deconversion

Hi,

I had been a muslim for 30 years since recent times. In the last 3 years, I have read alot in a wide range of topics including personal development, philosophy, psychology, religion etc.

In the last year, coupled with financial disaster, I gradually and painfully started to lose my faith. I gradually became an agnostic.

I can not in any way console myself because once I believed in eternal life and now there is only few uncertain decades left to live. It is like losing your life not once but an infinite number of times. Leave that aside, I am totally confused and stay confused no matter how much I read. I don't know how I became confused like this because everything was much much more clear a few years ago. Now I can not be sure about almost anything.

I can not be content with not thinking either. I can not stop thinking and wondering but it seems I am going towards insanity. Almost everybody around me seems blissfully ignorant of their lives and beliefs, but I feel like I am floating in outer space without any orientation and foundation to stand on.

I have doubts on the nature of reality thanks to quantum physics, relativity and the progress of science from Newton Physics to today's science. I hold no chance of having an understanding of all these complex mathematics and physics, and they are all based on axioms anyway.

To continue my whining, I encountered many supernatural claims and hypothesis such as chi energy, intention experiments, placebo effect, orgone energy, the possibility of collective conscious, superconscious mind, distance healing, remote viewing, telekinesis, astral travel, claims of communing with the spirits etc. These all speculate something is going on outside regular science's understanding.

It is as if my head is going to explode. I am completely paralysed in day to day actions. I have lost my purpose, I have lost the motivation and can not find a meaning for myself.

I have also financial difficulties, and these hard times coincided with the complete dissolution of my belief system.

I tell myself that I should in the least adopt the bland built-in purpose of survival and procreation, but I am totally off balance and out of motivation.

I was a very positive and motivated person before all these events. I was keen, intelligent, hard working, passionate, healthy. Now I am lost, jaded, confused, demotivated, occasionally depressed, physically weakened.

Seeking the ultimate truth leads to nowhere, defining a made-up purpose seems pointless. I suspect I am not getting enough pleasure and sustenance for living due to my financial situation and this contributes to my despair.

Perhaps being deceived all my life would have been better because I would live without all these pains and uncertainty. After I died it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Then I think, perhaps being free is better. But I have serious doubts how I can get over this state.
I am really tired of researching about truth. I am confused and can't define a purpose for myself.
It is as if I am lost in my mind's dungeons.

I even lost belief in belief.

Compare ants to one cell organisms. How advanced are the ants as a species? And how hopelessly far away they are from understanding the truth of the universe?
Compare us to ants. Within the infinity of the universe does it seem probable that the difference between ants and us give us any advantage in understanding the universe?

All our beliefs are pathetic representations of reality, nothing more.

No hope for truth, a few decades of life to expect, full of confusion.

Perhaps I should adopt an Epicurean or an Hedonistic lifestyle.

Added to this, capitalism awaits me to submit most of my time to some human domesticator to provide for myself and be able to reproduce. In my remaining time, I can distract myself with some stupid entertainment and await for the inevitable end. Well, this is not motivating.

Becoming a scientist? They don't even know where to start, the axioms science is based on are totally unproven.

Specializing in art? Venting my despair induced creativity into some artistic medium and trying to earn a living out of that? Bah.

I don't know. Maybe I couldn't learn how to enjoy life. I don't think anymore that thinking deep about life teaches you to enjoy it at all.

Yours.

Becoming a scientist? They don't even know where to start, the axioms science is based on are totally unproven.

No, just sounds like it's going to take him awhile to shake off the years of indoctrination. That's true for most of us on first deconverting. When someone says to me that the axioms of science are unproven, I wave my cellphone at them. Science works, and works consistently. That's all the "proven axioms" I need.

Slimar, it really does get better with time. I've been a deconvert for 25 years now, and the real world has been a more than adequate substitute for fairy tails. You are now free to decide for yourself what the meaning of your life should be, and to pursue it in the way that seems best to you, without dogma. That's the best "good news" around.

"Becoming a scientist? They don't even know where to start, the axioms science is based on are totally unproven. "

"The ignorance stupidity in this statement is utterly staggering."

You are right, it is stupid to lose certainty in axioms because without them you can not reach your goals. The combination of axioms that reach you to your goals quickest is the smartest one. Being smart is choosing the right combination of axioms. Consider that the leading axiom "time is moving forward" has been proven to be false just about 100 years ago. Or consider that Stephan Hawking, a leading scientist of our time, believes that "there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles". (http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/lectures/publiclectures/91)

But, existential anguish is not about being smart. It is about finding meanings for yourself. It is the yearning of certainty and truth. It is the seeking of a philosophical framework where you can stand and move within the sheer complexity of the universe.

