<p>I. How many of you have had an existential depression?</p>
<p>II. What was it's nature?</p>
<p>III. How did you deal with it?</p>
<p>If you’re looking for help, I recommend looking to literature 
Has helped me immensely whenever I’ve felt lost existentially. Some names to start you off with: Sartre, Camus, Dostoevky.</p>
<p>I have. I feel it every time I walk into Wal-Mart. I just see so many people, and I realize that I’m ultimately an insignificant being - a raindrop in a vast ocean of people. I see all these vile people exemplifying their base nature, scurrying around, nabbing bags of junk food from the shelves. Existence precedes essence for them, but the means by which they exist - popping chips in your mouth and drinking gallons of soda - is disgusting.</p>
<p>Dostoyevsky PUT me into an existential depression. And Camus, he just opened my mind a bit, but I really don’t think any of those would help. I’d recommend more heroic tales; maybe Rand, or Tolkien(!).
I actually work at a store, somewhat similar to Wal-Mart, and when I start to feel hopeless and insignificant, I imagine that the fate of the world literally depends on the work that I do. It helps a lot to pass the time, and in a way, the work I do does genuinely affect the world, or at least my world.
PS, try going vegan! :)</p>
<p>Currently Reading Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus, if that helps.</p>
<p>@silencefell Did you read Crime and Punishment?!? Ohhhhh my God I cried after reading that novel. So satisfying. So happy with the ending. So perfect. Aghhhhhhhhh x.x Yeah I just recommended Camus so he could learn about just how much CHOICE and RESPONSIBILITY everyone has for themselves. Maybe then he could take a similarly introspective approach and begin to decide who he is.</p>
<p>The problem with deciding who I am is that everything is still inherently meaningless.</p>
<p>And who I want to be is determined by my brain, which is merely the sum of all the circumstances surrounding me.</p>
<p>I have had probably three periods of existential depression in my life. </p>
<p>The first was when I was around seven, and I realized that I’m going to die. I remember asking my mom what happened after death, and she told me that nobody really knows. She explained to me what religion is and what some people believe, but didn’t offer up her own opinion. I decided I was atheist at that moment. Of course, I didn’t know the term for it but I was very sure there is nothing after life. I cried nightly for weeks, apparently. My mom told me later on that she had thought about taking me to a psychologist. </p>
<p>The second was around ninth grade, when I realized that I will most likely be mediocre for the rest of my life. Sure, I can work hard and go to a top school and get a great job but who cares? It doesn’t matter. Someday I’ll be dead and then how much money I had accumulated won’t matter in the least. By that logic, since we’re all going to die anyway, nothing anyone does matters. This was also around the time that I realized that there is about a .00001 chance that I will ever make it as a musician. </p>
<p>The third, I’m sort of still experiencing right now. Who am I? Nothing but the sum of my experiences and of my genes. How can I define myself when there is nothing to define? I am simply the product of the events that have occurred in my life–nothing special. I don’t stand out, I’m not important. None of us are important.</p>
<p>@Francaisalamatt yeah I read Crime and Punishment, and although I thought it was a good book and understood why it’s considered a classic, I hated the ending and thought it very UNsatisfying…
and I read The Stranger; from both I gleaned that people have choices yeah, and very easily they can make the wrong one. lol, sorry PM me if you want to further discuss</p>
<p>There is more to life than death: Islam. People always point out religion and religious people as illogical, but it seems to me that atheists always seek out the worst examples of religious examples (IE. sheikhs of Saudi Arabia, extremists, Al-Qaeda etc). Religion is much more logical than atheism, and I guarantee you will all think the same if you truly want to seek out knowledge and not just read from a source that intensifies your beliefs. Religion is work and knowledge, not simply prayer and laziness. Religion tells us that there is more to life than eating, ****ting, sleeping, and finally dying. The universe could not have originated by itself. One might ask, how did the big bang occur? What made the big bang happen? Where did the explosion come from? There must be one greater force that created the big bang making everything fall into such a specific balance in which Earth would be at a perfect distance from the sun making life possible, where the first organisms appeared from the interaction of gases, lightning, and UV rays etc. It is all in such a great balance that it is completely illogical to believe that there is no greater force or power that is controlling it. The universe did not come into being spontaneously. These are but a very few number of the reasons I choose to believe in Islam and in Allah, and which give me hope that we are more than bags of meat in this universe. </p>
<p>If you want to understand more about Islam and learn, please seek Western sheikhs and hear their sermons, like Hamza Yusuf for example. Read the writings of the greatest Muslim scholars of all time, like those of Imam Al-Ghazali. You will be enlightened. I know it is hard to think of religion as logical, when your mind is corrupted by the media and the worst examples of Muslim scholars apparent nowadays in the backward Middle East, but try to make an effort and get your information from the right sources.</p>
<p>^I’m atheist and it has nothing to do with religious wars or the bigotry and hatred that religion has propelled. </p>
<p>It simply has to do with the many contradictions I have found in every religion. I’ve read the bible, and it just doesn’t make sense to me. If God had really talked to the people writing it, why is everything mentioned within ten miles of where the men that wrote it live? Why not just mention a kangaroo on Noah’s ark? I also have a hard time with the way women are treated in the Bible. I have a hard time with the restrictions of verses such a Leviticus. I have a hard time with the homophobic statements. As Thomas Jefferson once said “In every age the priest has been hostile to liberty.” I do find that many, many religious people use the bible as an excuse for misogyny, homophobia, and racism. God supported each of these ideas. That does not sound like an embodiment of love to me. </p>
<p>Additionally, of God exists, an God is loving, why are there billions of people starving to death? Why are there millions being raped, beaten, tortured, and murdered? Why doesn’t God stop it? I find it hard to believe that we are all created equal if one should was born in Burma, and it at the complete will of corrupt soldiers who will rape her, and another is born in a nice, wealthy suburb where all she has to worry about is what college she’ll get into and why her boyfriend broke up with her. </p>
<p>Additionally, religion was created to explain the great questions that science couldn’t yet explain. We have repeatedly misproven the bible, and each time the church resists. The Catholic Church didnt recognize that the world is round until 1992!
