Religious Guilt

"Guilt is regret for what we've done.
Regret is guilt for what we didn't do."

I don't know who said the above quote, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

You see, right now I have a serious case of that thing called "religious guilt". You know, where you want desperately to believe something for the sake of someone else but in reality you can't bring yourself to do so?

My trip back home really made me realize how much some people care about my eternal salvation. I know it is a reminder of how much they love me, and that's why I love them for it, but I can't help but feel a sense of unease.

First, I began questioning whether I was doing the right thing by abandoning Christianity. Will I go to Hell? Will Jesus come back soon and leave me to deal with the anti Christ? As I am thrown into the lake of fire, will the regret overwhelm me more than the flames?

So I thought about it. I looked at my Bibles. I remembered the concern in the eyes of Christian close ones. I even stayed awake at night worrying.

And I decided that I still don't believe in it. While I looked through the Bible, it didn't occur to me to think of it as the divine word of God. When I lay awake in the pitch darkness I never thought an angel or demon or Satan or the Holy Ghost was there waging a spiritual battle alongside of me. I believed I was alone. I believe we are probably alone.

But the guilt overwhelmed me. God forbid I ever become an atheist (although, Buddhism was first essentially atheistic).

I mean, wouldn't I be lying if I converted back to Christianity right now? Wouldn't I be sent straight to Hell if I give my life to Jesus, but still thought it's a load of you know what? Isn't that worse?

Can I help it if I don't believe it? That I have problems with some of the moral conclusions Christianity provides?

I think I would rather live with the guilt than live with the regret of wasted years where I could have found and practiced what I truly believe in.

For some reason, Christians seem to portray Buddhism as a very deviant religion. I don't know whether it's the bastardisation of Eastern beliefs by Westerners, but when I tell people I'm interested in Buddhism, I see their eyes kind of pop in their heads.

Right now I am not a Buddhist. I don't know if I do believe it. But I want to try and understand it. I admire Buddhist leaders such as the Dalai Lama. That's not sufficient enough reason to believe in anything though, given I also admire some Christian leaders (although the only person I can think at present is Martin Luther King jr., and I don't solely admire him because of what he said about religion).

So yes, confusion still abounds…

In other news, this week I lost a day. I don’t know where I lost it but all day today I sincerely believed it was Thursday. Turns out it is Friday. I seriously can’t believe that I have thought it was Thursday all today.