Religious advice - cancer, anxiety and years of doubt.

Hi,

So I was a Christian for most of my life but my ex prodded at my faith which had never been questioned before, and I lost it at about 23. I'm 29 now and have struggled with it on and off all that time. Sometimes I still pray when I'm anxious. I ask for help even though I feel no one is listening, and that it's more likely there is no God, I can't help it. Then the next day I ask myself what I was thinking and it's like the cycle repeats itself.
 

I am an anxious person and I suppose I'm scared of facing the prospect of cancer essentially alone if nothing exists spiritually. I'm scared of death. I'm scared of not living the years with my partner, even though I might not even have cancer.
 

Even at the point where I was at the most bad mentally I kept finding feathers, but then I knew there were geese that live nearby. I feel like I just can't accept spiritual things anymore without trying to put something logical down. I just can't settle on what I believe and what I want to be, Christian or Atheist. 


Does anyone have any thoughts? is anyone here religious or not? I would love to hear your opinions and stories.

 

edit: the vent actually helped. I feel better now. 

  • Glad you are feeling better.

    Personally, I don't really feel the need to know if there is a god or not. I think it's pretty much impossible to be certain either way. I do pray and have sometimes had prayers answered in ways that seem like quite a coincidence, but then, maybe it just IS a coincidence and there IS such a thing as confirmation bias where you will remember the times a prayer was answered unexpectedly and not the times one wasn't. So, no way of proving things.

    I don't think it's necessary to come down on one side or the other. After all, asking God to keep you safe from cancer or whatever won't do any harm if He doesn't exist.

    It is also very unlikely you will die of thyroid cancer even if you do have it. And the odds are probably that you don't. Cancer is a scary word but the more common forms of thyroid cancer are almost never fatal. Like, I think the survival rate of the most common form is over 99% for younger people. Younger is under about 50, so at your age, it would be practically research paper worthy if you died of it.