Emptiness as a result of Atheism

I appreciate the response.

The one problem I would have with Kierkegaard's path is that it would open the question of whose god(s) are right. I do feel this feeling he describes, but how do I know which god and belief system is true?

Thanks.

Descartes uses some stuff dreamed up in the medieval era and Socratic Method to prove the existence of God in his Meditations a couple times. Look that up instead.

doesn't work
>inb4 you aren't trying hard enough

That is an interesting and new perspective, thanks.

People will tell you that you should do this or that and then you'll BELIEVE and have FAITH, but really you'll know it's bullshit, it won't fool you.

I would recommend that you do further self-reflection and evaluate your own life, and determine if there are any factors at play that affect your mood. Make sure you're eating enough, make sure you're active enough, make sure that you're doing something in your life that gives you satisfaction and purpose (whatever it might be). Never underestimate your own brain chemistry. Oftentimes we attribute our mood to some grand existential crisis when it's something much pettier.

I exercise, eat healthily, have hobbies (mostly studying languages/linguistics), but this question keeps nagging at me. I feel like this truly is the source of what I am feeling, because I think about it all the time. I am not certain, but I think that clearing up this question would fix a lot of things, be it through religious or irreligious methods.

I'm not even sure what you mean.
"Faith" needn't be a component here.
Aesthesis alone is enough.

>Liber 333, Ch 21
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΚΑ
THE BLIND WEBSTER
It is not necessary to understand; it is enough to adore.
The god may be of clay: adore him; he becomes GOD.
We ignore what created us; we adore what we create. Let us create nothing but GOD!
That which causes us to create is our true father and mother; we create in our own image, which is theirs.
Let us create therefore without fear; for we can create nothing that is not GOD.

If, as Gnostic Mass tells us, there is no God but Man, and we create nothing that is not GOD, then surely the Spirit of God dwells in us.

This isn't even a theistic response, or a religious one, but simply the advice that if nothing has inherent meaning, then we are the meaning makers, and via the installation of meaning, we can come to some sense of settlement.

They all claim to be completely true, so it's reasonable to think that none are...or at least not completely. Following the perennialist tradition one suspects the common thread among all religions to be the "truth". Manly P. Hall, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade write on this topic of comparative mythology extensively, in that order, and if it makes you feel any better none of them particularly think you're going to hell. That should be reassuring. Libgen.io can give you more knowledge if you want it.
Also, that particular screed mostly comes from Mitchel (Michael?) Heisman's "suicide note", a 9000 page rambling tractatus by a tendie-eating Harvard professor. Late. He blew his brains out on Sukkot, or maybe Passover. There's a pdf online somewhere, and it's a more apt summary of thinkers to this point. Your questions aren't new (how nice!), and many answers have been demonstrated to push the conclusion forward. Don't waste your time with puzzles that have been put together already!

You get one more uncanny mannequin.

I would recommend that, when these thoughts come up again (obviously not right now when you're ITT, sometime later), that you stop yourself and consider how and why those dark thoughts came up. Examine everything about your current situation. Be as self-aware as possible.

Now maybe you'd be a perfectly physically/mentally healthy human being if not for your one spiritual struggle, but it doesn't hurt to cover your bases. That's all the advice I have for you, I don't have any spiritual answers (that are universally satisfactory, at least).

I will definitely use this advice if nothing works, thanks.

I'm skeptical of perennialism; I use a different metaphor here - all are striving toward the same mountain's peak. But each group will use a different trails scaling different cliff faces. The features and landmarks of each trail will be completely different and self contained. At some level I've come to trust anth and history more than most comparative myth commentators, with comparative religion developing into a nice middle ground over the years (Thanks Brill!)

>The problem is that I feel an immense emptiness in myself. I fear death and the eternal blackness that follows, I fear how fragile and temporary my life is

This is called samvega in Buddhist philosophy, a kind of deep dismay with the apparent state of the world. This inner conflict is a necessary step along the way to spiritual maturation.

