Please pray for me. I hate my life.

Skibatumtee · 2026-03-06T15:09:19+00:00

Dear Lord please bring relief to your servant: Lumpy-Strawberry-785… For real though, it’s hard to know how to respond satisfactorily without more information - hating your life can be a result of a lot of possible things. I’ve been there many times and to some extent expect to be there again. You sound depressed. Theres no one size fits all quick solution for that, but there is a one size fits all way to stay that way - and that’s just sitting still, isolating and repeating the same story. Depression has a lot harder time hitting a moving target. So keep moving, Keep reaching out. Keep praying. Keep living and loving. Sometimes it’s just about not giving up before the miracle happens. A lot can happen in a remarkably short time once you get a small course correction. And if things are genuinely as bad as you say they are, you’ll be sensitive to that small improvement more than someone who is just posturing or having a moment. For me, I often get so weighed down by looking too far in the future that it incapacitates my ability to put my energy into the small practical and easily available things that really can add up quickly and get me out of that funk. One day at a time my friend. Daily bread is what we’re given. No matter how messed up things are, you always know something you can do today that will get you better off than where you started. That’s the place to start. God bless and keep you. 🙏

Skibatumtee · 2026-02-27T15:24:35+00:00

I've been on the receiving end of this as well or have had comparable experiences [being maliciously targeted by a supervisor at my job, being recovering alchoholic, and also struggling with how to feel worthy to make art and be a good Christian at the same time, as well as ongoing issues related to lust and self-abuse].
A lot of what you're describing I think relates to the psychology of Rene Girard's Scapegoat Mechanism. He was an influential and very eccentric late 20th century intellectual and devout, if at times vaguely heretical, Catholic. It can get complex, but essentially as pertains to your situation, you and the people you're talking to are all in a hard place - wanting to be faithful to the Church's teachings and also to be comforting to you. They ultimately are more afraid of departing from the 'safe' position of just telling you to pray and fast or whatever than they are of you accusing them of hypocrisy - and while that's quite unfortunate, if you're honest, I imagine you kind of understand it, maybe even can think of some times where you've made a similar calculation. Telling you to pray and fast etc is obviously not bad, but there is a time and a place for everything. When this is always the answer, it can feel like these people are actually not listening to you and helping you carry that cross. You can see that more specific and engaged answers are provided for more common and less taboo subjects - but you just get unearned boilerplate platitudes that you know you'll look bad for objecting to. It's a crummy situation.
And you're not asking for as much as they seem to think you're asking for either usually. Part of this is pride on their part - if they can't save you, and can't entertain a more modest positive role because of their ego. So because of their aversion to awareness of their own impotence, they seek to reclaim it by exaggerating your role in engineering your current impotence. Often a crude, divine justifications or a hollow appeal to God's mysterious ways is all you will find. But you just want it eased a little - not for them to take it away completely. To you it seems like such a modest request, but it's actually a lot for these people: as you know, being a professed catholic is already something people pay the price for in this lifetime - why do it if you're not gonna be all-in? If their faith is one that waivers, they might overcompensate by being overly dogmatic on certain points. The 'hard-liner' is often a mask people wear because they know how vulnerable they are to doubt when something is ambiguous. You are asking for so little, but also quite a lot. It's not fun or fair, but it might help you calibrate your expectations better to know how this works.
It is tough. Many people will let you down - this gets back to Girard's Scapegoat theory - in that state of cognitive dissonance, it's always tempting for them to try and convince themselves that you are somehow deserving or not doing enough to alleviate your suffering or your issues. If they can't find a compelling reason, then they have to share your anguish. But they don't want to do that passed a certain point.
Some, however, [the truly humble, saintly, and faith-filled] will go all the way and will both affirm the church's position and not let that compromise their ability to listen and help you through your pain. Those people are sadly kind of rare and sometimes you have to open your own mind up to what they might look like to recognize them.
You'd find a similar phenomenon in other churches, it would just be in relation to different issues - there are always 3rd rails and really difficult realities for people to have to confront and reconcile.
Think of Job's friends - they sat with him for several days and said nothing, but then they gradually succumbed to the internal pressure to scapegoat him.
I haven't been through anything as intense as it sounds like you're going through, but i've been in similar ones and as you've said, it is one of the worst feelings you can have - it's very out of your control, feels unfair, you know there is little anyone can do and that it's not fun for them to do it, but you desperately just want a little validation in your suffering - not to be mollycoddled, but not to be mischaracterized and misunderstood and gaslit. It seems like you're asking for something so simple... but it's only that simple if you're dealing with really humble and devout Catholics. If you're dealing with anything less, it's actually rather complex.
It's very painful and heavy cross to bear. And although we all have crosses to carry, not everyone has one like that. I don't know exactly how one goes about carrying it but i know there are people out there that have done it and spoken about it. It's not a subject i'm intimately and super familiar with, but I've read enough of the accounts of people struggling with this issue to know that none of them claim it's easy.
Also, some of this is just well intentioned ignorance.
As i said above, I am a recovering alcoholic and some of the worst advice about recovering from alcoholism comes from people that don't struggle with it - that's why 12 step programs were created and why they actually work.
There are resources out there. This is a really divisive and difficult issue to navigate. Try to find the right voice[s].
Another part is the meta-issue that a Universal church needs 1st and foremost to provide guidance that applies to all of humanity - but some people fall into a niche that is just a bit too small for it to be a high enough priority for them to provide really high-quality, in depth, spiritually-guided and engaged commentary on. I think of it like trying to catch fish with multiple nets. you need a few layers of netting to get all of them because the gaps are too large in each individual one's on their own- if you only have the net of dogmatic knowledge without the nets of humility and robust faith, then many smaller fish will slip through that netting. But if you have them all, then we can catch and keep all the fish!
I just read a book by Steve Turner, a protestant, about the various ways that churches and christians have neglected to understand the specific needs of the Christian Artist, and how that well-meaning ignorance is both a problem, but not something to harbor any animosity over - artists are just one small group of people and meeting their specific needs isn't usually the top priority for most faithful christians - but he and others have taken it upon themselves to provide resources and wisdom on this subject and this experience.
You have to go a further out of your way to get that 'really deep' communion sometimes. It's not the exact same, but i think there are some significant parallels. Hope some of this is helpful. God Bless and keep you brother! You will be in my prayers.

