>raised religious, thought life had a plot
>faith collapsed, now the universe looks like a dumb meat-grinder
>billions dead already, billions next, no payoff or judge
>can’t dump this on family—either I wreck their faith or they ditch me
anyone else crawl through this?

>if there is no God, if there is no Judgement Day, if there is no divine justice after death, then there is ultimately no reason to care about anything at all
for some men, this realization makes them want to indulge in life and pleasure, and to live like a hedonistic animal. for some, it makes them lose the will to live at all, in the knowledge that even pleasure is meaningless. i find myself looking at the people around me as animals fighting for a spot on the social hierarchy. women just seem like either animals in heat trying to get pregnant, or weaklings seeking protection in groups and from men. everything has suddenly become unholy.

any /lit/ on this loss of faith? how does one justify living when living is meaningless?
drop books/thinkers (no Camus) or ways to keep going without pretending

>>24481596 (OP)
The meaning of life is what you make it, fren.

>>24481596 (OP)
If something has meaning, it's a tool. Tools are for accomplishing a task. A task might have a meaning, might be a means to accomplish something else. For you the end goal was the afterlife and the chain of meaning is broken. You still have the same morality as you did before, though. You say "hedonistic animal" - isn't this just an irreligious person? Why should pleasure - like swimming, or enjoyment of a view - have a meaning? I don't think you enjoyed life that much before you lost your sense of meaning.

You may as well just assign your own meanings. Are they really worse than anyone else's? It might be comforting to be a cog in a machine, but you're a living being with your own will.

>(no Camus)
You keep making these threads despite the fact that you have only read The Stranger.

You need to read all of his major works and essays in this order: TMoS > The Human Crisis > The Rebel > The Plague > The Fall > Return to Tipasa > The Last Man.

Camus spent the entirity of his short life grappling with the exact problems that you are describing in your post.

>>24481596 (OP)
Have you read the Bible?

>>24481596 (OP)
There's too many of you here

>>24481673
>Camus spent the entirity of his short life grappling with the exact problems that you are describing in your post.
and he remained a depressed frenchie throughout his entire life. cope.

>>24481596 (OP)
here's a helpful hint, anon.
matter cannot exist without a configuration, without information, without a form. but information is strictly non-material. matter is what individuates and decays, but configuration, information, is what unites, integrates, and makes reality and existence intelligible. think about it. the most basic units of matter, the elementary particles, are mere excitations of quantum fields, all of which are prefigured with informational content, which is non-material precisely because it's informational and configurational. have you ever completed a jigsaw puzzle? the pieces combine to form a whole, but the material whole is just all the pieces together forming a large piece, the picture itself which the pieces altogether create cannot be exhausted by the pieces themselves, just like all language and thought cannot exhaust reality by virtue of the fact that the signifier and the signified are incommensurable. hopefully this helps, but if it doesn't, well, good luck anyways.

>>24481596 (OP)
Life isn't smart enough yet to answer the greater questions about the universe. Human brains are not advanced enough to do so. Evolution has a purpose, as does consciousness. There is a purpose out there for all of this, we just don't see it yet.

>>24481596 (OP)
Funny, I was raised without religion to be an atomized economic unit in a western liberal capitalist state, and found more than any child could imagine, I found true love and perfect goodness do exist, I found Jesus Christ. Life to me is the setting of a table, I choose to set with wonder and mystery, having no guests yet to entertain, but knowing for certain I will be celebrating in a great feast with good friends for eternity. What a difference choice can make.

>>24481596 (OP)
Life is full of meaning. There is goodness all around you. Make an effort to find it, it's there and it deserves your attention and devotion. You are depressed for one reason or another, and you're building a little mental torture chamber for your mind with this worldview.

The world is full of evil, in fact Christianity never said it is not. But there is a lot of goodness and meaning in the world too. I know it's hard, especially nowadays, but the truth is that there is meaning and good does exist. Unfortunately, the world is corrupted and fallen.

>>24481596 (OP)
>However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system of the Modernist: the positive side of it consists in what they call vital immanence. This is how they advance from one to the other. Religion, whether natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some explanation. But when Natural theology has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. Hence the principle of religious immanence is formulated. Moreover, the first actuation, so to say, of every vital phenomenon, and religion, as has been said, belongs to this category, is due to a certain necessity or impulsion; but it has its origin, speaking more particularly of life, in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sentiment. Therefore, since God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and the foundation of all religion, consists in a sentiment which originates from a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favourable circumstances, cannot, of itself, appertain to the domain of consciousness; it is at first latent within the consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its roots lies hidden and undetected.
Pius X on atheist agnosticism that sprung up lately. Religion is something that you need to practice; prayer, fasting, almsgiving, going to church, reading Scripture, the works