The way I look at it is that I’m going to die. No matter what, someday I will die. If God is real, and I meet Him, he will know that I have lived my life morally. If that isn’t good enough for him, if he truly wanted me to take his word without question, then I see him as more of a dictator than a loving god. Therefore, I wouldn’t want to be in heaven with him anyway. </p>
<p>Finally, I find it funny that there is such a high correlation between one’s parents religion and one’s own religion. If the true God is Abraham, or if it’s Buddha, of one of the Hindu gods or one of the many, many more gods in this world, why do most people seem to follow the same religion as their parents? If the true god is Abraham, why are all these other people following other religions? Are they just wrong? Are they going to hell because they were born in, say, Thailand, where 99% of the country in Buddhist? Conversely, is someone from Turkey not going to reach their full life after death state (not familiar with Buddhism enough to know what it’s called) because they happen to be born in a Muslim country? </p>
<p>Not until someone can thouroughly answer all of these questions will I be able to even begin to believe. And for the record, I’m perfectly happy being atheist. I live my life for me, not God or anyone else. In fact, I feel so incredibly lucky to be born that I don’t feel I even need to ask for more, such as an afterlife. I have been given a one in billions chance by being the exact sperm and egg combo of two people who had the chance of meeting and falling in love. </p>
<p>The reasons above isn’t every reason in atheist, but they’re the gist of it. I don’t hate religion, but I will admit that I find it ridiculous, irrational, and many people’s excuse for bigotry and homophobia. I hope I didn’t offend anyone with what I just wrote. They’re just my feelings.</p>
<p>[xkcd:</a> Nihilism](<a href=“http://xkcd.com/167/]xkcd:”>xkcd: Nihilism)</p>
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<p>I often wonder if other people have thoughts like these. It seems that a lot of CCers (myself included) think this way, but people I know in real life would never open up like this and share what they think. I’ve found that by accepting that life has no purpose I can act more freely. If I get a bad grade on a test, who cares, no one will remember that 1000 years from now. If I act like an idiot, no one will remember that 1000 years from now. I try to enjoy the present while understanding that my mistakes will be forgotten sooner or later.</p>
<p>I think this would be a good time to bring up a TED talk. ‘Embracing otherness; embracing myself.’ it relates really well to the topic of who a person really is.</p>
<p>@alwaysleah </p>
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<p>And therefore it has no meaning.</p>
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<p>Western science arose out of mythology. So, no, religion wasn’t created to answer the questions science couldn’t. You had the first hints with the Presocratic philosopher Thales when he successfully predicted a lunar eclipse. I’m not sure when historians would say modern Western science really came around, but it sure wasn’t before religion lol.</p>
<p>Religion is not an option. That leaves suicide and acceptance, but I really don’t know how to accept this.</p>
<p>Francaisalamatt: You kind of missed that second point entirely. She didn’t say that a bunch of priests came together and made up explanations that the great scientists of the day couldn’t explain. Her comment includes times in which science hadn’t yet been “invented.” In that respect, she is correct. Religion attempts to explain things that science previously couldn’t. Where did the earth come from? An all-poweful man must have made it in seven days with the help of his son. What is that bright orb in the sky that brings light and warmth? Oh, it must be a gift from Ra.</p>
<p>@Francaisalamatt: </p>
<p>The reasoning given was why I personally am atheist. It doesn’t make sense to me, therefore I am atheist. If it makes sense to others, feel free to believe. I also sort of feel like that was taken out of context. It was followed with a variety of questions that no religious person has ever been able to give me the answer to. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it just means I haven’t encountered it or been able to reason it out myself. I am not saying that the Bible has no meaning. In fact, I find that it has great meaning. But to me, that meaning is greatly different than the meaning of if to most religious people. I find it one of the most meaningful, significant documents in history. </p>
<p>As for the science part, studious got that right. It has nothing to do with when/how science was created. I mean that humans had not yet developed methods to prove things, so instead we tried to explain them with ideas such as those in the bible. Studious hit that nail right on the head so I won’t go into further detail. </p>
<p>I didn’t just pick up a bible, think “wow, this is hard to understand. I guess I’ll be atheist!” I read things, I watched videos, I really thought about it. And this is the conclusion that I have come to. That doesn’t mean that my opinion will never change, but that’s what it is right now, until I can somehow be convinced otherwise.</p>
<p>You’re cherry picking verses out of the Qur’an.</p>
<p>Yeah, dfree I agree that it is liberating, but it still kind of scares me that “this is it”. That things aren’t as important as they seem, if that makes sense. Maybe “scares” isn’t the right word, but it’s a fact that I can’t really get over. It’s difficult, almost painful, to think about how much the significance of human life has been exaggerated.</p>