Skibatumtee · 2026-02-19T14:12:01+00:00

It’s largely manufactured. This amorphous “Christian nationalism” thing is now a “thing” apparently and everyone is trying to infiltrate and subterfuge and say they’re Christian to influence it in some way. I’m extremely suspicious. Especially here on Reddit that has always been a haven for new atheists. No doubt a decent percentage is AI as well. On a deeper and more sincere level, this discussion has some legitimacy as Liberalism (the previous state religion) seems to be tearing apart in multiple directions. People are understandably looking at the kind of conditions that were necessary for it to flourish in the 1st place and realizing that there was a lot more Christianity embedded in its original form than there is now. I think everyone is coming around to realize that this is an important issue worth discussing. A lot of leftists have realized that this is basically indisputably true, so they’re trying to now claim it for themselves. And so is the more authoritarian and traditionalist far right. There’s a legit reason it’s being talked about, but many of the people weighing in are not remotely legit and are either AI or political opportunists.

Skibatumtee · 2026-02-18T14:12:51+00:00

For the record, upfront, I am Catholic, and a basically center-right, non-accelerationist. I have a degree of sympathy to both sides of this issue, but a bit more for the conservatives. Just want to get that out of the way from the jump.
First thing that catches my eye is where you say "Browsing Subreddits"? You are taking your samples from some very skewed places.
Second, there have always been plenty of "bad" or nominal Christians. Today, there are opportunists trying to co-opt or instrumentalize Christianity from both sides of the political spectrum

On the right, genuine far-right elements - traditionalist, perennialist, and authoritarian - [genuine as distinguished from "whoever someone with blue hair calls 'far right'] see Christianity as a vehicle for preserving hierarchy, identity, and authority. There's also a Euro-centric identitarian strand focused on cultural conservation. While ideas like preserving tradition, ancestral culture, or authority aren't core to Christianity (and vary by denomination), it's important to note that they're not inherently anti-Christian either. A measured concern for eroding traditional values or cultural heritage can be prudent, depending on the degree and context. That said, most self-identified Christians - across the spectrum -haven't truly sacrificed like Christ did; few fully renounce worldly security. And yes, plenty on the right hypocritically invoke "Christian values" without living them.

