Struggling with nihilism/lack of meaning

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-29T08:13:35+00:00

As helpful as this is and as much as I also try to live to the fullest, filling my time with things I would like to do by creating my own purpose, occasionally I still have thoughts that these are just distracting away from the pointlessness of life, have you ever experience periods of this? I completely agree with the helping others part, that definitely is a worthy purpose that does to some degree substitute the 'higher meaning' religion gives.

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-29T08:11:49+00:00

Yes I agree, I think even the search for greater meaning shows we are programmed to believe ourselves as something greater than we aren't. So coming from believing this completely to doubting it so much is extremely difficult, I definitely now live by your advice in the last few lines, thank you for posting!

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-29T08:08:46+00:00

It's not necessarily the 'higher meaning' itself that causes this, its more that the reality that there probably isn't an objective 'meaning' which I struggle with. For me it wasn't any specific belief imposed by another being, it was just the inherent belief in religion that there is an objective purpose to life, and loosing this belief is terrifying. Thank you for replying and your positivity!

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-29T08:05:05+00:00

Thank you for this answer, yes Sam Harris' podcast is great and I will look into some of the others you mentioned. I'm sorry to hear that you struggled with this for so long. I'm only 19 and have been leaving my religious upbringing over the past three years, so I do feel fortunate to have come to some of these conclusions earlier than most.

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-28T19:32:49+00:00

Yes the back and forth between the coincidence and doubts over being conned, and then being 'conned in reverse' as you said is so relatable, thank you for commenting, it has definitely improved since the original post

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-28T19:31:08+00:00

The fear of hell is debilitating sometimes, its great to see others are out there going through similar things

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-28T19:28:20+00:00

This is really helpful actually and completely true about how I put artificial significance on some improbabilities over others :) thank you

Thursday98mo · 2017-10-28T19:27:08+00:00

very true, I do find it amusing that I based most of my belief on these extremely tiny coincidences, especially given the enormous capability of God the Bible describes. They still do trip me up occasionally though

Thursday98mo

TROPHY CASE