You don’t want to kill God

Merely the sound of the word “God” I’ve just have always felt a bit of instinctual repulsion toward. Not the ideals, not the bible nor the teachings, but just the sound of the word itself. It’s as if I was just not meant to be a religious person in my youth even though I was profoundly curious about what religion is–being that I am gay and aspired to do good in the world–and that people around me had invited me to church many times in my youth.

Yet, I’ve always felt religion is an important part of being a citizen in the West, given its incorporation into our culture, the government, the judicial system, healthcare, etc… I remember, for instance, I brought up the bible in my medical school personal statement and, in retrospect, that’s probably why I ended up at the school that I ended up at and had the experience that I did. Though religion is undoubtedly important, we do have the freedom in the United States to not be religious in the practicing sense.

A physician friend of mine I recently interacted with had gotten into philosophy and had mentioned to me that it was Nietzsche who had said that “God is dead” and that we have killed him. As a consequence, we must seek meaning independently in the wilderness outside of the religious sphere. Religiosity has always been an interest of mine–just because I’ve always been a curious person–and, at the same time, the practices associated with it have always felt both very foreign and very uncomfortable to me. I wonder if that will ever change as I grow older, for is the purpose of this life really just to feel as comfortable as one can feel?