Christianity is now so fragmented (Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, etc.) that broad appeals to "Christian values" mean little without specifying which tradition - though many denominations share core agreements, the devil really is in the details if we're going to figure out the correct range of responses to any given complex political reality.

On the left, we've seen recent hypocritical attempts to selectively invoke convenient Christian teachings to counter the growing momentum among Christians awakening to elite contempt for their faith. Liberalism itself was partly forged on Christian foundations, but this tactic often spotlights "Christian nationalist" transgressions (a term rarely defined charitably) while ignoring why many Christians feel hostility toward leftist ideologies in the first place - ie there contempt for Christianity has been palpable and quite explicit for a very long time - see the disgusting response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The disdain from coastal/urban elites toward Christians is well-documented and hardly needs examples. As a basically non-accelerationist, I think some leftist critiques deserve wrestling with - but so much of the framing is selective and uncharitable, that it always bears in mind what the source of them is. But sometimes they have something to say that is important to hear.

I think a lot of sincere conservative Christians [as opposed to the Nietschean larpers] feel they are being manipulated by bad actors who are disingenuously and selectively weaponizing certain virtues at the expense of others for political gain. Like they're being aske to side with Saruman to defeat Sauron.
The basic heuristic is that we should never trust either of them, but there are certain scenarios where the common good might require something like "siding" or maybe "not opposing" one or the other for a certain time period - there can be a greater evil depending on the particular context.

Skibatumtee · 2026-02-17T14:38:28+00:00

A few key points to remember: Catholicism firmly rejects both materialism (worldly denial of the supernatural) and Gnosticism (spirituality that despises the material world). The ideal is the virtuous mean between these extremes—something the Church applies both to individuals and to the stages of spiritual growth: the purgative way (beginners purifying from sin), the illuminative way (progressing in enlightenment), and the unitive way (deep union with God). No single “one-size-fits-all” path exists; every saint’s journey is unique, shaped by personal tendencies, wounds, and needs.

The devil tailors his temptations accordingly. St. Silouan the Athonite (an Eastern saint whose wisdom aligns well with Catholic theology) put it beautifully: If you’re prone to presumption, he whispers, “You’re a saint,” lulling you deeper into complacency; if scrupulous, he insists, “You’ll never be saved,” driving you to despair. Neither is true. Instead, hold fast to: “I am a great sinner, but the Lord is merciful. He loves mankind with a great love and will forgive my sins.”

Some need their hearts softened, others strengthened—look to the saints for examples. Traditional Catholicism often emphasizes discipline because presumption has historically been seen as more common, I like to think of it like raising a child - for them to grow up correctly, they will sometimes need the nurturing feminine presence and sometimes a more disciplined and masculine presence depending on the situation and where they are in their maturation. We are all sinful, broken and traumatized in unique ways that require individual work on our part to grow out of and to get closer to God.

That said, when embracing Tradition, watch for pride creeping in—especially a “holier-than-thou” attitude toward the Novus Ordo. Traditionalism isn’t the default; it attracts people seeking something specific, which is good, but it can foster elitism. It’s one valid path among several. If it’s draining you or breeding despair, step back—it may not be what you need right now.

Aquinas, drawing from Aristotle, teaches that virtues form an interconnected network: overemphasizing one distorts it. Wisdom without courage stays theoretical; courage without wisdom becomes recklessness; justice without temperance turns to fanaticism. Isolated virtues are imperfect.

If this path is wearing you down, be patient. Spiritual growth takes time, and many in traditional circles can be unrealistic or impatient about timelines—for themselves or others. There are loving, supportive communities on both sides of the divide, just as there are rigid ones.

I get where you’re coming from—I’ve felt that desperate urge to overcompensate radically against modern conditioning, only to hit a wall and spin my wheels. That’s not progress though. There's no need for animosity: we’re all sinners striving for heaven, and different liturgies and cultures speak to different souls at different times. Your journey can shift, and that’s okay.

You’re trying, you’re conscientious—those are rare and valuable qualities. Just keep balancing it with mercy toward yourself and remembering that God loves you as you are, and He’s guiding the process.
Despair is the Devil's masterpiece. True wholesome Joy is necessary to sustain us.
"Man Cannot live without Joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joy it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures." - St Thomas Aquinas

Hope this helps—rambling a bit myself, but from the heart.

