Empitness.

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mynamesjoe said:
Let’s let Father Barron handle the void issue or better stated, the argument from desire

youtube.com/watch?v=qP2rLgrBtTI

:tiphat:
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Thanks for the link.

Interesting Priest, but he just made lots of unfounded statements.

When he said, our desire for the Truth, Justice and Good pushes us beyond this universe towards God, I did have a huh? moment.

My desire for truth, justice and good has me, and keeps me, firmly rooted in the reality of the world around me and nowhere else. If I’m going to contribute to making this world a better, more just, more honest place, it’s going to happen here. Nowhere else.

If I’m going to experience a happier, more honest, good, just world, it’s going to be here. Not somewhere else. So I’ve never been pushed to look beyond here.

Maybe that’s my problem 🤷

I’m too much of a realist. 🤷

Thanks for the personal experiences so far - all very interesting reading.

Sarah x 🙂
 
Have you consider that you may be looking for this answers in the wrong place?
Also do not forget that not all of us will enjoy the grace of the Lord as harsh as this sounds is a fundamental reality that believers ought to understand and non believers accept.
Hopefully this will be a place for refreshing and encouragement for Christians and a peaceful place for others.
 
atheistgirl said:
Thanks for the link.

Interesting Priest, but he just made lots of unfounded statements.

When he said, our desire for the Truth, Justice and Good pushes us beyond this universe towards God, I did have a huh? moment.

My desire for truth, justice and good has me, and keeps me, firmly rooted in the reality of the world around me and nowhere else.
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Well, Sarah? That’s where God is.

Can I use Jesus as an example? He didn’t spend His life sitting on a mountaintop dispensing wisdom or staring up into the sky. He walked all over His world, and visited and ate with and touched the lowly and the lepers and the forgotten and the reviled.
Maybe that’s my problem 🤷
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Maybe that’s your gift.
 
DaddyGirl said:
I am always curious when i read posts here by strong “believers” who say they feel the empty void, they are depressed, they are suicidal, etc. It always surprises me because so many talk about religion–here it would be Catholicism–as being the blueprint for happiness and satisfaction. But some follow this blueprint, and then…they are not happy.

So what does that tell us?
Are they just believing “wrongly”?
Do they not believe or pray enough?
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Rather, those who look for happiness and satisfaction in this life will be disappointed. Jesus did not say “Follow me and you’ll be rich and healthy and happy.” He said follow me and you will carry a cross, you will share your suffering with me, and we will together offer our suffering up for the sins of mankind. Because we are directed to love, and all love involves sacrifice.

With regard to the OP:

Why is it that humans seem to have this capacity to want more, and more, and more…? Other creatures don’t eat more than they need. Birds don’t immediately move into a bigger, more expensive and impressive nest as soon as the old one is finished. Animals have sex only “for as long as it takes” to procreate. Humans are different, there is a built-in desire for “always more.”

Are we ever loved enough?

But in this world, because it is finite, “always more” runs out. What is it that drives this desire for the infinite, the more and more, but only in humans? The answer is that we are children of God, an infinite God, and we are made in his image and likeness, and our desires can only totally be satisfied by something infinite. And that means God.

Look at the rich and famous and powerful and glorious. Are they happy? Not if you look at Hollywood (which is the home of the rich, famous, powerful, and glorious).

IMHO.
 
PacemVox said:
Have you consider that you may be looking for this answers in the wrong place?
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This is a good question that we should all ask ourselves from time to time.

I think that Sarah’s ‘experiment’ if I may call it that, is very interesting. Really looking forward to the thread when it’s over. And the stories of people finding this connection, this inner peace, this very specific connection with God are obviously written from the heart.

But I can’t get away from the idea that somewhere in India or in Nepal or outback Australia, there’s a group of people talking with each other and saying the exactly same things with all the sincerity that can bring to the subject. That there’s an Aboriginal Sarah trying to get in touch with the Dreamtime and maybe an Indian version who is being encouraged to make the connection with an Ultimate Reality.

Is it valid to suggest that Sarah, when she’s finished her 40 days and 40 nights of prayer to the Abrahamic God, then goes through the same process with a few other belief systems to see if there’s a difference? Is it valid to ask a Christian to do the same?
 