I think in order to become smart, first you need to understand what being stupid is.

Ubi Dubium,

Thanks for your response. You are right that science gives us great value and it works. But the fact that it works does not make it true. I had just lost my intellectual footing and in my desperate need for certainty I diminished the value of one of the greatest tools we had: Science.

I have been reading Ayn Rand's For The New Intellectual. It really puts many things into perspective. It really takes a lot of effort to free your mind and reach an understanding that would allow you to strive to reach your human potential. I think it is impossible for the majority of the world's population under the current circumstances. But it's more possible for more people than ever. I feel lucky.

Consider that the leading axiom "time is moving forward" has been proven to be false just about 100 years ago.

By

Consider that the leading axiom "time is moving forward" has been proven to be false just about 100 years ago.

I meant that the relativity of time was discovered by Einstein but I think I couldn't convey the idea correctly. Newton's core belief/axiom about the nature of time prevented him from discovering relativity. But Einstein could rise above that axiom. I hypotise that some of our current axioms will be discovered as false in the future. I also hypotise that the reason that our leading scientists think that there is not an ultimate theory that can be formulated as a finite number of principles is that the set of axioms that science is currently based on contain undiscovered false ones.

Axiom by definition is unproven and seen as self evident.

The process of producing data, interpreting and applying it also is based on axiom based approaches such as mathematics and statistics.

Useful References:
1) The Relativity of Time: http://www.aip.org/pnu/2003/split/655-2.html
2) Experiment about the effect of consciousness on matter which has a probability of creating new axioms: http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/
3) Definition of Axiom: In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be either self-evident, or subject to necessary decision. Therefore, its truth is taken for granted, and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other (theory dependent) truths.

Useful references:

I've studied relativity, although I admit that it was about 20 years ago now. But "Time is moving forward" hasn't been proved to be false. Many physical laws would hold just as well if time were to go backwards, but people can only perceive it moving in one direction. I've read several interesting discussions about why this should be, which often come to the conclusion that we can only perceive time moving in the direction of increasing entropy. An interesting topic of study, but one with little relevance to my everyday life.

As for science having "axioms" that are "true", I don't think it needs to. Reality isn't just "truth" and "falsehood", black and white, its mostly that big muddy gray area in between. Science doesn't need to find "ultimate truth" to be useful, it is just the process of getting to a closer and closer approximation of how things really are. Aristotle tried to do science purely by axioms and logical deduction instead of experimentation. He wound up with a bunch of gibberish that didn't work, and that took us in the west over a thousand years to be rid of. Quantum mechanics may not yet be 100% perfected, but we've figured it out well enough to build the computer I'm typing on. We haven't managed to merge the theory of General Relativity with quantum mechanics yet, but we understand General Relativity well enough to make a functioning GPS unit.

I'd recommend broadening your reading as much as possible. Ayn Rand has some interesting ideas, but many ideas that would result in a completly disfunctional society if followed.

I don't really have any comment on the science stuff other than to say that once I started reading about String Theory and evolution, far from providing me with any kind of answer, my eyes were opened to the sheer WONDER of the universe and finding that it's okay to not get it all. I've actually come to not only accept but thoroughly ENJOY this state of ignorance.

As to your existential crisis, I think we've all been there. It's a heavy thing to have your worldview shattered, and the nagging lingering idea that you might burn in hell for it doesn't make it any easier to overcome. In our old forums I posted a thread about how de-conversion seems to happen to people who, in their daily lives, are accused of "thinking too much." I know this definitely applies to me. And since my de-conversion last year I feel like I've been on a constant almost maniacal quest for information: about religion, about science, about politics, about history. I don't know if I'm filling a void, but there you are.

It hit me hard one night after de-converting when, like you, I realized that I wasn't just losing a religion. I was losing my life a thousand, a ZILLION times over. All the hope and excitement I'd always had over an afterlife was gone. Knowing that if something terrible happens to my family, that tehre will be no consolation in Heaven, actually made me cry when realization hit home. Losing god has made me more prone to existential dread than before for certain. But as Ubi says, it does get easier. The voices in your head (figuratively speaking) do quiet in time. I think there is a certain grieving process that needs to happen because it IS like you've lost a loved one and you need to heal before you can move on.

I have no real advice to give, but just know that others have been through it before too. It sucks. But it does get better.