For those of us who do not believe in god or are not sure of our faith, what is the purpose of our lives and how do we find happiness?

Thursday, September 30, 2010

What do THEY know

This is not Religion bashing but it kinda makes you wonder. If you truly believe that God is your saviour and that following your faith and religion is the path to salvation and eternal bliss, them don't you think you would want to know everything about the religion that you put your faith into, I would. But that does not seem to be the case. A recent study shows that "Nearly half of all Catholics surveyed did not know their church teaches that the bread and wine in Communion actually become the body and blood of Christ."  Also "More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation."

I think that if people truly believed that religion was the answer then this would not be the case. But it is easier to just not think about it. People use god as a crutch to fall on when they are not happy with their lives. That is one of the reasons that I ask "What do you want out of life" if we can all find happiness then maybe people can take a look at religion and say "You know I don't need you any more, I can be happy on my own"

More on that poll here

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Money and Happiness

   Good point Reality is Stupid money in hardly ever the source of happiness. It has recently been shown that although people who have more money can afford to buy more things they somehow lose their ability to deride pleasure from those items. See more here.
   A recent study states  "Lottery winners were not happier than controls and took significantly less pleasure from a series of mundane events" So happiness is not at all dependant on money.

Check out these lottery winners stories.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

What I want out of life

I was born in a pretty small town in the Midwest to a VERY religious family. I was taught about god and to be a faithful religious person. as I got older though I started to have questions that I could not shake, like "how can I be sure that the bible is gods word?" and "what if one of the other religions have it right and the quran or some other holy book is god word?" how can we know what we are supposed to do? I cannot accept on blind faith that the bible is gods word. so I did some research on how the bible became the book we know it as today. it took a lot of research to find the answer, seems like christianity does not like to talk about that subject. the answer was not very satisfying. See Here. I prayed, and  cried, and prayed some more for answers. I went and asked my pastors and friends but no answers came. I finally concluded that the bible itself had the answer for me,  2 Thessalonians 3:2 "...for not everyone has faith."
At first I considered myself agnostic but as I got used to the idea I realized that I was really atheist. If there was a god he does not care if I worship him or not, if he did he would give me a clear sign. So I must conclude that either God does not exist or does not care about us. Now this realization caused a delima in my life, I used to have a purpose but now I did not. I had now higher power to account to. What does that mean? That I can do whatever I want? no morals? no accountability? I did not like that idea so I did some soul searching. All I really wanted out of life was to be happy.
So the question is what do I do to be happy? Can I just make myself happy? Will money make me happy? Do friends make me happy, alcohol, drugs? What do I really want out of life?