Depression Forums
Depression Related Forums => Depression Central => Topic started by: DarylR on June 14, 2012, 12:44:04 PM
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has anybody here found themselves turning to God during their depression? I have began to i must admit, and normally i would not have any time for such things. But it is through desperation that i need as much help as i can get, including the counselling and medication
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Yes, Daryl, several times. If it works for you then go with it. But for me the problem always was that eventually I would realise I had convinced myself to make a leap of faith because of my desperation. I ended up resenting the church as I felt any experiences I thought I had had were probably just my mental health issues. Having said that, I now get a lot from spirituality - I just have to do it my own way. I hope I haven't been a killjoy - the teachings of Jesus are very profound and I thnk you can find a lot of truth there. The sermon on the mount is a masterpiece.
:)
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Not me. It is a bit like taking arsenic, then when you feel ill, start thinking the cure being cherry flavoured arsenic. Not a terribly good analogy I know but if god is all powerful and all knowing then must he have created the depression in the first place, so therefore he can't be good, so to turn to the problem/cause for help is a bit illogical.
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This is assuming god is an omnipotent being with the capability of doing good or bad things
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True, but most people assume he is, like they believe he created the Universe in 6 days. I don't think they would like to see their god's supposed presence diluted somewhat, as it would start to get rather pointless. I am rather strident over this topic because when my son passed away the local vicar came to discuss the funeral. At the time I wasn't thinking straight and he asked my wife and I to join him in prayer. Now I think how disgusting that was. Me for going a long with it and just the insincerity of the whole thing. I just knew that vicar didn't mean a word he said, afterall we wasn't married then and our son hadn't been christened. Therefore with compounded twisted logic James would have been sent to purgetory or limbo or possibly hell if this whole charade was true. Truly dark age, bronze age thinking. That's how religion gets people; at their lowest and most vulnerable, suggestible ebb.
Sorry I don't want to offend anyone, believe what you want but there is an amazing Universe out there that is real and tangible.
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hi daryl
i think a lot of people turn to religion in difficult times and for some it helps to have faith for me the problem is i truly want to believe and have the faith and strength that i see in people close to me but my brain won't let me sorry i know that is of no help whatsoever but i just wanted to say it
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Perhaps less people than you think these days Beetzart, a lot of people call something 'god' but dont think of a bearded man sitting on a cloud doling out punishments and favours as most, if not all, of the Abrahamic faiths seem to do. Many other religions and faiths worship their prophets/gurus/masters rather than a god or gods.
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zaf yes i can relate to that, before i had no interest what so ever in wanting to learn about God, but now my feelings have changed and I am rather curious to understand why people believe and would like to feel that connection myself. if u know what i mean?
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I certainly do Daryl, why not explore some of the mystic faiths or alternative beliefs to the god most of are taught about at school? You might find what you're looking for and if not you may enjoy learning about other beliefs
Z xx
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If you feel an affinity with Christianity but find the dogma a problem, perhaps the gnostic gospels would be one place to start :)
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I am certainly curious as to why people believe fervently in something that has no evidence to support its existence. Zaf, you talk about various gurus etc, but they can't all be right, surely? If I had the charisma, personality, bare faced cheek, and a lot of bottle I could become a guru; make my own stuff up or franchise from some bigger cult/religion. I find there is plenty of wonder, intrigue, beauty, in the Universe without the need to confuse or muddy matters. Everyday I seem to learn something new, and it is that yearning for getting to know stuff that is one of the things that keeps me going.
This video fills me with more joy then I can imagine, I hope someone else enjoys it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M
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I think if you look at the underlying message from most of the prophets/gurus/masters (including Jesus and Mohammed) they all say pretty much the same Beetzart and much of that relates to the wonder of the universe etc. I firmly believe the problems start when these messages are corrupted my man, either for their own means or by accident, and/or formed into religions with rules and rituals
Its great yearning to discover things, personally I find the mystic religions and quantum physics fascinating and in a way they seem to compliment each other
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I think that people do turn to higher things when life gets hard, I know I have. Like you said Daryl, it's partly desperation. I keep thinking that there has to be something more than this miserable existence. Because if this is all there is then why do I bother?
