I grew up religious because of my Catholic father and found meaning in faith as a child. After he left, I gradually lost my belief and eventually abandoned religion. As an adult, I miss the structure and purpose faith gave me, but I can't seem to believe in God anymore no matter how hard I try. Is there a way to recover that sense of meaning, or should I stop trying to believe?

>>33241219 (OP)
Right here, chief. This book right here is what you need.

>>33241219 (OP)
1. You can be a deist, believing that there is, self-evidently (seems to me) an intelligence behind creation. Notice the wonder of the world and of the wilderness of the cosmos.
2. Have a consistent worldview. That is, not merely a political position, but a self-consistent framework that is both descriptive and prescriptive.

>>33241362
A bit more on the subject of competing worldviews:

Human beings have a need to belong within something greater than themselves, and that's where a worldview comes in. The people that don't find such a place to belong default to materialism and nihilism. We see the latter every time a boomer says it won't matter what the world is like several decades from now because he will be "long gone" by then. Another expression of nihilism is wokeness, the looney toons left of today. We see materialism all around us; for example, the ceaseless, stupid complaints on this board about trivial matters.

I found the following video helpful in getting it straight what a worldview is, or "world concept" as they call it. https://odysee.com/@VertigoPolitix:5/On_Hitler_s_Worldview_and_the_War_Against_International_Marxism-ndyNUYzDdZo:d

It's an interesting question to ponder in what way, if any, the current war between Iran and Israel is a clash of worldviews.

>>33241493
The boomers that say they'll be long gone are majority Christian. The wokies majority come from Christian backgrounds in countries that were majority Christian when they grew up. Don't search for your human father's love in something abhuman. Be realistic about religion

>>33241219 (OP)
I miss the community and routine of Catholic life, but not believing the religious claims there is nothing for me there any more. Get a hobby, hang out with friends, spend time with your family. You need something to believe in? Find a charity, volunteer in your community, attend political town halls, find a way to make an impact. Abandon labels, concentrate on raw principles.

>>33241219 (OP)
Study the social doctrine of the Catholic church. Read the encyclicals. Join a catholic run charity for a cause you are willing to fight for. You still have purpose and the structure is out there. Go make the will of God even if you don't believe in it, because God is fully human, and the purpose of mankind is to make this world fully Holy.

>>33241219 (OP)
A sense of meaning dependent on a false God is fragile. There's more aspects of spiritual meaning than whether or not God is real, but when an organization like the Catholic church stakes itself in old traditions and beliefs that becomes a vulnerability. Belief in God is not a universal vulnerability, as some more extreme religious sects (and new religions not oriented around God) have experienced growth in recent decades while more traditional religions have declined.

>>33241611
For the record I am considering salafism, evangelism to be more extreme than Catholicism. But true cults are the most harmful. There's good reason to believe this.

>>33241362
If there is an intelligence behind creation then you would have to conclude that it is ethier evil or incompetent. Why did this intelligence create a world where the suffering and death of the innocent is constant and required for evolutionary progress?

rip your dick and balls off
only then will you be able to understand the glory of the king of the jews, jewsus christ

>>33241681
An old question and I don't presume to know the answer. With only a human brain, how could I? When I look at the female mantis devouring her mate, or the galaxies being devoured by a black hole (quasars), or why there is a "me" looking out of my eyes but it's not looking out of somebody else's eyes, then I realize my human values don't apply.

>>33241798
>With only a human brain
That human brain is 4lbs of meat. Not even meat, a snot-like gelatinous substance. Yet despite that, it can philosophise, analyse, romanticise. It can make abstractions, it can dream, it can see patterns, make predictions, it can hold onto nostalgia, memories, it can think fondly and dwell miserably. It can generate equations, it can write poetry, it can illustrate beauty.

Remember, it's only 4lbs of snot, in the skull of tiny humans who are but a tiny speck on the Earth, and the Earth a tiny nano-speck in the cosmos.

Yet entire galaxies, nebula, quasars and solar bodies cannot even do what the brain does. They can't make abstractions, or analyze, or remember anything. But your brain can.

So don't go thinking your human values are worthless just because a giant gas body of light in the sky is bigger than you.

>>33241798
>With only a human brain, how could I?
The same way you conclude there is a god. You should not stop using your brain when you don't like the answer.
>>33241219 (OP)
Try different religions or philosophy.

>>33241681
>Why did this intelligence create a world where the suffering and death of the innocent is constant and required for evolutionary progress?
Same reason authors create stories.