The title of this post looks to me weird – Reconnecting with God. How can I connect with God if I’m an atheist? Should I say that I Was an atheist? This post is more personal. It is in connection with the previous post, Here. It may not apply to everyone but to those having bipolar disorder.
As I said, this post is more personal. I have long experience with bipolar disorder. Now I feel more comfortable and relieved when I talk personally. This might also change the tone of my blog. Before, I was talking with readers indirectly, through a narrator. I put myself in a fictional world and writing autobiographical fiction. I still like it. There, I have more freedom to make my point and be creative, as creativity bring me out of long span of depression (low mood).
I would like to talk more about autobiographical fiction in another post. Let’s here be specific. What Mood-Dependent Belief (MDB) mean, and how it helps me to stabilize.
I’m from a Muslim family. Should I say that I’m Muslim. Well, it is complicated, as I have MDB. Long story short, long ago, one night when I was in college, I came to the conclusion that there is no God. That’s it! And I became an atheist. I didn’t take the normal route that my other friends followed. Oh God, if you are there, come here, do something and show me your existence. No, I didn’t do that. Some people like apple and others don’t. I didn’t like apple and so I denied God. I describe this situation Here.
I didn’t challenge the existence of God I just denied Him. There is a huge difference between disproving and denying God. For proving or disproving one may need to study all religions and all sciences. Maybe the teaching of one religion is not sufficient to prove Him. It may take your entire life to study all religions, and all sects within one religion. The same is the case with science. Any proof or disproof of God involves a hypothesis that per se unfalsifiable.
Years later when I was doing Master in physics. My field was Particle Physics. I learned about the Theory of Everything (ToE). Somehow, I was not satisfied with the ToE in physics, which is merely about particles and fields and the goal is to unify all forces of nature. I was expecting something more than that. Is life forever possible? Does God exist? Why are there wars in the world?, …
I knew that these are deep questions and physics alone may not be able to answer it. I don’t why I knew one day I’ll solve these deep questions.
One afternoon in July (2003), I strongly felt that I Got It! God Play Hide and Seek. God comes and goes. I see that the universe starts from a Big Bang and ends on a Big Crunch. Big Bang then Big Crunch. Again and again. God and universe are complementary. God disappears when the universe comes into being. God emerges again when the universe reaches to its ultimate end. There are two time scales. One is the universe time scale and the other is God’s time scale. On universe scale, the life of the universe is so long that God never exist. And on God’s scale, the life of the universe is so short that God always exists.
I was drunk by my thoughts. I foresee future. I see that a Prophet is coming who saves the world and whose teaching has answer to all questions. I am paralyzed. Who is that person. Is that I? I am talking to myself. No, I couldn’t be him. But I see an Atheist Prophet who teaches that God does not exist. He also proves it. People follow him. All questions are answered. Humans become so advanced in technology, they spread all over the universe like virus. They consume the universe. Universe reaches to its ultimate end. And God emerges again.
A Week later I was hospitalized. I also received ECT treatment, and I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. It was a relief. There was no such thing. Those were grandiose thoughts, I learned. What I foresaw, I realized, it’s not happening. I see many interesting things. I would talk about it in other posts.
For several years, I was in stable mood. Atheist back again. It started again when I came to the United States for Ph.D. In Pakistan I was stable. The mania didn’t return. But in the United States it happens to me so frequently, maybe the weather of Northeast affects me.
In short, the Bipolar Disorder made my belief bipolar. I would say here that I denied God taught to me by others and then I discovered Him by-myself.
Mr. Monologue 