DaddyGirl said:
I am always curious when i read posts here by strong “believers” who say they feel the empty void, they are depressed, they are suicidal, etc. It always surprises me because so many talk about religion–here it would be Catholicism–as being the blueprint for happiness and satisfaction. But some follow this blueprint, and then…they are not happy.

So what does that tell us?
Are they just believing “wrongly”?
Do they not believe or pray enough?

Or is the key to feeling “filled up” different for each person?

Christopher Hitchens loved, devoured, savored every minute of life, he said in interviews.
And I know some people who are very religious but are rarely happy.

So…
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All I know is that my life is better off when I actively accept God and Jesus Christ in my heart and soul and pray to them then when I don’t. I had an extremely terrible childhoood and have basically come to accept that it has impacted me so severely that I will carry with me a burden to one degree of another because of this for the rest of my days.

Did I deserve it? No. But what should I do about it? Be angry at my parents and the world for the rest of my life like I did when I was younger? I have found that didn’t make my existance any better. When I accepted that the problems put on me were in me, and that it really didn’t matter how they got in there or who put them in there, the important thing was to recongize that they were in me so they were “my” problems at that point. Being my problems, I had to take responsibility to try and fix them.

And believe me, that was one hard pill to swallow. But I swallowed it. And since that time my life started getting better.

I see the ramifications of my childhood as my ‘void’ if you will. Should I curse God because of this? I don’t think so and don’t see how that will benefit me. I wll say that I have cried many times in prayer “why me?”, 'why me?" over and over in tears. I didn’t get an answer.

Yet I still have this ‘void’ if you want to call it that. So I pray for assistance in ridding myself of the devil and all his works and influences and pray for assistance in filling myself with positive qualities that Jesus would have me possess and pray to know what to do and how to act in order to improve my internal self and to learn and practice behaviors that are socially addaptive to replace the internal maladjustment I suffer with and the external behaviors I exhibit because of my terrible childhood. And I take it day by day. And I pray thanking God and Jesus for hearing me and being there for me and for any and all relief and things I am able to do that are less hard than they were before. I pray for many things like that and pray to be worthy, or to learn to become worthy, of God’s and Jesus’ assistance as I work to try and improve myself so I may be a better husband and father and brother and sister to all my fellow Catholics, all my fellow Christians, and all my fellow human being brothers and sisters.

And I realize that God works in his own way and helps people in his own way, the way he chooses to, in his own time. And I realize that life is not meant to be perfect and we all have problems and challenges.

What should I do? Drop God and Jesus from my life because I am not magically turned into a happy person with financial security, etc? I don’t think I will do that. I don’t put expectations on God or Jesus Christ. I just do my best to live my faith and learn more about being a good Catholic and practicing that.

I also pray in the context ‘if it is your will’ as I don’t presume to know what God’s will for me is. Maybe it’s for me to be hit by a car and die tomorrow so that some other person will be shocked and impacted in such a way that they decide to become a trauma doctor and they go on to save hundreds of lives in their future. Who knows…
 
Julia_Mae said:
Can I use Jesus as an example?
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In the Christian world, Jesus and Saint Francis are my two favorite people so far. I’ve not read much about other saints other then Saint Bernard and Benedict.

Francis I really get. He got down and dirty. I adore people like that. People not afraid to work hard and get things done. People who live in the real world. Yes, I know Francis had a phenominal spiritual life, obviously, but he was a real get things done kinda guy. So was Jesus.

I like that in a person.
Maybe that’s your gift.
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Dunno. I’m not immune to the transcendant. I adore music, poetry, and so on. I can get lost, literally, in a piece of music. I can lose myself looking at the moon, or the stars, or just watching the waves crash on the shore. I can stare at a flower for an hour, lost in it’s intrinsic beauty.

But I see it all as nature, part of the cycle of nature. Nothing more.

But within that, I can honestly tell you, I have had some of the most sublime moments of my existence.

This world, in all it’s beauty, and ungliness, and danger, and thrilling, electrifying life, is truely something to behold.

I feel awesomely privilaged to be a human, and to be able to do something, and make something, and leave something behind, to have tried to have made things a little better, to mark my presence here.

Sarah x 🙂
 
Bill_7154 said:
I don’t know if I felt exactly what you would call a ‘void’ or not, but I recently discovered my faith about 4 months ago. I was raised Catholic but not invested. I went away from the church in my late teens. I always believed in God and Jesus (with times of doubt) and off and on prayed and read the bible. 4 months ago I went to confession for the first time in 17 years. Prior to that I felt a stirring in me and asked my father about church and what brought him to church (he never went when we were kids, just my mother and my sisters and I, now both my parents are very close to the Church and are both Eucharistic Ministers) as he would off and on tell me of what Catholic teaching is trying to encourage me to get back to the church.

