OCD, Coincidences, and Faith.

[inflection2495]

Hello Everyone!

This is my first post here and I'd like to start by introducing myself; I was born and raised in the United States in a moderate Muslim family. I was never really religious per se but I held the core beliefs, and mostly paid the rest lip service. Upon entering my first year of University, I came down with an onset of existential depression. After a long and arduous journey, I have come to the conclusion that one cannot fully grasp the concept of a 4.54 Billion Year Old earth and 13.1 Billion year old Universe while simultaneously holding (non-cherry picked) religious beliefs without suffering from some serious cognitive dissonance. I've gone from being desperate enough to believe the hysterical rubbish qu'ran miracle claims to finding an amassed interest in natural sciences such as biological evolution, geology, etc. I am no longer able to believe the absurdities within scripture, whose claimed author is an uber galactic cosmic creator of infinite intelligence. If I were to read scripture from such an amazing being, I would expect my mind to explode from absolute awesomeness. With said scripture containing strong hints of geocentricism, ridiculous nonsense such as 'shooting stars being made to be shot at Jinns (evil spirits) who seek to spy on gods holy council in the atmosphere' and things of this nature, I don't know how one can take such a deity, or any deity for that matter, seriously at all. Apart from scripture, this entity makes no sense in that it demands worship and endless attention while not needing it whilst punishing you for eternity if you don't, and already knowing the future exactly as it will take place but still tests us, etc. These thoughts have run through my mind, and the true miracle of religions is that anyone can actually believe it at all. If this makes any sense, I consider myself an on the fence atheist, about 95% there. I say 95% because I see faith indoctrination as a sort of a mental octopus-like being, with innumerable tentacles that latch onto your brain and will do anything to keep you from freeing your brain. Every phase I've gone through thus far I see as a removal of such a tentacle. I feel as though I'm nearing a complete sense of free thought and free mind. But who knows, for some it takes years; for me, it has only been an upwards of 7 months.

Now that I've established a bit of an intro and how I came to atheism, I'll get down to what I wanted to discuss. I have an OCD for coincidences in that my mind likes to attribute significance or simply extra attention to mere coincidental events that naturally occur and are completely rationally explicable. I searched this on the Internet and I've seen it called "Magical Thinking". An example of coincidences I would notice, this being a real one I experienced, are as follows; I'm driving and listening to music on the radio. The singer says on the radio, for example, the number 70. The car in front of me at that exact moment has a license plate that has the number 70 on it. These are interesting little coincidences that I tend to not make much of. However, when unlikely coincidences like these come about that have to do with religion, my mind goes into an irrational overdrive.

Keeping the above in mind, here's the situation I find myself in: so I was browsing through a social network and went into the profile of an athlete. Looking through recent pictures, I clicked on one of him and his son (note that this has absolutely nothing to do with religion). In the comments section, I run into an extremely random 30 week old comment that reads "Why do not you accept Islam??" With it's glorious grammatical errors and all. I just looked at it. Like "Wut?". Something completely unrelated to religion of any sort gets a random comment like that, and I happen to open it up and look at it. So now, the unlikelihood of such a thing occurring has had me overthinking...'Is this some sort of sign?' And things like that...Yes, I know this is bizarre and irrational, but I guess that's what indoctrination does to a person. I've kind of reasoned as to why such a person would comment; the athlete is a mixed martial arts athlete and a lot of fighters come from Caucasian regions (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.) There is a large amount of Islamic fanaticism (Note the threats to the Russian Olympics for example) and a lot of youth ascribe to semi-radicalism in that they see it as more of a community/cult/gang. I'm just postulating that he's one of these and wants to bring one of his favorite athletes to the "dark side". And that's about as close to rationalizing it as I can get.

I'd like to ask if any of you have ever come across something like this? Especially in relation with another religion? Any input would be great!

I decided to come here for community and support in my free thinking journey. Islam is very keen on apostasy and none of my family would even imagine I was thinking such things, so I hardly find a place to speak out.

I apologize for this "TL;DR" material and hopefully I don't look like an ABSOLUTE LOONEY sharing this but if anyone cares enough to read through and discuss it, I'd appreciate it :)

Thank you!

[Insult to Rocks]

Welcome! It's very nice to have you, and may I say that you write very well. :)
As for people taking coincidences far too seriously, check one of our multiple 9/11 threads. We are currently experiancing a bit of a truther infestation.
Another thing to watch out for, we've recently had a few fundementalist muslims chime in on our discussions. And by fundementalist, I mean full on "the only joy and happiness lies in death" fundementalists, so be careful.
Other than those...."problems", I hope our little comunity can give you something to think about.  Lastly, and once again, welcome!

[inflection2495]

Thank you for your suggestions and compliment on my writing! I'll definitely check them out! As for fundamentalist Muslims, I can't comprehend how their brains function, or how they DONT function rather. The motivation to live to kill and die for some invisible being is clearly obvious that it is the ploy of a 7th century desert warlord to build an army based on brainwashing.

[Damarcus]

all I got from this is that Jinns are apparently evil. Which sucks, because I gave one $30 last week for some wishes, but he never called me back.  :(

But anyway...welcome aboard!

oh and...are you in a good situation at home? have you "come out" as an atheist to your parents? Would you be able to/want to?

[Lisa360]

Oh my sweet poor darling I feel for you!

Lol. I've been trying to unclasp those christian tentacles from my brain for years. Well...actively for 6 months. Your story sounds a lot like mine and I feel you 100%. Stay strong. Religion is actually mind fuckery. You've got to flush out the indoctrination with facts. Read, watch debates between scholars and people of your faith, read some more. I look back and wonder how, whenever I would hear stories about bazaar cults, I had the nerve to judge those people. Religion can get people to believe and do ANYTHING.

How is your family situation? Are you able to support yourself? I'm still living in the closet but at least I am financially independent from my parents and have my own place (albeit right down the street from them--sigh).

Stay strong!

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Oh my sweet poor darling I feel for you!

Lol. I've been trying to unclasp those christian tentacles from my brain for years. Well...actively for 6 months. Your story sounds a lot like mine and I feel you 100%. Stay strong. Religion is actually mind fuckery. You've got to flush out the indoctrination with facts. Read, watch debates between scholars and people of your faith, read some more. I look back and wonder how, whenever I would hear stories about bazaar cults, I had the nerve to judge those people. Religion can get people to believe and do ANYTHING.

How is your family situation? Are you able to support yourself? I'm still living in the closet but at least I am financially independent from my parents and have my own place (albeit right down the street from them--sigh).

Stay strong!

You all beat yourselves up to much to simply realize religion is just a lot of bullshit out to take your money. Once that fact reveals itself the rest is just to much work..or perhaps I'm just to lazy, but it doesn't take a monumental effort to just say "Fuck the dumb shit."
That's my take on it. 8-)

[inflection2495]

Haha very funny Damarcus xD Jinns are pesky little bastards, spying on the creator of the universe, don't trust them with a single cent! And Lisa360 it's always good to know your not the only troubled soul out there! It's amazing how I quickly dismiss Christianity and not give it a second thought as I have not grown up in it. This PROVES religion is a system of indoctrination and brainwashing from either early childhood or through an emotional stimulation (converts).

As both of you have inquired, my situation at home isn't too bad. I have started working a part time job while going to school and have a girlfriend (boy I'd be killed for that! xD) that works as well. My mother is not well in terms of health so I provide a lot of care for her. In terms of moving out I don't think that'll happen for a little while.

Another thing; coming out. I could never do that with my family. Possibly my older brothers at some point but I'd rather not my parents. My another would be far too emotional and my father still believes in the Evil Eye actively affecting our lives, magic spells and other supernatural nonsense that I'm embarrassed to admit.

And AllPurposeAtheist, "Fuck The Dumb Shit" pretty much sums it up. But I guess that becomes hard to say confidently when you've been forced to mentally rot.

[Sal1981]

Hi, welcome to AF. Love your intro.

[Plu]

Welcome to the forums.

You should probably consider reading up on Apophenia, it might give you some insight into the workings of your brain and why you feel the way you do when you see religious icons.

Apophenia /æp??fi?ni?/ is the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.

[inflection2495]

Oh wow...thank you Plu!!! Getting a cognitive insight definitely helps! I'll read into this some more and see waft I come up with! :)

[Solitary]

:-D Welcome aboard inflection2495! Nice introduction! Have you ever seen the coincidences with the Kennedy assignation? Anything about religious ones pales in comparison. When you have trillions of events that happen, the odds are there will be many coincidences. They are not special and mean no more than they are coincidences. Religion is based on magical thinking, and therefore irrational, which is what faith is based on. I know what you mean by having smoked very good pot, that makes everything seem magical and profound. Solitary

[FrankDK]

> I'd like to ask if any of you have ever come across something like this?

Yes, all the time.  With so many things going on in our environment, it would be a miracle if we didn't experience these things often.  I can't tell you how many times I've looked at the digital clock and it was 11:11.  Of course, I can't tell you how many times I've looked at the clock, and it didn't say 11:11, but I don't notice those times especially.

The human brain is a correlation engine.  It looks for connections, links, possible cause-and-effect relationships.  That's how we came down from the trees and went up to the skies.  But we often make false correlations.

> Especially in relation with another religion? Any input would be great!

I suspect that's how religion got its start.  Somebody did something, and later something happened.  People connect unrelated events and attach significance to them.

Welcome to the forum.

Frank

[inflection2495]

:-D Welcome aboard inflection2495! Nice introduction! Have you ever seen the coincidences with the Kennedy assignation? Solitary

Ah yes...the Kennedy assassination coincidences, wherein particular details between Booth and Oswald correlated...I had forgotten about that! Now that I think about it, that takes a giant dump on my coincidence claim. Thank you :)

[inflection2495]

>
Yes, all the time.  With so many things going on in our environment, it would be a miracle if we didn't experience these things often.  I can't tell you how many times I've looked at the digital clock and it was 11:11.  Of course, I can't tell you how many times I've looked at the clock, and it didn't say 11:11, but I don't notice those times especially.

The human brain is a correlation engine.  It looks for connections, links, possible cause-and-effect relationships.  That's how we came down from the trees and went up to the skies.  But we often make false correlations.

I suspect that's how religion got its start.  Somebody did something, and later something happened.  People connect unrelated events and attach significance to them.

Welcome to the forum.

Frank

Thank you for the welcome :)
I agree, a lot of wacko coincidences do happen. I guess the situation I find myself in (being on the fence) and the nature of what I saw bewildered me because of how unlikely it really is. But indeed, we are definitely correlation engines and can definitely tie together unrelated events through imagination.

[inflection2495]

Just bumping this post to see if anyone else has anything to add.