Science

I read this story a while ago, “Major Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists”

I remember when I was trying desperately to find god. I remember when I was told, no - CONVINCED - that getting that faith was the only thing that was going to save my life. As a result I spent hours, days, months and years trying with all my might to find and live in that faith. If I didn’t have it, they said, I should just act like I did have it and eventually it would come.

I filled out several trees worth of paper examining my faith, the faith of others and trying to figure out how to have the peace, serenity and love that so many others around me seemed to have found.

I never lived up to it, I never found it, and every bit of energy I expended trying to be a ‘spiritual, not religious’ person would always end me up in the same place... knowing that I was not serene, that I was mentally ill and had no idea what my options were.

"My work to answer these questions began with the thought that as I discovered the truth, it would create a stronger faith and give me comforting answers to those in my church who were dealing with the same issues. Instead, the truth I found led me away from faith."

I don’t know that the Roman Catholic Church and their 11 years of related religious education, the 12-Step movement and a couple of different ‘sects’ of pagans wanted to turn me into an atheist, but my quest to save my own life led me from their institutions and to myself, to chosen-family and to logic, reason and facts.

I was already an atheist when I was diagnosed with MS and in some ways it made it more difficult to comfort myself and others in my life. In other ways it made it easier.

I do the best I can with what science knows about my disease. I know that my personal outlook on my future does nothing but keep the people who love me from leaving, but I also know that exercising everyday, watching what I eat, and maybe taking a couple thousand IUs of Vitamin D will help the symptoms I live with. Next year I will probably go back on Copaxone daily, just because I know it will buy me some more time before my next relapse. That’s what the science says it will do.