I was born in a religious country (Russia), in a religious household. But not only religious, also very superstitious.
The men in my family folowed the Russian tradition of not being involved in childās education so, as many other children I was brought up by my mother and grandmother.
My grandmother always attended church (christianĀ orthodox) and usually brought me up with her to the mass. She never bothered to explain much. I was given a book called āBible for childrenā which I adored because it had a beautiful illustration on each page along with a wonderful story and Iāve always loved a good story. I never understood what purposes the church services served, I remember watching the painting of a woman in the church and always thinking it was the holy trinity because I never understood the concept. I donāt recall us ever talking about religion or God I just know that at a very young age it was established that God exists,Ā and I only remember my grandmother talking about angels that always protect us.
Surprisingly, strong belief in christian God didnāt stop my grandmother from believing in Chinese medicine, numerology and other nonsense. Still to this day she buys lunar calendars, assigns great meaning to the Chinese new year, reads books on parapsychology, etc.
My mother, on the other hand, looked for other ways to understand the world. She tried all sorts of cults. From some protestant churches - which she attended briefly wanting to protect myself from the dangers of the world by finding me ātrustworthy Christianā friends - to Jehovaās witnesses (whose literature I read with great interest always finding it amazing how their beliefs differed from the ones I was brought up with but also seemed to make sense in a way), passing by Emmanuel Swedenborg - whom she considered (and maybe still considers) the only true prophet who could talk to people living on other planets.
During the coming of age I wanted to make sense of it all on my own, I read literature on ancient religions (Greek, Nordic, Celtic, Hinduismā¦) because I really wanted to know how this world was created. I started to attend church willfully and attended a course on religion teached at the local church (still russian orthodox - while I was living in France). Russian orthodox priests are so special, they are so sure that their religion is the only true one, they under no circumstances want to talk about the parallels with other belief systems; which was not suitable for me because I was convinced that everything was connected and the truth was still āout thereā.
Funny thing - being so convinced astrology was real I was always surprised when I heard my French friends say that they didnāt believe in it. But being born āin the greatest country and religious system in the worldā I never for a minute doubted my beliefs and thought that those French people just didnāt know better.
Along with continuing my research I started to attend pagan meetups which were held roughly every month, even attended a meditation in the forest which was rather nice. They were completely different from what I expected - they didnāt care whether god existed or not - they related to the energy (or energies) āexisting in the universeā and it was all about connecting with oneself and/or nature. Very nice people, but still - no answer on how the world was created and what is the meaning of life and why there are so many religions in the world.
The more I searched the less I found.
I still believed in god and everything else just didnt know how to get to āthe truthā.
Everything changed when I came back to Russia. Having left it as a teenager I couldnāt compare the life I lived in France as a young adult with my native country, and thatās partly why I wanted to go back. And Iām glad I did.
People are so hopeless here but they also believe life has a purpose and they are just destined to live how they do. So much apathy. So much superstition. No initiative to change anything at all. Thatās when it hit me - the French arenāt āstrangeā they just believe you can do anything if you put your mind and effort into it. The Russians believe in nothing. If anything happens itās because itās āsupposed toā. Thereās no responsibility for your actions, no need to do anything because everything is how it is - and religion is greatly responsible for this mindset.
At this point I started questioning it all.
I guess a part of me always did because I was always interested in science, read books on physics and cosmology and even attended a few conferences but in my mind science was always just a way to prove that everything my religious beliefs told me was true.
Still as part of my research I bought āThe Selfish geneā by Richard Dawkins, it was so well written and I found it curious that he was an atheist and even wrote a book about it, so I decided to check it out. Now, I wonāt say āThe God delusionā changed my life - rather dissipated the few doubts I had left and convinced me that accepting there is no god doesnāt make you a bad person, and there IS a meaning to life if you want to make one.
As a kid and teenager I used to have horrible nightmares where demons and witches were chasing me, I used to wake up terrified, trying to figure out what I did wrong, always stressing myself. I donāt have then anymore because now I understand that none of it is real.
I think about my past a lot (quarter-life crisis is real) and regret on the time I wasted waiting for my destiny to reveal itself to me. For 20+ years Iāve done nothing important, didnāt invest myself in anything I was passionate about because I was tought you have to have āa special giftā to do something. Now, Iām trying toĀ make up for the time lost but itās hard because I now have a job and a few responsibilities to manage, and the people surrounding me (especially my family) are religious and itās impossible for them to understand what I went through. They say I have toĀ āattein a certain ageā to understand religion and what it means and they disregard my protests and donāt want to listen about the hell I was living in.
Please, donāt allow unreal things to influence your life, itās all in your head and you just have to analyze your worries and let them go. The world is still a beautiful place full of magic but this magiŃ is governed by the laws of physics/chemistry/biology.Ā
P.S. I wanted to write this story for quite some time because I see a lot of people in the same place I was at, trying to find the meaning of it all wasting time and money in useless pseudoscience books and teachings, convinced they know better. And I donāt think I can make them think otherwise, they have to come to this understanding on their own. (I really hope this post will help you even just a little bit.) And to the people who think all religious people are stupid - please donāt, itās a matter of education and cultural surroundings - attacking them wonāt make them change their mind - rather the opposite.
