I think I will only begin to feel true happiness when I stop believing in God. It’s this belief juxtaposed with the reality of the world that is making me depressed. God (if it exists) does not concern itself with the minutiae of this life. If it exists it doesn’t get upset when humans or animals suffer. It is, as you say, neutral. It is clear to me that ‘Big Daddy Sky God’ is a myth. The myth works when you are young and impressionable, but the older you get the more you see through it.

I have been involved with organized religion for over twenty years and it has damaged my life. It creates a condition called religious trauma syndrome, and people who suffer from RTS are far from being happy well-adjusted individuals. They are self-loathing social introverts incapable of forming intimate human relationships, and this is because the founder of Christianity has laid laws down which are impossible to follow. So anyone not ‘hitting the mark’ is made to feel like an abject failure and a bad person, because they don’t measure up to the ridiculously high standards set by Jesus Christ; an anti-human figure who prohibits men from looking at a woman lest they commit a sin. Small wonder then that the ex-Christian forums are teeming with such people.

Your advice is sound and I thank you for it. I won’t expect ‘Good’ anymore. I think that’s the only way to live.

Best wishes.