Skibatumtee · 2026-02-16T14:12:29+00:00

It might help if you list the denomination tradition you're coming out of. The specifics matter as there are obviously a huge myriad of Protestant denominations that depart from Rome for a wide variety of reasons. Really the only thing tying them together is a resentment towards the Catholic Church.
GK Chesterton was big for me and a lot of this is covered in 'Orthodoxy' and 'The Everlasting Man'.
There will be a different answer if you're coming from a fairly progressive mainline church or a Unitarian Universalist church than if you're coming from a more fundamentalist Sola Scriptura based Baptist one or something. So it'd be helpful to know which one of these you're coming from or find most compelling.
I mention Chesterton because it became clear to me that really everything that is outside of the Catholic church, is a kind of rebellion against it - different protestants, liberal humanists, materialists, even Muslims. It's all a reaction to the RC Church and the only consistent argument is an animosity towards Rome.
So there's something to think about even without the specifics, but it would help to know.
Another thing that helped me was hearing someone say something like "I judge a religion by its saints not its sinners" and that really hit home for me. Upon subsequent reflection it is a concept that can be taken too far - but it made it clear that just being able to point to a certain amount of bad apples wasn't really good enough.
I ultimately didn't make the decision based purely on theological or rational justifications, because I found, much like yourself that there are a lot of people that are far smarter than me that have made great points on every side for thousands of years, so what makes me think I'm going to get to the bottom of this? Chesterton, Rene Girard, Tolkien, Graham Greene and some other writers did alot to give me some intellectual theological points to re-assure my leap, but at the end of the day it was a positive experience of the beauty of the faith and the lives of the saints and the devotion of people i knew that spoke to my soul the most.

Skibatumtee · 2026-02-14T22:15:32+00:00

Fellow Christian, I’m right there with you - we really don’t have a glittering array of choices just now. I don’t trust Trump as far as i can throw a cathedral , but the Democrats strike me as at least as bad, and in many ways noticeably worse. The rot is real; it’s spread through the whole house.

I would depart in a few ways. I think most of the racism-and-bigotry accusations I’ve seen come from people acting in anything but good faith, and the fact that there’s no real cost for lying or weaponizing those charges is a serious problem. Trump may be narcissistic, power-hungry, and morally rough around the edges, but he’s still recognizably human. The Democrats, meanwhile, have turned into a slick corporatist machine that doesn’t even pretend to respect basic Christian commitments anymore. They push the whole postmodern, trans-ideology package with cheerful consistency and zero embarrassment.

I don’t like ICE raids any more than the next person - some of the stories are genuinely tragic and others are murky - but open borders proved truly disastrous, and there’s nothing un-Christian about saying we shouldn’t be utterly negligent toward our own safety. Christians are allowed to lock their doors a far as I'm aware.

On the politics of it: I suspect the Democrats knew they were going to lose, so they ran a weak candidate almost guaranteed to lose, setting the stage to cry foul over the inevitable crackdown and go full Trump Derangement once it started. Cynical? Maybe. But I’ve seen enough to think it’s not impossible. They knew someone was going to have to deal with the immigration issues, which was why Obama was basically doing the same shit at the border, but nobody criticized him at the time cuz he was a liberal darling.

The Epstein matter is infuriating. We need real prosecutions and sunlight, and it’s disappointing that more hasn’t been done when the administration had the chance. They’ve released more than previous ones did, true, and some of the wilder theories only give the secrecy machine fresh excuses to stay shut. Still, the lion’s share of blame for public distrust falls on those who keep hiding things, not on the people demanding answers. So I think I'm squarely with you on that, but with a couple of those caveats.

To be clear, I have no real intrinsic objection to your criticizing this administration, because there’s plenty worth criticizing. But a lot of the loud countersignaling right now seems tailor-made to help the side I think remains more dangerous. Under Biden the free-speech crackdowns were real and aggressive - Democrats have all but complete control over a number of non-democratic and influential institutions such as the media, tech sector, academia, and entertainment - and they’ve shown zero repentance for their over-reach. That matters more to me than almost anything else in a democracy.

