Sober without god. An atheist / agnostic / humanist thread. Please be respectful!

[TrustyBird]

I’ve been a lurker on this thread since it’s inception but was never as brave in my beliefs as some others (I’m looking at you @anon59754122). It’s a sunny Sunday where I live so I feel a ramble coming on.
I was raised Catholic and we were the church every Sunday plus holy days kind. I went to Catholic School from grade school through high school and I was active in our church’s youth group. What I took from those years: a sense of reverence for what is holy, a longing for a supportive community and the ability to sit still like a good little girl for long stretches.

Now in sobriety I do long for community again. Bars were social and communal for me and while I could not do this without this community sometimes you need a hug from a sober person.

I don’t believe in a higher power in the sense that my sense of that power doesn’t feel elevated like I was taught in Catholic school. My power reminds me how small I am (just like in Catholic school) but also reminds me of my power to help, to change, to love. My power is definitely not called God.

I’m three months and change (punny!) sober and I do feel a desire to acknowledge my powerlessness and give it to someone. In my head I’m trying out the names Love and Gawd (all of my old nun teachers rulers just slapped me simultaneously for that one) or Awl (because it sounds like All and it is a tool to punch holes in things). None of those sound right to me yet so today ya’ll will have to be my higher power. A community of people who say “I can’t do this by myself, will you help?” That seems pretty dang powerful to me.

Now you’ve got my eyes leaking.

Happy Sober Sunday all and thanks for speaking all your truths.

[RosaCanDo]

Thanks for sharing. I see a lot of my Mami’s experience in what you’ve described. I grew up hearing her stories of being in a Mexican Catholic school with the mean nuns and all that. She was beaten because of her left handed proclivity, among other horrible treatment. No doubt hearing these stories is part of how I got to my belief system.

You’ll figure out what works for you. Maybe lean on the idea of “Us” as opposed to something based on god to start with and adapt from there.

[TrustyBird]

Thanks. I think at this point of my sobriety I am re-discovering people and life outside of alcohol. I’ll get to the universe and the cosmos in due time.

[RosaCanDo]

You’ve got plenty of time! And it’s a great start.

[anon9289869]

Holy moly I fell very behind on this thread the past few days. Yall have some beautiful minds and that was some wonderful reading to catch up on.

@anon59754122 Im so so so so freakin happy to see you back!!
Sending you all the love and support friend.

[anon59754122]

Thanks everyone!! I have had to wait to reply since my account is new :(. It’s been so hard waiting to respond! You all mean so so so much to me and I really just can’t say how happy I am that I have you guys sending huge hugs to you all with a big squeeze!

[anon59754122]

I missed you so so much!!

[anon59754122]

Thank you @Lorelai ! It’s been pretty hard recently but I just have to keep going for them.

[Pat_m]

Since childhood I’ve always been fascinated by “the big picture”, like how insignificant everything here might be, seen from a giant perspective.

Anyway, Carl Sagan captured this feeling like no other, with his Blue dot" speech in response to the famous picture taken by Voyager 1 before it left our solar system in 1989.

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.

On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.

How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.
In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.

Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known."
Carl Sagan

[anon59754122]

That was so deep and so well said. Absolutely accurate

[anon59754122]

Good morning everyone
This thread is really the only place I feel comfortable posting rn so I wanted to do a check in. I’m bummed to see that I lost all those days that I had but I’m ready to get them back

[SassyRocks]

I love Sagan’s pale blue dot, I have posted it a few times. I grew up watching Cosmos and he made a huge impact on my life. I love his voice as well…listening to him always brings me a great sense of peace. He was an amazing human.

[Pat_m]

Lost where?
Those days are not objects you could have lost, they’re in you. Use them as tools for your present and your future

[RosaCanDo]

My favorite movie (ok, one of many favorites) is Contact. Lots of interesting relevant to this thread topics, too!

[anon59754122]

I am going to do just that. Thank you @Pat_m for being such a great encourager

[Thirdmonkey]

Remeber how this feels…when that urge hits again…recall today…then tell that urge to go fuck itself!

[Thirdmonkey]

@SassyRocks

Cosmos

It mesmerized me

[anon59754122]

Absolutely. I let my emotions rule that decision unfortunately. Turning to drinking was my way to numb my feelings and not deal with things and I allowed it to happen again. But I know that I do not want that to happen again.

[Pat_m]

This one, simple and direct, is very helpful for me, it works the same with THC and lots of drugs I suppose

[Pat_m]

I love Contact too! I need to watch it again, it’s been a long time.

As for brilliant movies on the subject, have you seen Arrival from Denis Villeneuve ?