My Loss of faith has caused severe depression

[The Grand Nudger]

Thats precisely it. My ignorance was bliss.

You know, you hear that alot but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a platitude - and maybe even worse. Ignorance is just ignorance, and that which you do not know -can- still hurt you. After all, here you are - not because your ignorance (I use that only because it's the term you chose) brought you joy....but because it has left you in a position where all things appear to have lost value as soon as the veil had been lifted, as soon as you realize that the emperor is naked.

But I didn't manufacture the insulation before. I simply knew no better, and had no desire to. Its after the realisation that this insulation melted away.

It had to have come from somewhere, and again whatever you built it out of (absence of knowledge/desire for knowledge) does not change the fact that you built it. Isn't it feasible that you may find a more suitable material to rebuild that same shelter? Something more durable...that doesn't crumble when faced with the brute force of reality?

Perhaps God 'keeping people in check' wasn't the right way to put it. I didn't mean to imply that I believe the deity intervened in physical events to prevent wrongdoing. What I meant is that he would force people to behave by dangling the threat of damnation in front of them.

The same questions apply. How well does the threat of damnation seem to be doing on that count, in your estimation?

Do I believe human beings are capable of bettering themselves? Of course. Most of us are good. But I'm a pessimist. I'm always on the half empty.

LOL, I've been told that I'm a pessimist as well....and this is not something that is likely to be changed very easy. However, when people call me a pessimist...I like to counter that I'm actually a hopeless optimist who just so happens to find himself routinely disappointed that things turned out to be shittier than he had expected or hoped for them to be.