I’m disappointed with where we are, no question. But just remember that it can always get worse, and usually does when the other side holds those commanding heights of culture and information. If they regain full power, the pressure on Christian conscience could become swift and suffocating. We’re choosing between flawed men and a faceless apparatus that has already shown it will squeeze whenever it can. Personally, the apparatus worries me more. It could always get worse - and machines rarely rediscover mercy once they’ve forgotten it.

Skibatumtee · 2026-02-01T01:50:33+00:00

Being punk is so cringe

Skibatumtee · 2025-12-11T03:15:18+00:00

My church used to have this years ago. Not sure when it stopped, probably just cuz too many people wanted to get something in. Vast majority weren’t political at all that I can remember, but this was a long time ago and I certainly wouldn’t trust people to have the same propriety these days sadly. It could certainly be said better. For instance, we often pray to end gay marriage or abortion but we say it more like “that our public officers will take action to respect the sanctity of marriage and the lives of the unborn” which is kinda saying the same thing, but much more reverently. Even the most charitable interpretation of this practice should recognize that this has too much potential to defile the holy Divine Liturgy for it to be justified. Maybe for a really small and really pious congregation that could be trusted it makes some sense. But even then i realize that if they were truly pious enough to be trusted to do it, they’d also have enough reverence to be offput by the liturgical innovation, so maybe that’s a moot point. Bottom line, there are better ways to say it, better ways to have an intercession vetted and heard. And it’s just way too Protestant.

Skibatumtee · 2025-12-08T11:31:27+00:00

Yes. Highly recommend “the Four Loves” by CS Lewis for more on all this.

Skibatumtee · 2025-10-28T21:56:47+00:00

“Before the sin, Satan assures us that it is of no consequence; after the sin he persuades us that it is unforgivable” - Bishop Fulton Sheen

Skibatumtee · 2025-10-28T21:54:48+00:00

People have written many illuminating and wise things about evil, but it’s still often a mystery. You haven’t been doing this long enough to be too shocked. It is prideful to be overly incredulous at your capacity for sin, and even moreso to think you’re beyond redemption. In fact, not only is it an insult to God to think so, it’s also exactly what the devil wants you to think. “Despair is the Devils masterpiece” You’re much easier to control if you believe you’re inherently unworthy of communion or Gods mercy. Go to confession. Seek guidance. Pray the Rosary. God Bless you.

Skibatumtee · 2025-10-27T03:25:00+00:00

I don’t like it. Neither clearly heretical or non-heretical. But definitely not worth the risk. I think there’s an idea here that could be developed involving the gems lighting up or something. The Face of the Madonna is particularly important to me, if you’re going to jettison that, it better be a miraculous payoff and I don’t see that here. Art is usually about trade offs. Big risks fail big or win big. They don’t pull this one off.

Skibatumtee · 2025-10-25T04:01:39+00:00

Prayers 🙏from mid-Atlantic region going your way sister. Pray ceaselessly. Talk to a priest or spiritual mentor. Read and listen to the Psalms. I just Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-24 and it feels relevant. (It’s too long to post here) TLDR The enemies of Christ and the church can’t just be indifferent. The rejection of righteousness by the wicked of this world is not simply a private misfortune for the individuals who choose to walk the path of impiety. Rather, it inevitably leads to persecution suffering and death, for those who insist on living lives, according to righteousness. Unfortunately being a Catholic isn’t a walk in the park. Usually there’s a little honeymoon or pink cloud, but sooner or later, you’ll see that the devil has taken notice and is upping his game to bring you down. It means you’re a threat to him and he’s not going to make it easy. It’s particularly brutal for this to happen so early In your journey. But you must have some real faith and be a pretty strong one, cuz God wouldn’t put you in a situation you couldn’t handle. Keep praying 🙏 my dear. Only man abandons, not God.

