Relgion-related issues - What I believe in

Newbie Joined: Jul 14, 2008 Posts: 18

Hello, I've decided to look for the right place to type down what I think about any religion or any religious related issues.
I live in Israel. I'm jewish, at least that's what I show to the outside. I don't believe in god or jesus. To be fair, I've lost any kind of religious believes, which happened within time.
I'm young. Most likely one of the younger members and guests in this forum. My age is 14.
For eight years I believed in god and followed his ways for real. I'm talking about the ages 12-4. Back then I agreed to expirience. I barely rejected any kind of social activity.
Yet for the past 2 years I've discovered what most of you may call Ego, not just that I also stopped beliving in god, and I don't accept Jesus or Muhamad.
I dont take part in any religion for the moment. From the outside I'm normal. But the inside is crashing down.

I could keep typing for days about what I've been through in two years. Countless bad things have happened to me and I just cant solve it. I'm falling down.

About the show "The Infidel Guy" - I appericiate your thoughts and believes from any kind, and yet I've only watched serveral minutes out of random videos about God or Jesus, and what you don't believe in. So far I've agreed with most of what you think.

I know how repuptation works. I know how politic issues run. And I also figrued out lately how religions work.

I will share this sentence with you...but yet I dont follow it since I'm trying to fix my life at the moment, which isn't working: "You live only once, do what you love and share it with the people you know".

I'm feeling like this topic is messed up. I just can't focus on what I'm doing right now, but that's just another long story out of my life.

As I look at this, it just seems more and more meanningless.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 522

So why did you leave religion? If you don't mind me asking, what bad things happened to you in two years? Is it because you can't find meaning in your life in the place of religion? We see this sometimes in religious people who stop being religious. Either you still think you need a higher power to give meaning to everything or everyone else around you is religious and you feel alone. Or maybe you're depressed because you think you wont live forever. After becoming atheist myself, I realised that I didn't really need god, eternal life, or even meaning to help me in my life. The meaning of life is essentially meaningless. Even if god existed, there could be no real meaning to life, no definite answer like the one that religious people seek. In that circumstance, we life and struggle to get into heaven for ourselves, just as we live for ourselves now. My life is purposeless, but it is still my life. Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy on life is what I follow. It would be horrible if we were to live forever because that would mean that we would eventually grow weary of life. The fact that life doesn't last forever is what makes life so wonderful in the first place. I hope you fix your life as you say, and welcome to the IG forums.

Newbie Joined: Jul 14, 2008 Posts: 18

I knew just one way to live as a child. I didn't know what was earning money or working was, I didn't realize what true believing was or what sarcasm really meant and where all of that was taking place in the world.
Just like most teenagers in my age.

I am certainly more than aware that we live just once, but this is not how I want to spend my life. I need something else.
I am being supplied everything, my social life is more than great, and yet this isnt how I want to live. Ths isnt what I truely want to do.

There is alot for me to explain. I'll make it shorter than I planned to since I'm limited on time.
I used to know one life. One way of living. One world, one social - just one community.
In the past two years all of the truth about life was revealed to me. As almost every single teenager, I thought I was smart. I thought I really knew alot.
Every day I learn more and more, yet I can't figrue what I really want to do.

I know I have to go to school. I do hang out with my friends daily. But this isn't what I really want to do. I need something else.
Most of the people that I have met only think about themselves. Ego. I hate that. All I want is to start over...my grades at school used to be over 90. Now they went down since school means less to me and I really don't want to be there.

I notice that I repeat cerain things lots of time in this post. I will stop typing for now and wait for a comment.
Yet.....my problem isn't what the meaning of life is. Because you live one life that you remember, and if as people say you live again, being reborn as another living form, then you won't remember your old life.
I don't really have a goal in life. I'm too young to start over, and not only since I can't afford it on my own, I don't want my family to be involved at least for this moment.

I really messed up this post. Yet I hope the main idea was clear.

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:44 pm

Sounds to me just like you need a passion for something...
If you don't have at least one thing that is really important to you, then you can't assign importance to anything else.
But that passion is something you have to find for yourself. You can try looking back; was there ever something you liked more than the other things?

For example for me, it's drawing Very Happy

! I think that drawing is the only way to really express what is in your head, it's like a "converter" from the coded information in the brain to the paper. It makes it possible to tell stories in a way that is comparable to film, but yet can be done by only one person, who is writer, director, cameraman and actors at the same time!

...but that's just where my passion lies.
I hope you'll find something good for yourself =) .

Newbie Joined: Jul 14, 2008 Posts: 18

You make sense, and after all maybe the pashion for something else besides what I do live and expirience right now is the answer.
But yet that won't fix much.

Newbie Joined: Jul 17, 2008 Posts: 10

Onelife,

You remind me of myself when I was 14-- that was more than 10 years ago now.

I think there's a few things you should do, and I have a few suggestions on things you should ponder. You should:

-Permit yourself to enjoy being a teenager. This time has its ups and downs, but like every season in life only comes once. You have your whole life to worry about the meaning of life, and the fact that a person has considered that thought, at any age, sets one apart.

-Find an activity that you enjoy--maybe a sport, maybe lifting weights, speech and debate, reading, anything. Find something that you can lose yourself doing.

