Ok so I was talking to my pastor about the fact I can't grasp God creating us the earth, etc. He said that I needed to be a grown up and stop blaming my intellect if I could not believe in God and chose to believe i know he isn't there that I will go to hell and that I have no one to blame but me.
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Raven have you read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis? He makes a good case for the existence of God. It actually makes more sense to me that He does exist when you look at creation, and beauty, and life. It seems you must believe somewhat, or you wouldn't be so worried about it. Keep praying!
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SophiaL
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raven, I am going to stick my neck out here but honestly, I feel that your pastor is out of order. Perhaps that might not go down too well, but I think he is trying to bully you.
Sorry if that sounds harsh, but everyone has their own intellect and it should not be something we are blamed for. I have the same problem as you but fortunately I don't fear hell. I simply trust that God made me, if He exists, and that He therefore understands me and will not send me to hell simply for exercising the gift that He has given to me, if indeed He does exist.
raven, you have gone through so very much with this. Your pastor is not allowing you to be who you are and is putting extra burdens upon you.
Please forgive me if I have spoken out of turn, but this is what I feel. You can do without all of this blame and guilt raven and no, you are adult anyway. Totally adult. If you could end all of this torment you would. This is not something you should be blamed for, to add to all of your difficulties. Hugs raven.
Sorry if that sounds harsh, but everyone has their own intellect and it should not be something we are blamed for. I have the same problem as you but fortunately I don't fear hell. I simply trust that God made me, if He exists, and that He therefore understands me and will not send me to hell simply for exercising the gift that He has given to me, if indeed He does exist.
raven, you have gone through so very much with this. Your pastor is not allowing you to be who you are and is putting extra burdens upon you.
Please forgive me if I have spoken out of turn, but this is what I feel. You can do without all of this blame and guilt raven and no, you are adult anyway. Totally adult. If you could end all of this torment you would. This is not something you should be blamed for, to add to all of your difficulties. Hugs raven.
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He said I am being illogical by thinking God can't create things and its my fault if I go to hell by assuming he isn't there.
I am not not even talking fear of hell and doubting God exists, just or others not ou this is not an ocd question)
I am just saying I can't believe. I can't believe God can pull things out of thin air and create us either by regular Creation or evolution but let's say hypothetically he did exist he would punish me or what I can't comprehend. My dad can't read he can't comphrend it. He has tried to learn so he gets punished? I used this analogy with my pastor and he said your not trying to understand jus standing there complaining you can't. Trying for over three years int even of trying. Geez!!!
So you have some faith God is real?
I am not not even talking fear of hell and doubting God exists, just or others not ou this is not an ocd question)
I am just saying I can't believe. I can't believe God can pull things out of thin air and create us either by regular Creation or evolution but let's say hypothetically he did exist he would punish me or what I can't comprehend. My dad can't read he can't comphrend it. He has tried to learn so he gets punished? I used this analogy with my pastor and he said your not trying to understand jus standing there complaining you can't. Trying for over three years int even of trying. Geez!!!
So you have some faith God is real?
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He also said either my fear of hell is irrational because I wouldn't fear it if I didn't believe or my fear of hell from a non existing God is irrational. How can I know which it is?
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gracealone
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"How can I know, why can't I just believe, why can't I comprehend "how", what does this all mean, am I doomed, is this my fault? I need answers, I need reassurance, I need proof!"
And this stuff is in your head how much - how often? Does it monopolize your thinking?
But you say it's not related to OCD.
Talking to your pastor about all of this will do you no good unless he completely understands how to approach OCD issues. The best he can do for you and should do for you is just to say this: "Raven, you have a very distressing mental illness which is causing you great suffering. I'm so sorry about that. Allow me to pray for you that God will bring you through this and that you will get the help you need to manage your illness and get you on the road to recovery. I love you and God loves you too." That's it. That's what he can do for you and it's the very same thing he'd likely do for anyone else who is suffering from any kind of illness. It's not fair to him to put him down and criticize his counsel to you if he's not fully educated about OCD as to how it operates, what is helpful in that management of it and what is detrimental to it. Going to him for help with this would be like going to him and asking him to set a broken leg for you. Would you do that?
But he cannot know that this isn't a spiritual issue if he isn't fully educated about OCD and you shouldn't expect that he would be. He's a pastor, not a psychologist.
Your therapist is giving you the very best counsel and tools to manage this. But if you don't pick those tools up and use them, (no matter how painful it is to do that), you won't get better.
I don't expect my Pastor would say the right things to me if I went to him about my Religious OCD because he'd be treating it as a legitimate spiritual problem. And that wouldn't be his fault. It would just be because he hasn't been trained to treat mental disorders.
Try to get back on track with the exposure that your therapist is recommending. There's no overnight relief to this disorder. It's a long hard road back for most of us, but the point is to keep on keeping on.
Love you, Mitzi
And this stuff is in your head how much - how often? Does it monopolize your thinking?
But you say it's not related to OCD.
Talking to your pastor about all of this will do you no good unless he completely understands how to approach OCD issues. The best he can do for you and should do for you is just to say this: "Raven, you have a very distressing mental illness which is causing you great suffering. I'm so sorry about that. Allow me to pray for you that God will bring you through this and that you will get the help you need to manage your illness and get you on the road to recovery. I love you and God loves you too." That's it. That's what he can do for you and it's the very same thing he'd likely do for anyone else who is suffering from any kind of illness. It's not fair to him to put him down and criticize his counsel to you if he's not fully educated about OCD as to how it operates, what is helpful in that management of it and what is detrimental to it. Going to him for help with this would be like going to him and asking him to set a broken leg for you. Would you do that?
But he cannot know that this isn't a spiritual issue if he isn't fully educated about OCD and you shouldn't expect that he would be. He's a pastor, not a psychologist.
Your therapist is giving you the very best counsel and tools to manage this. But if you don't pick those tools up and use them, (no matter how painful it is to do that), you won't get better.
I don't expect my Pastor would say the right things to me if I went to him about my Religious OCD because he'd be treating it as a legitimate spiritual problem. And that wouldn't be his fault. It would just be because he hasn't been trained to treat mental disorders.
Try to get back on track with the exposure that your therapist is recommending. There's no overnight relief to this disorder. It's a long hard road back for most of us, but the point is to keep on keeping on.
Love you, Mitzi
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gracealone
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Like I said.. your pastor would not be answering this question within the context of OCD so, in my opinion, (and it's just my opinion), what he says won't help you.
It's your choice whether you treat this question as OCD or not. All I can say is that you've been getting absolutely nowhere by acting as if it's not OCD so you've nothing to lose by treating it as if it really is OCD.
Einstein: "The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
That's what OCD does to us. It keeps us on the hamster wheel but we never gain any ground whatsoever. Sooooooooo exhausting and painful!
Love you, Mitzi
It's your choice whether you treat this question as OCD or not. All I can say is that you've been getting absolutely nowhere by acting as if it's not OCD so you've nothing to lose by treating it as if it really is OCD.
Einstein: "The definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
That's what OCD does to us. It keeps us on the hamster wheel but we never gain any ground whatsoever. Sooooooooo exhausting and painful!
Love you, Mitzi
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