But now I'm not sure if I should read a book about the general history of different areas, such as the general history of trade, the state, economics, the metal ages, a general book to understand the general processes of the ancient, medieval and modern period.

I made a post recently and I got some recommendations of atheist channels (dark matter 2525, Emma thorne), which are great as exposure therapy to desensitize myself to atheism. I've learned a lot about biblical stories in the past few days. In that post I discussed the idea that christians are conditioned to dislike atheists. I went to catholic school from elementary school to highschool and for most of my life, I wouldnt miss a sunday of mass since my early childhood. This means that religious conditioning was a strong component of my life through my formative years.

But religious conditioning goes a lot further than simply disliking atheists. It says that babies who are not baptized have an original sin, as if there is something wrong with them until you baptize them. It also says (catholicism at least) that if you miss a single sunday of church, that is a sin. The church tells us that youre supposed to confess your sins to a priest (even if you have not done anything illegal or immoral, say missing mass or eating red meat during lent) to avoid going to hell. At least in my family, there is also the idea that you're supposed to pray for people who die (this is primarily due to the idea of purgatory and how prayer is supposed to be an advocacy so people can leave purgatory sooner and go to heaven). I did pray for my grandma during her funeral and If I knew that praying could help her in any way, I would. I prayed for her during her illness.

I think I would probably feel that I am a bad person if someone else (hopefully doesnt happen) died or got sick and I didnt pray for them. But I also dont have any evidence to prove that prayer helps the deceased in any way and I think I should focus on helping people in a way that is measurably effective or by showing up for them at least.

Do you know about any other things we are conditioned to believe since our childhoods as christians and that are hard to remove from our minds?

Is therapy the only way to sort this out? will those who were conditioned always have a sense of religious guilt if they become secular?. Its easier to reason your way out of some religious ideas than of others. early conditioned ideas surrounding guilt, sin and the fear of hell are exceptionally hard to remove.

There are other questions I have, such as if there is a secular alternative for prayer (for the purposes of calming down when youre going through some stuff) and how we can honor people after they die from a secular perspective.

Also, to what extent should I try to show people the problems with the Christian faith and its theology considering that atheists are one of the most hated groups in society?. Religion is a coping mechanism and even though religion harms the ability of people to reason, its also hard to assess whether the decline of religion will transform society in a radically positive way or if the difference will be either minimal or non existent for practical purposes (in relation to the financial and political support of science as well as scientific output). For some people, an ugly truth (that there is no heaven) is better than a beautiful lie (the idea that there is). But it does become a problem when people weaponize God for their political beliefs.

I hope the post was not too long. Thank you for reading it and im eager to read your responses.