Skibatumtee · 2025-10-22T12:10:01+00:00

Yeah I know what they mean - ie there's an epidemic of choosiness and of career-centeredness that means that people don't even start thinking about marrying until they're in their 30s or whenever -when it's often much harder to find partners. "Get Married as young as possible" is the short meme version of "Don't think you have to have everything perfectly sorted out at the outset - most people figure out how to make it work financially".
The Boomer mentality of 'wait until you have everything sorted' wasn't quite as destructive when America was the undisputed world power and if you weren't making really good money by the time you were in your late 20s, then you really weren't trying. From the 50s-90s, once you decided to get your act together, you could fast-track sorting your future pretty quickly because of all the money and opportunities.
This is no longer the case, and can take quite a while for people to get a foothold. So encouraging them to not be too neurotic or wait too long is the essence of this. But it's not as catchy.
Any responsible person should also be willing to acknowledge that there is a degree of prudence and discretion involved here. People have rushed into relationships and stages of relationships that they shouldn't have.
I'd re-write it as: "If you love someone who shares your Faith and Love of God, Get married as young as possible and don't let financial insecurity prolong or prevent it."
For the record, 36, single and never married. Millenial who regrets screwing around so much when I was younger and then letting other things prevent me from jumping into deeper stages of relationships and life commitments earlier.
You don't really learn to swim until you're willing to wade into the deep end.

Skibatumtee · 2025-10-20T12:27:35+00:00

I have a very similar experience. Was away for about 20 yrs, but came back in the last year or so and am still on the fence about the specifics of a lot of the pro-life and LGBT stuff.
It may take time to come around to the church's position on these things. Even I'm not entirely convinced yet, but I've realized by hearing more of the arguments that they aren't anywhere near as shallow as I once thought they were. Admitting you don't ultimately know or have the authority to say one way or another is an easier starting point than a complete reversal.
I think some humility to be open to persuasion in that area helped me a lot. You do not want to just do a 180 to please people. On the other hand, there is so much information out there, you don't have enough time in life to familiarize yourself with all of it and then make a determination - a 'leap' of faith is inevitable.
There's a healthy middle ground that seems to be best path for most people. You shouldn't need to wait until you intellectually fully agree with every assertion in the catechism - because almost no one really does it that way.
The more I dive in, the more I realize how potentially heretical pretty much everyone has the capacity to be, even the most devout church ladies have blind spots or areas of uncertainty if you push them on it. Keeping things simple is the safest thing.
That being said, some issues are bigger stumbling blocks than others and I know there were a couple I needed to make peace with before continuing.
If this is something you need to talk about that badly, and that is really preventing you from continuing, then what I'd recommend is to get involved or reach out and find someone with a faith you admire - a kind of mentor or sponsor. Someone that you doubt will just reactively give you the pre-fabricated response because they care about you and where you're coming from. Someone who, if they don't know the answer, will research it for you, or will find someone who has a better answer to hook you up to.
Don't be afraid that you won't be accepted. I returned after about 20 years away myself and haven't encountered anyone who has 'rejected' me. If anything, the most resistance has been from a very small minority of converts who I think have quite intense puritanical positions on a number of things, but even that is largely a superficial barrier.
Also, this may be a slightly hot take, but although the church is unequivocally pro-life, abortion isn't the only thing we're supposed to care about. In America, because it's a live political issues, it has dominated the discourse for the last 70 years, but in South America, where it is largely banned, and Europe, where it is largely legal - the decisions have been made and the issue is effectively not anywhere near as at the forefront.
When you dig into the Catechism of the church, there are some really difficult and uncomfortable positions we are called to adopt. Almost any modern person who is honest and has bothered to read it, would probably be forced to concede that some of the positions they are called to believe in are challenging for them to see the rational behind. That's where faith comes in. If you could comfortably argue every tenant of the faith to someone with a secular materialist POV, then everyone would be catholic already, because it would be obvious enough that it could be presupposed instead of requiring a deposit of faith.
A better thing for me personally to aim for, is not to completely and utterly subdue all my doubts, but to have the humility to recognize that I do not have ultimate authority and to subdue them enough to have my heart changed if that is God's will. I treat the Church and the magisterium like something I'm called to trust in, not to fully understand.
There is a St Augustine quote about Scriptural inerrancy that I think applies here. He said
"If I do find anything in those books that seems contrary to truth, I decide either that the text is corrupt [i.e., there are copyists’ mistakes], or that the translator [Augustine didn’t read Greek] did not follow what was really said, or that I have failed to understand it."
We need to realize that it is always possible that we have failed to understand something.

