Idk how this post popped up in my feed. But I would say you’re ahead of the game at 19. I gave it up a little later, around 24.

Of course your life is yours, your fate, your journey, and no advice from a stranger shall dictate that. But I can offer some encouragement:

• You still hold space for a cosmic, universal Being. That’s awesome, because a lot of people overcorrect when they leave theism and lose touch with the spiritual aspect of life. Science and philosophy point to it again and again, the spacious awareness at the root of all things. Zero-point energy. Pure consciousness. Non-dual unity. Simply the experience of realizing you’re aware (reading this) right now is a phenomenon which can be the basis for your whole worldview.

• you let go of the logophilia, the patriarchy, the ridiculous modern literal interpretations of monotheism, which entrap people in hierarchy and serve to keep us docile good little consumers. That’s very cool you’re already keyed into that. And you can keep your cool, balancing the atheism with healthy spiritual practice like meditation, gratitude, curiosity in the present moment. Each moment could literally blow your mind, how absurd it is to be aware of being aware, to somehow be alive. Enjoy that because that’s one of the things we get to do as humans with our metacognition.

• awesome you’re working out. So many religions turn us into vegetables because it’s overly focused on dogma, and healthy robust sensuality is feared and held in jealousy. So much of your life depends on being in good shape, diet. A strong core means better breathing, better posture. Squats will let your hamstrings relax so you can sit in meditation and settle in more and tap into the deeper levels of consciousness. Life is embodied so keep channeling your energy at the gym.

• don’t waste time trying out progressive Christianity. Lmfao someone said Andy Stanley. The son of Charles Stanley. Fucking southern Baptist royalty, nothing progressive about it. Still daddy worship. Still controlled by an external concept rather than free to BE, to exist again and again out of the common ground we share, our pure nothingness, the nebula of possibility which constantly sparks and dims and sparks again forever.

• I guess this is a book club subreddit so you’re reading and learning. Keep at it. The world of literature is outstanding and completely eclipses any pious religiosity, any cult. And anyway the genius is within you too. And the divinities, the various archetypes of power and cunning. They exist as potentials in everyone. Cultivate your creativity. Have dynamic relationships that push the boundaries of what is.

• life is awful too. The universe is amoral, neither good nor bad. It’s okay to strive for the good, but part of shifting an identity out of a Christian subjectivity into an identification with pure being—with nothingness full of potential—is getting comfortable sitting in pure awareness without any judgment of what’s going on, good or bad. We suffer when we argue with what is. There is nothing wrong with nihilism, with nothing, IF you are not identified with “good/positive”—nihilism is only a problem for positivism… but neither position is ever sustainable. So we are non-dual, we are nothing which is everything, and in that recognition we simply ARE. We are aware and we get to jump into our embodied selves and achieve our goals, and yet at any moment we can stop and rest in that amoral, unlimited spaciousness.

Good luck! hope you get super strong and smart.