It's important to recognize what drives the feeling of disconnect. The need for support and stability is unanswered. Blind, ignorant belief seems appealing because it's the most recognizeable state of stability that you are able to envision. This is important to see, that belief systems connected with your culture are still guiding your emotions even though you're free of blind belief.

In Buddhism we train to recognize that this fragile and temporary nature to life is an inseparable aspect to it. There is no stability whatsoever. This leads us to the conclusion that it is not meaningful to "make an abode" in feelings, in physical things, in mental things. It doesn't mean that we try to escape from life matters, but we try to stop this ceaseless holding onto it, searching for foothold in unstable things. We don't seek to control it, make it our own, because we plainly see it is not fit for that. In a way our anxious attention stops in its tracks, and we let go of things out of our control.

With a little practice, we find ourselves less consumed by identifying with everything that happens. And that is where the stability is found. We recognize the conditional nature of ideas like self or other, and that enables a kind of freedom. When you are able to define yourself less rigidly, you are less affected by matters of life and death. Before all the thoughts and ideas, before birth and death, before time itself, there is something unnameable that hasn't been affected in the slightest by the events of existence. What is that? How is it not you?

I am very interested in what you are saying. Could you further elaborate on the last point?

I don't think it's necessary for me to throw each aspect of my belief system out here. I think what you should concern yourself with mainly is the expectations you place in your daily life regarding meaning and perhaps the need for longevity.

Anyway, it's really difficult to condense into plain words the feelings I get about existence from a lengthy meditation practice. But you encounter certain things when the mind gets quiet that really pulls a number on you. The first thing to go when your mind is quiet is the ideas of "I am this and that way, etc", and you're just content with being whatever. If those ideas can go away for a moment without causing some catastrophe, that opens you up to the possibility that your identity is a bit more wider than you thought. Eventually, further into the practice, it isn't so much "I am" at all, just an inseparable state of being, impossible to define. This eventually touches and intermingles with non-being, and from a certain point of view, they're not so different from eachother. Seeing all of that first hand really takes the edge off this ghastly living and dying business.

now that you are sad, take a few days where you only meditate on why you are sad and why the few times that you were happy could lead into such a sadness. be as simple/empirical as possible. if you find as an answer what the buddhist call the four noble truths, then you are saved

Reading Socrates and believing in God as a result is like reading Harry Potter and believing in wizards afterwords.

If you aren't smart enough to derive the useful information from a historical work without accepting the retarded premises rooted in their specific time period you don't deserve a computer to slap your cock all over, much less on a board dedicated to the analysis of history.

Well, whatever you do, don't sacrifice truth for comfort. Believe me, it isn't worth it

walk towards a perennialist path that acknowledges the nature of divine revelation in each religion, making the different religions be different flavours of a more primal reality rather than different dishes entirely.

Decide to live for your State and its constituent people. Realize that your very existence was assured by the State's laws, realize that your very person was formed by interaction with the people constituting the State - moulded by your culture and the spirit of its people, that the State is what gave you an opportunity for education - what gave you an opportunity to be man, and not animal, that it to this day vigilantly protects you from internal and external forces that would harm you, and that it imposed order unto an otherwise chaotic existence. Realize that you will, after your death, remain part of your State's history, as you have influenced it by serving it - that you will become part of the rich (unless you're from the US) history of your people, the eternal progression of generations, and leave your children to do the same after you die. Realize how important the feeling of national fraternity is - that it is the only thing maintaining the State's existence and therefore your existence and the existence of all that is dear to you - your friends, your family, your people - and so work to maintain its fire and make it blaze in the hearts of others.

>spooks: the post
You know, if I replace almost every instance of "state" with "master" not only does it easily work, but it makes you sound a bit like an obedient house nigger.
Anyway OP, I'd recommend you just go to a therapist and see if they could help you with talk therapy, preferably CBT or a similar variant, it can be extremely helpful for finding out why you think the way you do and how to fix it; don't take meds, you don't need them. As for philosophy. I'd recommend researching Stoicism (which is a big influence on CBT) and Buddhism, since both are based on reason and not irrational leaps of faith. Don't think blindly believing in a religion will help you; you'll just be deluding yourself and you will know it and it won't fix the actual problems you have, just bury them.