>>24481673
NTA, but Camus failed to provide a coherent answer to the pessimism-faith dichotomy he constructed in the Myth of Sisyphus. If one is unable to sincerely hold faith in some transcendent meaning that somehow enters into this world, a meaningless universe presents something far more troubling than absurdism can really grapple with. If the world is void of meaning, what justification is there to act as if there is meaning? It requires such intense mental gymnastics to affirm that position that it ironically makes faith far more coherent by comparison. That's why a lot of Camus's justification seems to be saccharine mental images, a quasi-left humanism that has no reason to be affirmed in the meaningless world that it presumes. I think it all boils down to some implicit hedonic utility, some imperative to live happily in spite of meaninglessness, yet that hedonic foundation has no basis in a meaningless world. I don't think Camus really thought through the implications of what he was proposing, but that's alright, he was a good (not great imho) novelist and playwright who tried to write philosophy. If you find his basis for living useful, then good on you, I hope it keeps going well and you stay happy. I just don't see how it overcomes meaninglessness without rendering itself incoherent.
For the record, I don't have an answer either. I find myself flip-flopping between depressed pessimism and manic faith on an almost-daily basis. I try to hold faith, I've been trying for years now, and I often succeed in recapturing it. But when that high fades and I entertain even the slightest doubt, I just get dragged away from it back into pessimism. I'm like a pinball bouncing between Michelstaedter and Kierkegaard, and honestly, I don't know how to stop. Sorry for the blogposting, maybe I should take it to /r9k/, but I just don't know what to do.

>>24481596 (OP)
>hear kids laughing in a park
>feel warm for a second
>realize every giggle is a random gene shouting “replicate”
>mfw

>pet family dog, tail wagging
>brief shot of joy
>remember his whole life is a 15-year biochemical glitch caused by his wolf ancestors being mindbroken for countless generations by my ape ancestors
>feel bad for him

>visit grandma at the home
>she smiles, calls me by dad's name
>picture her neuron lattice corroding in real time
>eyes start stinging

>see pregnant couple out shopping
>smile at future family
>recall every Homo sapiens birth is the 300-millionth mammal reroll of blind DNA dice
>the ghost of darwin whispers that we’re hairless apes doing pair-bond rituals to boost infant survival odds
>feel skin crawl

>>24481596 (OP)
If your faith collapsed, you never had it in the first place, or rather: you had your faith in a false religion created by man instead of the true God of the Bible and Biblical salvation by grace through faith and not of works (Ephesians 2:8-9). If you believed the Biblical gospel (i.e. had faith) then you're sealed unto the day of redemption and the witness of God is greater than the witness of men. You could also read 1st John 5 (KJV, since other versions, or perversions rather, completely destroy the chapter), because the witness that dwells with the saved believer is the Holy Spirit and that witness is greater than the witness of men and Jesus said you'd be guided into all truth by said witness. And the New Testament repeatedly tells that the believer is the temple of the living God.
>II. Corinthians 1:22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
>Ephesians 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
>Ephesians 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
>I. John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
>John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
>II. Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Also, God doesn't have grandchildren, nobody's a child of God because their parents took them to church or because their parents were saved children of God. It's an individual choice every person has to make on their own, whether to believe God or make God a liar (again, see 1st John 5 KJV). And Jesus put people into two categories, those who believe, and those who have not believed (John 3:18). There's no other option, no other category. In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus doesn't say to them who are trusting in their "many wonderful works" that he "used to know them", Jesus will say to them "I never knew you". He can't really say that if they "had faith and lost it" because you can't lose it if you're indwelt and sealed with the holy spirit of God.

If you want to entertain rare or extreme cases, let's say someone gets in a car accident and their brain is mush and they're a vegetable and can't remember anything or whatever, they'd still be saved if they had true faith in the past because as the Bible says nothing will separate us from the love of God if we're saved. Romans 8:38-39 and Psalms 89:33

>>24482356
I hope you realize that all of these things are autistic abstractions forced upon you by society and are separate from the immediacy of interacting with your environment.

Que tiene que ver Lara Golosa?

Religion is a cope but spiritual reality is very real. "My faith collapsed" then use your will, intellect, and diligence to claw your way to truth. How much time have you spent trying to find the truth on this matter? Or have you, like a baby, refused the food offered to you but proven incapable to do even the least thing to feed yourself?

>>24482356
the consequences of materialism and individualism. it doesn't have to be like this friend. regain your childlike wonder. do ketamine, smell flowers, paint a picture, pray Jesus Christ. just don't let yourself wallow in this mire

>>24482356
>life is le pointless but for some reason blind dna cares about its survival because........... SHUT UP, OKAY?!

>>24481596 (OP)
Read Ecclesiastes

>>24482356
And why do your tears exist? In a godless universe (and not a universe that is blinding itself to God), what purpose would they serve?