I prepared for confession. I was scared. During and afterwards I felt an extreme change. I felt blessed. I felt relief. I felt acceptance. I felt a renewed purpose in life. Hope and graditute entered my life. I felt that I had the capacity to better my life for the first time in a long time. And I feel relief, peace, and basically a lot of positive good things when I pray. I feel connected to God and Christ, particularly when I pray. I am not nearly as scared as I used to be, and I was/am scared of PEOPLE of all things, particularly any authority figures like my boss, etc. I’m afraid to conduct business with people like my landlord, calling the cable TV company, simple things for most people. Now I have hope that this can change.

I feel blessed that I now can and do freely discuss God with my wife and others who believe in God at appropriate times. I’m a work in progress, that’s for sure, but I’m much better off than I was pre my confession. I enjoy going to Church now, I don’t thHink I ever actually enjoyed a Catholic Mass until the one after my confession recently. I’m still working to fill voids or flaws within myself, but now I have the help of God and Jesus who I can turn to whenever I want and I know they are there for me listening. I have a lot to learn and a lot to figure out but am in a much better postion now that I have God and Jesus in my life because I opened my heart to them again recently.

God Bless,
Bill
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I know that many Catholics have feelings after going to confession. I, however, am not one of them. I give thanks to God for his ability to forgive, but in all honesty it’s something I dread. I have a lot of trouble trying to vocalize my sins. I have also found that many confessors like to tell people how much God loves them. This is great, but I like more concrete advice. There was one priest who really challenged me to become a better person, but he was quite young and has since been moved to another parish.

The Eucharist (and Mass in general) are a different story. I feel all sorts of things and am often moved by the Holy Spirit in the presence of the Eucharist.
 
We are value driven creatures; and our mental health is largely dependent on how we perceive the value of our existence.

The bottom line is simply this: A person who doesn’t take existence for granted and is dedicated to reflecting honestly on the human condition, will admit that it is always dishonest and deceptive to give meaning and moral-value to things which have no meaning or moral-value; for the simple fact that such behavior does not reflect the nature of real things. Its also dishonest to convince others to participate in the same delusion. This remains true regardless of whether or not you are an atheist or a theist.

Becoming an atheist might free you from the delusion of placing value and meaning on life by invoking the fantasy of God, but it does not necessitate that you are free from the dishonest activity of placing value and meaning on things which have no true value or meaning. Make-belief is the essence of humanism.

An honest person who knows that life is vanity would prefer not to exist than to pretend that life is worth living or give value and meaning to things which have none.

Some people will commit suicide, and some people will take a leap of faith that there is a God. The most despicable person is the one that admits life has no value or meaning but chooses to live none-the-less and attempts to deceive people by making the claim that there is no problem with the human condition. In reality such a person is merely saying that they are willing to settle for eating, sleeping, sex, and entertainment, and if necessary living in a delusion so long as it is of their own making and will.

Such a shallow existence just isn’t enough for some people, and those who seek religious truth do so because they would prefer to fulfill the distinction between people and animals to its highest potential rather than live the life of a mere replicating organism going nowhere.
 
To me it’s more like the soul is asleep than anything else. I didn’t know anything was missing, everything was fine before I belived. Afterwards I couldn’t beleive that I didn’t notice that something was missing.

Once, probably a few months after I converted, I had an experience where I went back to “normal”. It was as if God removed all grace and I felt exactly as I did before I believed. The difference was huge. It didn’t feel much like emptiness though, it was more like I couldn’t see what I saw before (more like blindness) and I even had the thought that I was crazy to believe. Grace/Faith came back after a few minutes. I would never nor could I ever go back to being a nonbeliever.

All in all, it’s very difficult to explain. To me it feels more like an awareness than a feeling which is why I like the blindness analogy better then the empty vessel one (of course both speak about the same “thing”).
 
ReapReason said:
We are value driven creatures; and our mental health is largely dependent on how we perceive the value of our existence.