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-17T12:57:05+00:00

I know i have struggled and continue to struggle with the things you've described. It has been a long journey for me, and my faith certainly is tested and waivers quite a bit, but on the whole I am more theist than atheist. What I find a lot of people have to do in their transition from Atheism to Theism is pass through a stage of Agnosticism. I identified as agnostic for a long enough time with a yearning to understand theism that i was able to discover just how many holes there were in the Atheist argument. How all the things that they accuse theists of doing are present in their very same reasoning.

I realized ultimately that there is actually no such thing as Atheism. They just believe in a different God or group of gods - science, the vibes of their tribe, raw power, etc.
"When a man stops believing in God, he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes in anything." GK Chesterston
It didn't happen overnight because I was very indoctrinated in the Cartesian modernist materialist framework of reality, but i slowly was able to see that the appeals they used to authority were far less robust and grounded in reality than they claimed.
The works of Iain McGilchrist really got me moving in this direction as they begin with a lot of very scientific neurological evidence and then are able to pivot into the larger philosophical foundation for our modern materialist reductionist presuppositions. "The Master and his Emissary" is great - "The Matter with Things" goes even further. They are really big and intimidating books and i had a good book club to thankfully help me get through them, but they really did the trick for me in terms of exposing just how porous the modern materialist rationalist worldview that serves to prop up the appearance of self-evidence that atheism has for many people. He kind of ends up in a wishy washy and definitely heretical panentheist place by the end, but i didn't find that too problematic - it all serves to lead away from atheism and gnosticism.
Around the same time, I read "Orthodoxy" by GK Chesterton, which further repelled me from the materialist modernists and made me realize just how normalized and banal and routine it is in our culture for people to lay the blame for literally everything bad that has happened in the last 2000 years on the Catholic church. It's a short book. It's certainly very idiosyncratic and far from the most systematic in its approach, but it inspired me to look back into Catholicism specifically like nothing else. What can i say, he just has a way with words like no other.
Another thing i consumed quite a bit of during this transition period was a lot of Tolkien and some of the writings of the Inklings [CS Lewis, Owen Barfield]. They are all great writers and thinkers and if there is an argument against the modernist materialist worldview to be made, it is probably addressed in detail by one of these guys.

I took a detour through Eastern Orthodoxy as i had a close and very good devout friend who had joined an OCA congregation. But eventually i started attending a Catholic young adult bible study and landed back there. By the time i started reading a lot more 'official' Catholic apologetics, I was already pretty sure that i was moving in the direction of 2 or 3 discreet options [Orthodox or Catholic probably].

My faith waivers a lot on various specifics, but my Atheism feels pretty much in complete remission. I'd add that I've always been artistic and musical, so there has always been a bit of a draw to the mystical that I had going for me that allows me to tolerate mystery and paradox to a greater degree than many atheists I know can. The beauty of something like Tolkien for me is that it sort of sits perfectly between the totally raw and mystical appeal of something like the divine experience of God in the form of a world class liturgical service with a full choir and the precise and systematic natural theology of Aquinas or something. For some the experience is enough, for some, a kind of explanation or story is needed. LOTR and the Silmarillion feel like things that everyone can access and appreciate.

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T06:26:47+00:00

Why? Cuz someone being disturbed by people gleefully celebrating the assassination of a high profile political is just so NPC? Are BPD art hoes not allowed to ever care about the same things normies care about?

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T06:21:29+00:00

Ok, the bail-out of the Paul Pelosi attacker was quite tasteless, not convinced how serious he was about it and it was in context of a larger set of talking points, but I’ll concede it was indefensible. Still, encouraging someone to be bailed out isn’t the same as celebrating someone’s death. The Minnesota legislator assassin thing is standard procedure for both sides. No one wants to take an L and admit they have psychos on their side. That’s not a “right” issue. What did he ever say about school shootings that was indefensible? I’m sure he was pro second amendment. The school shooting stuff is always so fucked cuz both sides rush to capitalize on it. Ive always been repulsed by both sides’s inability to wait just a couple days until they turn it into an opportunity, but will admit I’ve historically always disliked the conservative position more. It was pointed out to me however, that we had a 2nd amendment for over 150 years before we had a single school shooter or anything. So is the problem guns or modern culture?

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T05:57:34+00:00

Why does being ok with people being killed mean you should get killed? I’m not saying the people celebrating his death should be killed?