>read Socrates himself
you fucking moron :^)

>You know, if I replace almost every instance of "state" with "master" not only does it easily work, but it makes you sound a bit like an obedient house nigger.
Yes, and if I replace a thing you love with "excrement" in the speech in which you describe your fondness for that thing, you will sound like a coprophiliac. Count me as surprised if a statement sounds different when you change it.
>spooks: the post
It is a belief, yes. So? If you say 'you ought not believe in x', you'll be the spooked one for using an 'ought'. I believe in the worth of such things as "good life", "security", "fraternity", "advancement" etc. All of these are mere beliefs, as are all value-claims. And since the a healthy State-organism is the only thing that allows the fulfillment of the value-claims I have placed my love and faith in, I so place my love and faith in my State.

>And since the a healthy State-organism is the only thing that allows the fulfillment of the value-claims I have placed my love and faith in, I so place my love and faith in my State.
...and accept the same of each person who shares the values I hold, as this is the road to their fulfillment.

>accept
*expect. Heavens, I am tired.

Realize that eternal life is just as horrifying as death, and that there are no good options. Death might not even be possible, religion aside.

Except you believe in a state that doesn't, hasn't. and never will exist; the state has always existed to protect the interests of the rulers at the expense of the ruled. All the good things you mention come from individuals, not an abstract concept like the state, and those individuals would likely do what they do without a state, whereas the same cannot be said for all the atrocities states produce with the unwilling help of the people under it.

>Except you believe in a state that doesn't, hasn't. and never will exist
It exists around me at this moment and I am a constituent part of it as a citizen.
>the state has always existed to protect the interests of the rulers at the expense of the ruled.
a)a state cannot exist without the consent of a very significant majority. This is the "quis custodiet ipsos custodes" - if a constituent part of the State wishes to secede i.e. withdraws his consent for being a part of the state, there must be a stronger part forcefully keeping that part in the state. That part must voluntary partake in the state, lest there be another, stronger part keeping that one in and so on ad infinitum. And even at that momen, when a constituent part *is* held back forcefully, the state is significantly weakened (not just by revolt - if the working class is discontent, production suffers, if the soldiers are discontent - the state is left defenceless etc.) and left as easy pickings for other states, as they will exploit such weaknesses. Consequently, there can be no such state that exists without consent.
b) State =/= government, as every educated person would tell you. The State is an ideal (and, in practice, a legal-political entity) that the government is supposed to represent. If the government (the thing you called a 'ruling class') does a shoddy job at that or harms the State, it is an act of duty to oppose it and exchange it for a new one.
c) The feeling of fraternity is something determinal to the well-being of both State and its constituent parts. A state where it is lacking will be mired in a perpetual state of sloth and corruption precisely because in that case each individual seeks only his own benefit, and sees no duty to State or others. And so corruption becomes a profitable choice, to the harm of the State and all its people. [cont.]

As someone who has been through many many cases of depression and mental illness I can tell you for sure that it's not religions and ideologies in themselves that cause your emotions. Unless you have a very high degree of self-awareness, your thoughts are very decieving - the human mind doesn't work as 99% of people imagine. Something else must have happened (or something that should have happened has not) and the way it manifests in the cognitive part of your brain ties it to religious matters.

goodreads.com/work/quotes/31010

Read Marcus Aurelius.

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

“Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well.”

I love the stoics. I am also an athiest, and I like the reason behind many of his quotes

My simple comment deals with fragile and temporary. Timewise yes, you will only exist about the average time any human being has to live. As far as how fragile/permanent said existance is is determened by how you go about using the finitie time you have.

