Religion, Fear, And Your Mind

So, I mark my return to blogging with a new post.  The topic?  Religion and fear.  Do they go hand-in-hand?  Well, most often they do.  Mainly it’s the fear of judgement after death.  It’s seen in just about every religion– Am I right?  Am I wrong?  Did I do this right?  Is this a sin?  Is God (or are the gods) mad at me?  And then there are some religions that no matter what you do, you deserve what you’ve gotten, whether it’s something as small as a mosquito bite or something as tragic as a loved one being struck dead with a car accident/cancer/heart attack/lightning.

Speaking of lightning, let me tell you about a certain fear of mine.  Those of you who know me from Ex-Christian or Ex-Religious or you newcomers from Storm Phobia would know that I have a very severe phobia of lightning and thunder.   So if I anger God/the gods, it would really, REALLY suck if I was struck down by lightning.  And this fear has manifested itself in a religious matter.  Let’s go back in time to January 2008, when the first big storm of the year hit.

So I was awakened by thunder.  My least favorite way of waking up.  I run to my parents’ room where it’s safe (well, feels safe at least).  And while I’m wrapped up in my blankets, I question my own lack of faith.  I was under the impression that God was angry at me for leaving Christianity.  For a while I hovered in the void of confusion, the exact same place I was in when I realized Christianity was not for me, back in June 2006.  Is there a God?  Is he/she/it mad at me?  Is He punishing me for being an atheist?  But wait… if He is punishing me, why use a thunderstorm?  Aren’t there better ways?

During storms I tend to wonder if I’d done something terrible to deserve dealing with my worst fear.  I don’t believe in a higher power/deity/Supreme Being/God/gods/whatever, but somehow I think that there is a force out there that is angry at me and that’s why the storms are so bad.

But then I realized… wait a minute.  If God loved me, and if He would forgive me for being an atheist, why would he decide to punish me with a thunderstorm?  How would this make me want to go back to Him?  Is this all in my head anyway?

So, the atheist part of me prevailed.  Oddly enough, that was one of only three bad storms to hit my town.  All of the others skated by, and all my town got was a little bit of thunder and rain. The other two since the storm back in January have been nasty, but those times I was either with someone who wasn’t a family member (my family thinks it’s strange that I am so afraid of storms) or I was at school.

And then I lived happily ever after, still an atheist, not yet struck down by lightning (and I’m hoping I didn’t just jinx myself…) and knowing full well that whatever goes through my mind does not affect the weather around me (unless I have some sort of weather-making power, in which case I need to tap into this so that I no longer have to worry about storms).  The end!

Okay, not quite the end.  A few months ago I realized that my head was not screwed on straight, and that my storm-phobia (Astraphobia, Brontophobia, Astrapophobia, Keraunophobia, Ceraunophobia, Tonitrophobia… Jesus Christ!  how many names are there for this?!) was not normal.  And I dare say, having panic attacks at the mere sound of thunder or flash of lightning is a bit… irrational.  So I go on the internet to see if there is any kind of help out there, anything that can make me stop fearing storms… and what do I find?

A ministry (as in a religious/church group) founded to help people with phobias.

Yeah, lovely.  Fight the fear of storms with the fear of Hell!  Religion, in my mind, is but a mind game anyway.  So what is it for me?  Fear storms, or fear Hell?  Fear very real atmospheric conditions that generate electrical discharges that strike trees, cars, buildings, telephone poles, PEOPLE, houses, and scare the hell (teehee) out of anyone nearby?  Or fear a possibly made-up underworld of death and damnation and fire and screaming and crying and burning?  I’d go with the storms- there’s no  reason to fear an imaginary place.

~ by thinkingteen on June 18, 2008.