Being Agnostic is depressing me.... (page 2)

FlyingHighNow

I agree that it is a liberating thing to understand that we don't have to have all the answers.

DavePerez

Cyberjesus said-

I dont think your depression comes from not knowing but of thinking you have to know

Yup.

Or, thinking you CAN know, as if there IS an answer to that question.

So many people are looking for an answer to a question for which the answer doesn't exist as an absolute truth. Simply because a question can be framed in proper English syntax and grammar doesn't mean an answer to the question MUST exist. Men made the question, but that doesn't mean an answer automatically popped into reality to accommodate the question.

It's like the old philosophical issue that many theologians argued over during the Middle Ages ("how many angels can sit on the head of a pin?"), when it wasn't even established that:

1) angels exist

2) the angels, if they existed, were interested in sitting around on heads of pins, as if engaged in a pole-sitting competition!

The answer must be found from within, solely based on your own decision of how to answer it: what do YOU wish and decide to think on the matter? But always keep in mind the decision was YOURS, based on YOUR conception and is not really "real". Ditch it all, or keep some of it, remembering that freedom of religion also includes the right to be free OF religion.

If more religious people understood that they're not dealing with absolutes and infallible truths, the World would be a much better place (eg you wouldn't have Islamic extremists blowing themselves up to get 70 virgins in Paradise, etc).

still thinking

I am leaning towards a more traditional christian faith, based on Jesus teachings.

I think thats a good place to go when you get to this stage...I did that too...for a while.

Anony Mous

I concur, you don't need all the answers to know that your life has a purpose. When we're with a religion, we are thought that the answers to all questions is "magic" - a god of the gaps. So we falsely come to the conclusion that we know-all and have-all and have a universal purpose. Losing that is as said before, hard to deal with but it's not necessarily bad. When you embrace that you don't know all, you become open to conversations and investigations in what could be a good answer.

designs

An evolving belief is challenging, set goals and work towards a better world there is so much to do.

HintOfLime

It is ok not to have all the answers.

Dispite the claims - nobody has the answer to everything. There is, maturity, humility, and peace to simply recognizing that nobody really knows. That I don't know, that we as a species don't know - that there is still a lot of mystery and frontiers to explore out there.

Some participate in the Greatest Show On Earth - the expansion of human knowledge.

Some cling to proposed total understandings of the world spoken in the world's holy books from those with far less data than we have to consider today.

- Lime

scotoma

I am thankful for my experience of being misled, bamboozled, fooled, duped.

I feel thoroughly innoculated against the transcendental virus that shows up in pseudo-science, religion, economics, psychology and politics.

I am glad my kids were young enough to learn from my experience early enough in their lives (late teens 4th gen witnesses) to avoid fanatical thinking.

It's like the relief you feel when you quit repeatedly hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.

frankiespeakin

Being agnostic fills my life with more wonder since I don't have canned answer anymore, I can look at the world differently it took me a little getting used to, and I'm always in the process of adjustment as my world view broadens as I take off the blinders that give me tunnel vision.

I quit!

I agree with what Cyberjesus said. The not knowing isn't the problem. The thinking that you have to know is the problem. I believe the desire to know the answer to "the big question" is part of the egos need to be right. One of the coolest things that happened to me when I left the JWs was that I lost my desire have all the answers. I still had beliefs but they were alway evolving and subject to change.

I think you should just enjoy the journey and not worry about having all the answers and being right.

jgnat

Besides working out your beliefs, I wonder if it might help if you have some flesh-and-blood girlfriends?

Being Agnostic is depressing me....

Share this