...The only way for the State to exist and serve as a vessel of the well-being and progress of its people is by a far-reaching sense of duty, fraternity and solidarity among its constituent parts.
>all the good things you mentioned come from individuals, not an abstract concept like the state, and those individuals would likely do what they do without a state,
t. the 18th century
False - firstly, the individuals are shaped by forces of society. Society which constitutes the State. Secondly, the State is what gives them the opportunity to grow and realize themselves. Education is a function of the State, as is the security that kept neighbours from murdering them in their youth. It helped their parents get jobs (the bureau of employment is a state function) and keep them (the State mediates the worker-employer relation through regulations, thus keeping the employer from exploiting the employees), helped in their early education (maternity leave) etc. They would not develop into great men and women (nor would they survive to be three years old, for that matter) if the State had not ensured the prerequisites for that. And for that, the State deserves my purest love and firmest loyalty and devotion - to keep it safe and ensure the well-being of my compatriots, which constitute the State (along with its history, laws, culture etc. - sociological categories).
>whereas the same cannot be said for all the atrocities states produce with the unwilling help of the people under it.
Atrocities happen without states, but such things are poorly documented precisely because there is no one to document them - the society is unorganized, stateless, primitive and inefficient. But here's an example from nature, if such things are of interest to you.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

Religion only gave you false comfort. Now you are free to seek real fulfillment. It's like you were starving but religion kept you from realizing it. Now that you have eliminated that block you feel the effects of starvation. So now you need to eat.

It must feel great to be a 20 yo leftist, offering the good people an opportunity to fulfill its desire

>firstly, the individuals are shaped by forces of society. Society which constitutes the State.
To elaborate, these 'forces of society' are popular ideas (the American 'self-made man' is a very good example, as the idea of 'pulling onesself by one's bootstraps is amazingly influential there, many use it in their arguments without even realizing it), culture, religion, social protocols (I am not talking about trivial things like 'burping after eating soup' in Asia, I am talking about much more psychologically determinal things, like expressing emotions. Scandinavian people seem much 'colder' as they tend to express their emotions less. You will find a similar thing in many films of the old USSR - emotions tend to be left in subtext instead of being expressed.). There are many other 'forces of society' - all are of a sociological nature - that I didn't mention here. But this should be an example to show how much the state unto which an individual was born will reflect on him, stay in him, determine him.

>It must feel great to be a 20 yo leftist, offering the good people an opportunity to fulfill its desire
The 'left' and 'right' are non sequiturs. But I do like being myself, so I suppose whatever I am 'feels great'.

Get over it, pussy. Learn to love life and not be selfish. You have to get over the fact that you don't really matter in the grand scheme of just about anything. You might become famous or rich, but outside of this artificial society we've created, it makes no fucking difference to the reality that you're just some animal that happens to be extremely intelligent compared to all of the other species that share our planet, and you can comprehend this eventual ending and ponder the ~darkness~ and fear all of this shit that really doesn't matter.

Old people die confused and not giving a fuck. You make it way more dramatic in your head than it's going to be.

Nobody really believes in a god unless they're legitimately an idiot. It makes no sense to the universe for it to have this idea of why it exists because of some random species on some random planet in a random galaxy out of the 100,000,000,000+ galaxies in the universe be the de facto reality, and it's really selfish to believe that. The universe is definitely way more complex than we currently understand.

At the end of the day, you need to enjoy your life, because it will eventually end and are you really going to spend it wallowing in some depressive quagmire, wishing this or that? It's really a waste of time. You should try to do as well for yourself and for others in your life while you exist. Get that primal existential competitive engine turning in your brain and do something great and be strong.

religion is one of the pillars of civilisation

Your advices are shit tbqh.

The real emptiness is in the religious mind.
Not embrasing the wealth of scientific knowledge. No critical thinking. Just blindly following the old man's dogma.

youtube.com/watch?v=zSZNsIFID28

Which one?

You fell for the "enlightenment brings true happiness" meme.
Heaven's non-existant gates, and the comfort that the idea of an afterlife brings, will forever be denied you.

What to do? Try not to think about it. It's not like you're going to find any other answer than what you've already found.

>Pay particular attention to how he empirically proves the existence of God.

He doesn't

sex solves all

>Acquire GF
>Copulate many times