A vision of religion and the Bible by a former atheist. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Now read what I’ve got to say before you collect an angry mob, torches, and some wood to burn me. I clearly said that I was a former atheist. Don’t worry I’ll explain in a minute. I got baptized like most people and did all the other stuff as well. Here in Belgium, we follow the Christian church and the pope. It’s a bit outdated, to be honest. I’m pretty sure that people from the States wouldn’t feel at home in our churches. They still do it like back in the 50’s. My grandmother told me so that’s how I know.
I wasn’t pretty religious as a kid but I prayed when I had too or when I was facing harsh time (like bullies). I figured that God would solve it if there ever was a God. So I guess that most people already know where this is heading I guess?
From religious to atheist and never back again?
I faced a lot of adversity between the age of 13 and 22. There were good times as well of course but life wasn’t going as smooth as it went for most people of my age. At one point I was sick of it and got more into science. I started to believe that you need to prove something before it actually exists. This was a mindset mistake but I didn’t realize it back then. There was also nobody to guide me since most people assume that it’s normal to be a non- believer. They call it youth sins over here. But you can’t keep on living like this of course. My lifestyle caught up with me and I tried almost every form of escapism because I couldn’t face the truth. I was lost.
Eventually, I got into a deep dark hole aka depression. I was even suicidal at the end. I hated everything and everyone. But you know who I hated most? Myself! I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts because they were far from happy and joyful. I couldn’t live like this anymore because I just couldn’t find purpose. But I’m still alive so something changed right?
The former atheist who found purpose again.
So I’m still alive and I’m alive and kicking. I do MMA so you’re damn right that I kick! I decided to take my faith into my own hands and change my life after I realized that I had to change. So I started reading a lot of self- help books and books about philosophy. I never read a book that covered religion because I didn’t see the point in doing so. You see here in Belgium we treat the Bible as a children’s book. People read stories from the Bible to children but we rarely see the real meaning behind the stories. I’m pretty sure that most people don’t even get them either.
I did, however, start to think about the meaning of life in that period and that resulted in a pretty interesting blog post.
Enter the zone.
After a while, I got hooked on mediation. I took me a while to master it but I really loved it. So I guess that it made me aware of things which I didn’t notice before. I even began to read books about Chinese philosophy. I started reflecting more and more on stuff like mortality and suffering (I’m a big fan of Stoicism). By that time Luke and I had talked a lot about several things and he knew that I was an atheist or that was what I claimed. I already believed in something bigger than me but I didn’t follow a religion so I figured that I had to be an atheist. Suddenly Luke pointed me out that I had a lot of biblical values for someone who didn’t believe or read the Bible. Crazy right?
The former atheist and the Bible.
The book of Proverbs contains a lot of wisdom and I was shocked that it was even timeless. I’m planning to reread this book at least once a year. I might even read the whole Bible at one point. I mean there’s tons of wisdom in the book and most people don’t realize that it’s still applicable today. The only problem is that there are a lot of translations and some of them misinterpreted some parts which give the whole sentence a different but also a wrong meaning. I got this from Joe Rogan’s podcast with Jordan Peterson. A wrong interpretation can change your perception of something bigtime. Just listen to the podcast you’ll get what I mean.
The former atheist: there is more
This was actually a guest post on Sweet Machine Fitness. Click this link to read the whole blog post.
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Alex
