(December 22, 2013 at 4:49 pm)CTR8008 Wrote: Growing up a Roman Catholic you are taught the bible is the literal "truth" of life. Very recently from years of a state of delusion not questioning my "faith" I sat in a boring lecture class wondering if there was an alternative way humans came to roam the planet. My innate biased justification was "God" created humans.....but a sense of ostensibly started to jab at my conscious. For days this primary question of "is there another way?" bothered me to a psychotic degree. I finally gave in and hit the internet...a simple video of the great Richard Dawkins helped me understand evolution by natural selection. (sadly I was not taught the facts of evolution due to my education in a catholic school that barley taught any biology.) As I gazed upon the evidence Dr. Dawkins mentioned, my "faith" in creation began to fade....The more scientific evidence I began to learn and research the more interested I became in many fields such as cosmology, neurology, geography, ect. My ignorance in science was filled with the sensation of bronze aged mythology...As I become aware of the fabrication of an afterlife a thought of the meaningless stockpile of particles we temporary hold affects my grasp on caring about anything that matters....Ive come to the conclusion when our neurons stop firing our state of self awareness ceases into a void of nothingness....im barely happy anymore due to this realization. This may be a symptom of withdrawal from my previous ideologies of mythical thinking. Did anyone else have a similar experience within their first time rejecting religion?
How do you cope?
Welcome to the light side.
Myself, I gave up on Catholicism when I was 13, though I had not really believed for a few years before then (so I've now been clean for 16 years).
What you're feeling is actually common. I would recommend listening to a few podcasts by Seth Andrews, the Thinking Atheist. Also, see if you can find other atheists to talk to directly.
Me, I went through the same thing when I realised my mortality. What helped me was realising that mortality makes this life far more valuable to us than to those who think it's a stepping stone to another life.
I don't know if there's an afterlife, claiming to know there isn't one would make me as dishonest as those who claim to know there is.
Just live your life as the best person you can be.
Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:
"You did WHAT? With WHO? WHERE???"