>>24481596 (OP)
/lit/ for loss of faith?
i can't say specifically, but i can only share books that i felt were formative for me. you ask for specific books, but if you're as mentally destroyed as you are attempting to project, you really are only going to make mistakes by assuming you're complete enough to decide what will help you and what wont; ie you may not like what i suggest but try them before you piss them away.
it'll be strange reading these as an adult, but judging by your post you should probably start from square one. as a child i read redwall and the golden compass books (both fiction). as i grew older i read some hemmingway, especially a farewell to arms, for whom the bell tolls, and the sun also rises. i was probably too young while reading these books, and so with most of them i came away optimistic. when i returned to read them perhaps ten years later, i found them to be astonishingly and maybe even insightful in how hemmingway peels back the way that people's dumb optimism hides the source of their unhappiness, but i don't know if anyone else would take away the themes i took away from my two very different experiences with his books. i still think you'd at least find that just reading someone who wrote for a different era, and yet still captures how people behave today would help you at least gain some admiration for how insightful people can be.
inbetween hemmingways i started reading history. i only got into it thanks to barbara tuchman. guns of august, then proud tower and then lastly but most importantly the calamitous fourteenth century. the last one is the most important because it deals with one of the most brutal periods of recorded history. i also read proud tower and the fourteenth century while i was living in a collapsing house with water, but no gas and no power. it really made me feel like when i returned to hot showers and warm food that life was worth living just for those two things.

the above is a highlight of twenty+ years of /lit/ for me. there's countless other books that don't really make the cut but are worth mentioning. i found reading jung's psychology of the unconscious to be an incredibly influential book, even if i really only used it as a partial building block since i think he got a lot wrong, but more than enough right. steven pinker's the blank slate was equally as useful in the same ways. i enjoyed dune, though melodramatic and overwritten especially god emperor (though it can not be read out of context imo), and i would highly, highly recommend the expanse books, all ten of them, but it's not been long enough and i read them late enough to not attribute much to them yet. tolkien should probably be in the above list, not down here, but for me personally as much as i love it, my youth fiction rampage was shaped by philip pullman's golden compass far more, because like you i too came from a religious house, but luckily i had one parent who was something of an enlightened heretic.

Trippin off the beat kinda, drippin off the meat grinda

>>24482864
i'm back to write a little more unrelated to your request, so ignore it if you please, but i think it might help you.
raised religious is not the same as being raised spiritually, but i'll wrap back around to that eventually, sit tight.
you've been raised dogmatically. this does not equip you to handle existential questions. it equips you with a prepackaged goal, morality and group.
i imagine your faith collapsed because you've had some trouble with your prepackaged goal; you didn't get a decent job, you didn't get married, you didn't have children, or maybe you didn't get grandchildren (or more sadly still, you didn't make it into some form of theological study/practice).
so now that something has happened to subvert your expected trajectory in life, you've both realized that there's more to life, and that this 'more' is entirely uncurated. coming from a background where your life, perhaps down to the most superficial minutiae (what to eat, how to dress) was curated, is it any surprise that the moment you begin to question your dogmatic upbringing you fall into a pessimistic depression bordering on nihilism?
you're not actually pessimistic, depressed or nihilistic, in my opinion though. you're just cut loose, and you've realized the enormity of what sits in front of you. this is the core the books i suggested above would help remedy, i feel. fiction can show you idealized windows of what life could be (good for making your own goal, dangerous if you don't realize they're idealized and scripted). history is great if you can't throw yourself into a harsher life, because most of recorded history involves great chaos, turmoil and suffering. nonfiction shows you the complexity of your fellow man, both the negative and the positive.
also, trust me when i tell you that you'll feel 10x better about your life, regardless of whatever stupid feelings you have right now, if you go live like an actual homeless person for a month. something something maslows hierarchy.
as far as spiritualism is concerned, it's what i think most people expect religion to give them, and when they dont get it from religion they lash out at, ironically, both spiritualism and dogma, rather than just lashing out at dogma. the spiritualism i'm speaking is the philosophical kind, just to be clear. that there is something beyond the merely physical. it's not a belief in heaven, for me, but it is a belief that the "why" in "why do we even have a material existence?" and "why did the universe being, and why does it exist at all?" has an answer that isn't just material. for instance one of my favorite mind games is this:
people told you about your religion, and created your belief system. you now know better and doubt them. people tell you the world is utterly scientific and have created your new belief system (you are here).
you may say religion requires faith, science requires evidence, but the thing with evidence is that there's always going to be more of it coming out.

>>24481596 (OP)
>*****UUuuunnnnnhhhh*****
>MY LIFE
>****UUUUUUNNNhhhuhuhuhuhuhuhhhhhh****
>IT'S LIKE- LIKE, MEANINGLESS
>***UUUUNNNNhuhuhuhuhaaaaaaahhhaaaaaaa****

Now just imagine picrel with the text above and that's OP. Sorry mommy didn't buy your favorite legos or whatever when you were 5. Now grow the fuck up.

>>24482776
larpy posts like this are so insufferable. i suppose you thought this was some kind of deep and based image when you saw it in 2015, right?

>>24482979
All I'm saying is do your home work before you reach your final conclusion about the nature of the world. Sorry that triggers you, sweetie.

>>24481596 (OP)
Larita <3

>>24483017

Crisis of faith is as old as time. Sorry to say this but you will have to figure it out yourself.
Getting your own answer is half the fun.

>>24481596 (OP)
Buddhism