The bottom line is simply this: A person who doesn’t take existence for granted and is dedicated to reflecting honestly on the human condition, will admit that it is always dishonest and deceptive to give meaning and moral-value to things which have no meaning or moral-value; for the simple fact that such behavior does not reflect the nature of real things. Its also dishonest to convince others to participate in the same delusion. This remains true regardless of whether or not you are an atheist or a theist.

Becoming an atheist might free you from the delusion of placing value and meaning on life by invoking the fantasy of God, but it does not necessitate that you are free from the dishonest activity of placing value and meaning on things which have no true value or meaning. Make-belief is the essence of humanism.

An honest person who knows that life is vanity would prefer not to exist than to pretend that life is worth living or give value and meaning to things which have none.

Some people will commit suicide, and some people will take a leap of faith that there is a God. The most despicable person is the one that admits life has no value or meaning but chooses to live none-the-less and attempts to deceive people by making the claim that there is no problem with the human condition. In reality such a person is merely saying that they are willing to settle for eating, sleeping, sex, and entertainment, and if necessary living in a delusion so long as it is of their own making and will.

Such a shallow existence just isn’t enough for some people, and those who seek religious truth do so because they would prefer to fulfill the distinction between people and animals to its highest potential rather than live the life of a mere replicating organism going nowhere.
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Very close to my experience: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=711162

Unfortunately you are wrong about God being imaginary. I have felt an otherworldly presence and many mystical things. In the end God will not call a materialist wise for never turning to Him but a fool. He had his whole life to wonder if there is meaning to his desires but desires which he ignored because he listened to false epistemology and vain philosophies of the worldly wise.
 
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InJesusItrust:
I never made a statement claiming that God isn’t real. The statement i made was in the context of drawing a conclusion assuming that atheism is true, not that it is true in actual reality.
 
As for suicide and leap of faith I have attempted both. When I try to explain my reasoning to atheist friends, they just do not grasp it. They are willing to pretend that there life has meaning despite it being all in their head and imagination. Then they accuse the religious of being too subjective. You captured my experience perfectly.
 
atheistgirl said:
In the Christian world, Jesus and Saint Francis are my two favorite people so far. I’ve not read much about other saints other then Saint Bernard and Benedict.

Francis I really get. He got down and dirty. I adore people like that. People not afraid to work hard and get things done. People who live in the real world. Yes, I know Francis had a phenominal spiritual life, obviously, but he was a real get things done kinda guy. So was Jesus.

I like that in a person.

Dunno. I’m not immune to the transcendant. I adore music, poetry, and so on. I can get lost, literally, in a piece of music. I can lose myself looking at the moon, or the stars, or just watching the waves crash on the shore. I can stare at a flower for an hour, lost in it’s intrinsic beauty.

But I see it all as nature, part of the cycle of nature. Nothing more.

But within that, I can honestly tell you, I have had some of the most sublime moments of my existence.

This world, in all it’s beauty, and ungliness, and danger, and thrilling, electrifying life, is truely something to behold.

I feel awesomely privilaged to be a human, and to be able to do something, and make something, and leave something behind, to have tried to have made things a little better, to mark my presence here.

Sarah x 🙂
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To be honest, everything you’ve described there sounds just like everything most Catholics with whom I’ve talked about it feel. We love this world, we adore nature, and we are honored that we were born into humanity (even if humanity ticks us off a lot of the time >_>).

I honestly believe that, for an atheist, you are in an amazingly good place. You recognize the beauty and majesty of everything around you. Nature and the universe are amazingly beautiful, I am awe-inspired every time I see some new picture of space or some beautiful nature photographs; or when I hear about something good one human has done for another. I, and other Catholics, just take it one step farther. We recognize that none of this beauty is capable of existing without a god who loves us completely.

We also recognize that this beauty is transient. If you only put stake in the natural reality, then you also have to accept that eventually everything you know and love will cease to exist, the sun will consume our planet, the universe will rip itself to shreds, and time as we know it will cease to be. These thoughts are not depressing to us though, because we already accept that everything is transient, except the soul. The soul is eternal, and in eternity we will have… well… eternity to see beauties and wonders beyond our comprehension. As a person with your type of mindset, I’d think that even the potential for something so amazing would be enough to make you open to the possibility of God; and once you open yourself to the possibility of God his calls will have more effect on you.

God bless, and I truly hope that your time of prayer opens you to His love. He would love to have you with him for eternity so that you can experience the wonders he has created for you in Heaven.
 
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