I’ve been a believer in the existence of God most of my life, way before I had any interest in religion. My choice of religion is a consequence of my faith, not the cause. I believe in God because it makes sense to me. That also gives me a sense of belonging and the fact that I have a hope in something bigger than myself provides me with an extraordinary emotional shelter.
Living in a world as horrible as this one, it helps me so much to believe that this is temporary, that a beautiful future will arrive and all the ugliness will disappear. Sometimes that hope is all that keeps me going from one day to the other without getting extremely depressed.
How do non-believers cope with the reality of the world? If you believe that this life is all there is and nothing else can be expected, how do you keep emotionally balanced? What is your source of strength and happiness?
I am an agnostic theist, although that matters little in response to your post.
This world is exactly as ugly or as beautiful as we choose to see it, regardless of our ideas of "God".
Many years ago, when I was in my first year or so of recovery from alcoholism, I was feeling miserable. And I don't mean just blue, or depressed, but abjectly miserable. And the reason for it was that alcoholism twists a person's mind through years of practiced negative thinking. To put it in a nutshell, I wanted to be drunk all the time, because I am an alcoholic. But to recognize this constant desire within myself would have forced me to see that something was very wrong with me. So instead, subconsciously, I would look for reasons to get drunk, all day long, every day. If I got a flat tire, I'd stomp off the the bar. If I got a bill in the mail, I'd stomp of to the bar. If someone said something cross to me, I'd stomp off to the bar. Anything, and nearly everything, became the exemplification of how horrible life was, so I'd have an excuse to stomp off to the bar and get drunk. And over many years of doing this, I really BELIEVED that life totally sucked, that people were all selfish jerks, that "God" was a malicious prick, and so on.
And even after I'd finally sobered up, my mind had been so thoroughly twisted by this time that this horribly negative view of reality was still 'the truth as I saw it'.
Then one evening I was walking on the street with a sober friend of mine, and a light bulb finally went off in my head. My friend was one of those people who is always seeing the positive side of everything. The opposite of me. And we happened to be walking on a Friday evening, in fantastic weather, down a very popular street in Chicago. And lots of people were out and about, sitting in outdoor cafes and pubs, dressed up and on dates, or shopping, and all enjoying themselves. But not me. As usual I was staring at my feet, mumbling under my breath about all these phony yuppies showing off for each other and wallowing in their racist privilege and oblivious to all the suffering in the world, and so on and so on, and feeling miserable because I couldn't just go get drunk, anymore.
Suddenly my friend stops and points across the street, and says excitedly, "hey, did you see that?" Of course I saw nothing because I was looking at the ground as I was walking. So I ask, "see what?" And he says, "over there, that bag lady and that wino sitting on the stoop!" I still didn't see them but I asked, "what about 'em?" And my friend says, still all excited, that the bag lady had given the wino her money. And it was green paper money, not just change. And wasn't that amazing that this homeless woman would give that homeless man, money! And then he went went on about how amazing people are, if you only pay attention to them.
And finally I began to understand why my friend Tom was always so happy and upbeat, while I was still so desperately bored, and unhappy, and miserable all the time. It was because Tom LOOKED for those events in life that exemplified the good in the world, while I did just the opposite. I looked for every possible opportunity to reinforce my dark and pessimistic view of existence. And so I saw just what I was looking for, while my friend Tom saw just exactly what he was looking for. The big difference was that what he saw made him happy, and hopeful, while what I saw made me miserable and hopeless.
And from that moment of illumination, on, I understood that I
am in control of how I perceive the world that I live in. And thereby, I am in control of how I feel about it. It took me another year or so of practice, but I did eventually begin to change my default mode of perception from the negative to the positive. It's not that I don't see bad things in the world, anymore. But now they are easily offset by the many wonderful things that are all around me to focus on, and experience, so that the bad things won't own my mind and heart.
Being unhappy is not a question of belief in God. It's a matter of focus, and of practice. I find that belief in God helps with this, for me, because it gives me a place to express my gratitude for the wonderful and mysterious gift of being here. But I'm sure I could do so without a god, if I needed to.