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I think you're right Kate
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But I can't see any plausible purpose to existence; doubly troubling when you start to consider what that may or may not be. I am very materialistic, I find simple pleasure in looking at molecules on wikipeadia that make up various dugs we take for depression, asthma, or whatever. When someone gets 'cured' or relieved of symptoms then it could be seen as a miracle, when in fact it is not. It is just processes in the body that use and manipulate a particular compound, which results in side-effects, one or more of these side-effects may be beneficial thus causing possible remission. It's like a tiny jigsaw puzzle and certain drugs fit neatly into receptors, or enzymes that could in turn stimulate the endocrine, or the immune system into action as particular examples. I remember when I was about 10, I couldn't fathom out how headache pills worked; it seemed quite wonderous that putting tablets in your stomach could stop a pain the head. Yet later on I realised all that happens is stomach enzymes break the pill down and the active ingrediant enters the blood stream, etc. The next step would be working out how this all works at a deeper level to cancel out the supposed 'miracle' of the preceeding occurance. This is why drugs get better over the years because people have gathered a better understanding of organisms.
What I am trying to say is that the more we look at things and try to figure out how they work, instead of finding something mystical in it as way of explanation, the actual truth becomes increasingly more beautiful. Therefore there is no need for a purpose; or maybe it is just being priviledged enough to live on Earth for 70 odd years, reproduce, and pass on information. And by priviledged I don't mean chosen in some way for a purpose but randomly selected by the forces of nature.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M
Thanks Beetzart, truly inspiring. My wife doesn't get why I like to engage with the 'big' stuff when I'm depressed, I suppose feeling small helps to put one's troubles in to perspective.
But the blue dot theory doesn't entirely convince me of our smallness in the sense of insignificance. We really don't understand what time, space and reality are. Size may not matter. On theory suggests the whole multiverse may be made of one single electron moving at mind-bending speed. When you see the similarity between the piucture of a brain cell and the universe itself, it makes you wonder.
One thing quantum physics teaches us is how much we really don't understand just by observing the physical universe. Nothing is solid. Things are made of waves, or waves collapsed to a point by an observer. Maybe the observers are actually very important indeed. Or maybe not. I don't claim rights to any great 'truth,' but it's fun looking for it.
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The truth is indeed beautiful at times but for me it leads increasingly to wondering why
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhBcLk_8f0
This is very simply put!
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I cant get it to play on my ipad :(
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a lot of people call something 'god' but dont think of a bearded man sitting on a cloud doling out punishments and favours
In that case they are using the word God to explain something that they don't comprehend. If God isn't an omnipotent being and he/she/it is something else what what is he/she/it? To say you beleive in God without giving God a definition is like me saying I believe in the tulip-slipper-sandwich...... completely meaningless. People say Eisenstein was religious - no he wasn't, he used the word God liberally to mean the physics not understood by human beings. So the Einsteinium God is perhaps the God Zaf is referring to, but you have to give it a definition for it to be a coherent argument otherwise it is meaningless.
Personally, I can confirm that the Abrahamic God does exist, I saw him in my garden once eating blackberries. I could also tell that he had been drinking.
Steve X
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In some cultures it is said if you can describe God (the tao, shabd, allah etc etc) you are wrong as this phenomenon is indescribable
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This is a really good video to sum up Abrahamic religion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Na_wcvqUOY&feature=relmfu
As this is succintly put:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VaBCikHGs&feature=related
I won't post anymore vids as I feel I have posted the best ones I could find.
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I'll have to clear the junk in front of my PC and watch them, in the middle of a house blitz and that room looks like a bombs gone off in there ::)