-This sounds like a cliche, but stay away from drugs and booze. People who have this sense of discontentment and hunger for something bigger out of life, often really smart people, get high and drunk so they can blunt those feelings of discomfort and feel tranquil. I don't mean to sound like some anti-drug ad; this is my own experience speaking (and lots of it, sad to say). As Nietzsche said of his countrymen, Christianity and alcohol are the two great opiates of the European people...

-This one is really important. If you don't know what you want to do with your life right now, act as if you'll know soon enough. Learn about finance and economics and save your money. Get good grades and do your best in school. Prepare yourself for someday when you'll see a pressing problem in the world and say "that's it. I need to do something about that." If you allow your sense of ennui and existential malaise get to you now, you won't be ready to tackle the big projects of your life later. I wish so much that I could turn back time and get out of bed early on all those days where I laid there depressed in the morning, wishing I had the answers to these questions.

-Don't worry about how it seems like other people aren't thinking for themselves. You're precocious in this regard, and for that matter, many people decades older than you will never, ever think about what life really means. Many people don't do things deliberately and seek comfort over passion. The fact that you're unsettled right now is something of a good thing, because it indicates that maybe you want something big and meaningful out of life.

-If you find that you are chronically depressed, talk to your doctor about it. Clinical depression is a very real mental illness and there are a variety of ways to treat it. I really mean this--life is too short to be depressed.

Finally, there's a couple of books I think you should read, and I'm sure you've heard of the first one--Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. Great read, and really inspiring. The message of that book has gotten me through a couple of really hard spots after I lost my faith and wanted to just give up. A second book, which is a bit less practical and more esoteric (but valuable nonetheless) is Reasons of Love, by Harry Frankfurt. This book is about how the things we care about are truly important and constitute our values. It might get you thinking about how you do in fact care about things, and those things matter simply because they're yours to care about.

Hang in there, and don't give up on life when it's just getting started.

As the years have passed, I wish more and more that I hadn't taken life so damned seriously.

Newbie Joined: Jul 14, 2008 Posts: 18

Newcastlebrownalien - I'm going to think and take action about everything you said. Thanks.
Yet, something terrible has just happened. I was outside with my friends and now when I'm back, I realized my parents stalked the internet history action and found out about this topic. Wow, this day started bad and ended worse.
Maybe it's for my own good, I have no idea. Yet we talked for over an hour about why did I do this and how bored I was writing this. I just cant start explaining them about how I want to move, to start a new damn life. I cant go on living in this place.

I will do anything to teach myself instead of going to school. I mean ANYTHING. I'll buy any educational book or take any drastic move to change my life and get the aducation myself. I just cant go on like this.

Wow, this is really bad. Everything I wrote here was read by them. And now they think I'm crazy and they know that I really dont want to go to school but they'll take different actions from what I would. I know they're older and have more life expirience and all of that. I know it's true, but I just cant do what they want right now. I have to make a change, but I just cant move by myself because I cant afford it, and for them to move? That would be a hard thing to do.
There's so much to concider and I cant think clearly right now.

Newcastle - Drugs, ciggs and booze are three ways to run away from life. Three ways that I prefer not taking.
I like more the fourth way. Starting over without risking my life, yet this is really bad right now.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 522

Quote:

realized my parents stalked the internet history action and found out about this topic. Wow, this day started bad and ended worse.

I'm glad my mom doesn't do that. How do the schools work in Israel?

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 522

Quote:

realized my parents stalked the internet history action and found out about this topic. Wow, this day started bad and ended worse.

I'm glad my mom doesn't do that. How do the schools work in Israel?

Newbie Joined: Jul 14, 2008 Posts: 18

The school in Israel are just fine. The problem is some teachers cant handle cerain classes. That's not what matters right now, when I talked about school I meant I don't want to study there. I'd prefer gain knowdlage by myself.

Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 4:54 am

Well, I doubt you can just drop out of school without getting into trouble; at least, here in the States, you can't. Take some online classes, read lots of books on history, math, and science, maybe start a study group with other kids so you can learn more. But stay in school, even if you hate it, because future employers will want to know what kind of education you had. If they see that you dropped out because you were bored or just didn't like it, why should they trust you to stay at your job? There will be many times when you hate your job, but quitting won't be an option.

As for your religion, well, you are going to meet many people who will think you are crazy for not believing in God. Any time something bad happens to you, they'll say, "See? It's because you don't believe," while they ignore all the bad things that happen to them all the time! Bad things happen to everyone. You're only 14, you have a long time ahead of you to start thinking about what you want to be and how to spend your life. You seem to be more focussed on the future than most kids your age. That's a good thing because it shows you have ambition.

Graduate Thinker Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 522

Quote:

Well, I doubt you can just drop out of school without getting into trouble; at least, here in the States, you can't.

You can be home-schooled here in the states and not have to set foot inside a public school. I don't know if that works in Israel. I know you have to join the military for a couple of years, so maybe they're just as strict with education. At least you want to gain knowledge, though. That's what counts.

Newbie Joined: Jul 14, 2008 Posts: 18

Uhh, to tell the truth, I've got too much to think about.
Yet the term "boredom" isnt the right term about how I feel about school. I hate it, I'm not bored with it.
There are obviously many rules that force me to stay in school and study or at least be in school for 12 years. To tell the truth, I cant even think of a way to skip it and gain knowdlage by myself, which is exactly what I want to do.

Besides that, my religion is not important for me as finding a new pashion in life. Something that I'll enjoy.
I enjoy swimming, but yet I doubt that will do it.


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