(September 22, 2018 at 4:39 am)Dragonfly Wrote: Hello,
I was raised in an evangelical Christian fundamentalist home. Fourteen years ago I couldn't take it anymore but couldn't stand the feeling of being "nothing," and Judaism seemed to be a much kinder, truer religion, so I astonished my family by converting to Judaism. I fell away from Judaism over the years, got very religious again a couple of months ago, but just couldn't get anything out of it. Since Rosh Hashanah a couple of weeks ago, I really started searching. I talked with a rabbi, visited a church again and felt totally disillusioned. I've spent countless hours in the last week studying atheism, creationism, religion, philosophy, science, cosmology, evolution, myth, etc., and one by one my beliefs broke. Evolution happened, the world wasn't created in six days, the Big Bang happened, there is no God. I've been hanging onto a delusion out of fear.
I just came to this realization tonight, and I feel absolutely devastated and lost. I'm a 50-year-old woman who's spent her life making choices based on religion. There is no God to comfort me, guide me, protect me, or intervene in my life. There is no Heaven. I will never see my family, friends, or pets again once they/I die. My entire schema for living has fallen apart. I feel devastated and terrified.
If you have any guidance, please help me.
thanks,
dragonfly
Firstly I'm sorry for your troubles, I never felt the kind of anguish about death that you described (maybe because I gave up religion when I was too young to go up against many Sicilians when death was on the line), so I can't tell you anything to help alleviate it, as I don't have a fear of death.
But I do have a general piece of advice; find something good that you like doing. It doesn't have to be big, like finding a cure for cancer, but if you can find something that regularly leaves the world a bit better when you got to sleep at night than when you woke up that morning (or once a week or month or whatever you can spare), you'll have done a great thing. And because you like doing it, you'll have the added bonus of feeling happy into the bargain.
Urbs Antiqua Fuit Studiisque Asperrima Belli
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