CX

I imagine everyone who loses faith goes through that. I think about when I found out there was no Santa. For 8 years Xmas was the absolute most fine time ever because waiting for the magic of Santa was intoxicating. Than one year I find out there's no Santa, it was all a lie, it's just your parents giving you stuff and pretending it was Santa. For a few years after that Xmas seemed totally pointless and boring. But then I discovered other things to like about Xmas and now that I have my own kids Xmas is even more fun. Life without god is just an extension of that for me. It took me awhile to get over being pissed that there was no god watching out for me, that I wasn't going to discover the answer to every question I ever had when I died, that I wasn't going to live forever in Utopia and that this was all there was. Now I'm glad. life is more important and cool and miraculous than it was when I believed in fairy tales.

Godless Dave

That's actually a really good analogy (aside from the obvious flaw; we all know the Wild are going to win). I hadn't thought of putting it that way. I am baffled by the idea that if things come to an end they are pointless. Maybe it's because I never really believed in an afterlife, even when I believed in a god of sorts.

miss djax

aj,

im glad i could be of some help from my personal experience, this part is the roughest..after you can figure out what has meaning for you and move from 'anguish and despair' it really does get good...at least it has for me...i am still happier this way that i ever was as a fundy/with fundies/trying to be a fundy..

lots of luck to you,

miss djax

Buddrow_Wilson

1) There is no point.
2) You'll probably get use to 1)
3) Then again what's the point of being concerned about there not being a point to existence?

Rhea

People often ask this of me in the context of auto racing. Or, more pertinently, regarding "driver schools". They ask,

"If there is no trophy, and no audience, and you can only pass when the driver in front of you gives a point-by, what's the point of driving around in circles for 3 hours? What difference does it make?"

to which I reply,

"I rather have fun driving fast and at the limits of my ability. It's fun, that's all, and this is the only place I can go 140mph into a right hand turn. In a nutshell, 'why do I do it?' Because I want to and I can."


Same with life in general.

There are myriad activities with no point which I enjoy quite completely. Life is one of them.

SLD

OK, I'm jumping in late here and I haven't read everyone else's post, but I think that your problem also exists for a religious person. I mean what's the point of staying around on earth for 70 some odd years and then going to heaven for the next trillion? To me that aspect of religion is too bizarre. What's the point of life if you're a religious person then? Even if you think you've got to earn your way into heaven by living a good life, why should how you spend the first 70 odd years of your life determine where you spend the next 100 quintillion years?

For me it is pointless to wonder about such things. The purpose of life is simply that: life. You are nothing but a survival mechanism for DNA. I take an enormous amount of comfort in that. I don't have to worry about why the hell we are here. We are here because the laws of physics put us here.

It was when I was religious that I worried about such crap as why I was here. I was always told that I was a special child in the eyes of God. But what I could never figure out, was that if I was so special, why did God treat me like shit?

As a freethinker, I am more accepting of the crap that comes my way and I feel better prepared to handle it. I haven't been really depressed in years. I realize that I am the one responsible for my own destiny and God has nothing to do with it.

Don't you find that thought liberating?

SLD

Giorgia

I�ve tried to read every comment so far, and I agree with a lot, especially the comments of Treacle Worshipper, KitKit, and JCS.

I dumped my faith-of-origin at age 15, so I didn�t go through the �hang-over� from religion that you�re experiencing; none-the-less, I would surmise that you�ll arrive at a more positive state of mind in due course � probably more quickly that I did:

During the first three or four years after my de-conversion, I was still too full of youthful exuberance to be bothered with the problem of "no afterlife." However, starting in my late teens, after several devastating personal setbacks, thoughts of suicide based on the pointlessness-of-it-all were on the daily menu, as it were.

After decades of therapy, and many, many battles and personal setbacks, I've finally figured out that there is a cycle to my life which involves feeling depressed and crappy and hopeless when most everything I touch turns to bat guano, and feeling good, hopeful, and energetic when I've got a few projects going on which seem to be bearing fruit, or which involve new people or new experiences. At those latter times, I'm way too busy to worry about what it all means. And, fortunately, each cycle, those hopeful times get a little longer, and the hopeless times get shorter.

I am just aware that today (and maybe tomorrow) is all I've got, and that (to quote a motivational speaker who's name I don't recall) "yesterday is a bucket of ashes."

G.
__________________
I'm moving to a small town in the southwest. If you're sick of the hubbub of city life, and would seriously consider relocation, please PM me.

Selsaral

A lot of people take comfort in children. Sure, you will die, but you can give another person a whole life of enjoyment and wonder. That's quite a gift. And your children will give their children a similar gift. So although you will die, and your capacity for enjoyment is limited, you have the capacity to give others life and enjoyment.

And really, we are just parts of the species of humans. We are surrounded by billions of other humans, and they all experience love and pain and happiness and the wonder of life the same way you do. It's your duty to enjoy life, due to all the humans who lived before you; they are living on in your life. And after you die, billions of others, with the same capacity to love and live, will live on.

So overall it's kind of bittersweet. Your own existence and lifetime of building your mind and life will end. But you are part of a much larger 'life', the life of humans, who all live and experience and build lives just like you did, and will do so for a (hopefully very long) time after you die.

AJ113

Once again, thanks for the replies.
It does help to know that I'm not alone on the subject. There is currently a mortality thread going on in GRD which serves to underline the problem further.

Like Giorgia, if I'm occupied with a new project or new people, I have a splendid capacity for simply forgetting all about this, so I think I will concentrate on making sure that I am always doing something to occupy myself.