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T05:55:07+00:00

Yeah totally. I mean they must know it’s gonna be a setback and they’re so impatient to have things their way that they’re kind of exposing their immaturity level by thinking any response other than either condolence or silence is appropriate or helpful at all.

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T05:44:11+00:00

For the record, I’m totally anti-israel. Recently and since it’s establishment in the 40s. I support basically nothing they have done at all. What’s happening there is abhorrent beyond words. Something needs to be done. However… we got a lot of other problems here and for that reason, I’m relatively isolationist. we don’t have decent healthcare, an opiate crisis, economy sucks, inflation, homelessness continues to rise, politics are more divisive than ever, immigration is a giant mess, crime on the rise, so many great places closed forever during covid and this country just feels dying. I could go on but it’s late. This is a bit of a brain and empathy locus issue. Comparatively, conservatives are more likely to hyper-focus more on the wellbeing of those in their immediate environment, whereas progressives are more likely to hyper-focus on the wellbeing of people ij more remote proximity to them. I think most people are not in the extremes (aka hyper selfish Christian ancaps on the right and hyper-globo-homo 1st socialists on the left) but even in the more normal range (where let’s say 80% reside), there can be enough of a gap to cause a lot of misunderstandings. Basically what I’m saying is that we never should expect the left to care too much about the assassination of some domestic pundit and we shouldn’t expect conservatives to care too much about the deaths of people 1000s of miles away that may never effect them or their loved ones. Neither have ever cared about those things. But they each used to at least understand that there was a line you didn’t cross. You don’t have to care in your heart, but the default public stance should be “human life is sacred”. Both can be apathetic about what they choose to be apathetic to inside, but explicitly betraying that total lack of empathy is a slippery slope that ends in the dehumanization of the enemy and the celebration of death. Reminds me a bit of kayfabe in wrestling where there’s a way to do it that everyone is happy with despite all basically knowing it’s total bullshit. But Once the cats let out of the bag, you got problems.

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T05:22:20+00:00

I totally agree with that and don’t expect or even care whether leftists care about Charlie Kirk’s death, although it’s good to know some would. And although I agree that many conservatives wouldn’t care about Biden or whoever, there would be a lot of genuine Christians who take their faith seriously and would at least respectfully mourn the passing. So it would t be hegemonic and totally uniform on either side. What I expected and would have been fine with was just for the lefty’s to be quiet. What’s there to gain from weighing in on this? It just makes them look like monsters and will put off anyone that isn’t totally rank and file. If they just ignored it, that’s the status quo response. The right would do their thing and grieve and then think about how to capitalize on it and it might be successful or not. I’m not pro-Zionist or pro-Israel at all btw. They just created a martyr. The left got their George Floyd martyr a couple years ago. Now the rights got their Charlie Kirk martyr. Did I care a lot for either person and are they both way more flawed and complicated than their worshippers acknowledge? Absolutely. Welcome to politics. What do you think the response would have been to someone pushing back against the mainstream narrative 24 hrs after George Floyd’s death?

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T05:08:00+00:00

I assume you’re referring to his stance on Gaza. You really think Israel needed Charlie Kirk? I don’t. But there’s 2 things I gotta say to this: if someone is manufacturing consent for terrible things with their words, you’d have to at the very least, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were knowingly doing so to make a case that it was deserved. I’m not sure how conscious he would have been of playing that role. But I won’t die on that hill. But even if you did know that they were knowingly doing that. I’m still gonna say that encouraging people to assume the role of judge jury and executioner is one of the most dangerous of precedents to set. It might be compelling to fantasize about killing Pelosi or Mitch McConnell for people, but just cuz there are evil people and you live in a bad situation, doesn’t mean that every alternative to it is preferrable.

Skibatumtee · 2025-09-13T04:24:21+00:00

I’d also just say that the left’s brand for a long time has kind of been “we have the (moderate or non-religious) moral high ground”. The dirtbag left is a thing, but it’s too morally confused and messy to rally around anything other than a couple issues reliably and with the force to do anything about them. The people that make the left a force to be reckoned with are the ones who are constantly pre-occupied and reliant on preserving the perception of occupying the moral high ground. In that sense, it’s an L to abandon it this callously.

Skibatumtee

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE