Does anyone else struggle with this?

TW! Mentions of religion, morality, specific obsessions and compulsions; please take care of yourself and do not read if you are not in a headspace for it! —————————————————— For context: I’m not religious in the traditional sense— I believe all religions have some truth to them when looked at metaphorically rather than literally. For this reason I don’t believe in the concept of heaven and hell as the afterlife. I struggle with a specific flavor of OCD that blends moral, harm-related, and real event OCD. This causes my to worry about whether or not I’m a good person based on my actions (past, present, and future, though past actions are the ones with the most weight as they cannot be changed) and whether or not they caused harm. I’m being very general with the definition of harm since I focus on physical, emotional, psychological, and even sexual harm— do note that it is taking me a lot of effort to even mention that last one but if there is any place that won’t be judgmental, it’s this one. It does not help that I have a deep interest in moral philosophy, specifically in the context of how one defines a good person, what it means to redeem oneself, what it means to forgive someone, the relationship between intentions and actions, and the consequences of our actions. In short, my mind has a lot of ammo to attack me with. The longest debate I had myself recently was on the morality of the death penalty, which took 2-3 hours rehearing to myself while I checked my moral framework to make sure it still functioned, followed by another 3 hours of explaining it to another person to gauge their reaction. I, again, do not believe in the traditional hell— seeing hell as more your own guilt rather than an actual place you go when you die. And yet for some reason my mind has convinced me that I will be going to hell despite not believing in it. I have asked myself if this means I believe in heaven, and my immediate answer was no, that there is no eternal reward for being a good person after death. It’s all a bit hypocritical, but such is fate. I was curious to see if anybody else struggles with something similar, and if so what is it like for you? Anyone else really into philosophy before all of this? No reassurance, please and thank you ^^

Anonymous

Date posted: 8h

My experience is not exactly the same but it’s similar in many ways! I have an almost identical outlook as you describe with religion - but I was raised Christian and that kinda allowed my religious OCD to take root in very specific ways that might be different than yours. But I have dealt a lot with the fear of “I am going to hell” and for me it was specifically “because I don’t believe in Christianity and don’t believe in heaven” but I’ve definitely in the past had COUNTLESS spirals over being afraid of something I don’t believe in or understand. I kinda credit this to the fact that human brains latch onto fear a lot more than vague good things like the idea of heaven, and hell is a much more fleshed out concept described very viscerally to evoke fear. So we can work through, logically, all of the religious stuff and say “I do or do not agree with that intellectually” but we can’t always logic ourselves out of fear. I also get very very caught up on the idea of morality, grey areas, and nuance. So I don’t have those intense internal debates like you’re describing but I do have a very intense desire to always be good, understand all of my past actions and beliefs and rectify new ones, dissect and understand every action humans might take and its moral weight. Which usually takes a TON of time and mental energy to consider every side and every possible factor. So ultimately, not sure how much this is like what you’re describing but I think it’s at least somewhat similar. You’re definitely not alone !!!

G4L1ATH3E4RTH

Date posted: 8h

@Anonymous Even if it’s not exact it’s still comforting to know that there is something similar. I find that when it comes to specific things like these it’s difficult to find others who feel similarly just because of how complex it can be. I would like to open myself up a bit more to the idea of nuance, since I can accept that from other people (even with my specific philosophical view) but not from myself. We’ll get through it eventually, it’ll just be a pain to do so (T-T)

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