(March 1, 2011 at 4:26 am)wynnie Wrote: I wasn't entirely sure exactly where to post about this, since it isn't really about Atheism. I just feel like I might get more helpful responses here.
I cannot concentrate at ALL on school and this is just killing me. I know what it is all caused by: religion. My life used to have meaning, I used to matter...but now I don't. Now I am just living in fear of that moment that everything goes dark. It's fucking scary and I'm so tired of it. I can't even sleep at night because I'm scared I might die.
I think that dealing with our own mortality is much like the grieving process. Grieving for ourselves, I guess. How long it takes to come to terms with it varies from person to person, but you will come to terms with it. What happens to our consciousness no one knows, it does not go to Hell, that concept was created by man to scare people into behaving themselves when no one was looking. Work on focusing your attention on life, if you feel that yours has no meaning, you need to find out what it is that gives life meaning, and it is not religion. Religion provides one false system of beliefs that works fine for people who prefer not to think for themselves, society offers another system which basically is: go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, die. These distractions work for some people, but discovering what it is that makes life meaningful is a journey. Embrace the journey. (Nearing the end of life, I can tell you that it is a wondrous journey.) As for your anxiety, some is normal, but if it is truly debilitating, find a professional who can help you with it, there are good ones and bad ones. When I said that things like school, job, marriage and kids were distractions, I did not mean to dismiss them as meaningless, they are not. They are things that are very meaningful for many people. But you should not do them because the owners manual says to. You need to determine what is meaningful to you and do those things because it is important to you.
