sorry to hear that OP,
I had worsening depression from age 13-17 until it finally got so bad I couldn't get myself out of the house anymore, dropped out of high school etc
after a couple years I got over it, and since then nothing bothers me anymore, I really feel free. I kind of figured this is what alot of atheists experienced

Well, the good news is that when you're dead you don't feel scared or sad, because you're dead.

Well, then again, I guess that's not good news. :/

I know that exact feeling OP.
My older brother and I would get flashes of that realization and just start crying helplessly when we were younger.

It's one of the hardest things in life to deal with, and you can either look at it and see your life as meaningless, or see your life as precious for the same reason.

I'm still trying to see the latter.

I had, but then I thought: why bother?

I remember vividly though the exact moment I realized I was a person and became aware of myself. Pretty introspective man

Yeah, I have that all the time. I don't think I've ever cried about it though, I just try to shrug it off. But if you think about that all the time, then one day it'll finally hit you how incredible it is that you're alive, and that's a truly amazing realization. I've only had it once, but it was indescribably awesome.

I had this when I was younger also. It was during Independece Day when all of the people are blown up/burnt when the aliens first attacked near to the start.

At that moment I just realised that I was alive and one day I would be no more. I guess it was seeing all the people dieing that I realised that one day I too would die. I felt really sick and that night I cried thinking about it. After that I just tried not to think about and instead thought about all the things that I would want to achieve in my life and hopfully, when I do die, I will be surround by a loving family who won't forget me.

>>818815
I still am younger, and have it. Almost every night I go to sleep scared that I may not wake up.

They way I deal with it, is to occupy my time constantly. Find something(or someone) you love and just occupy your time with that. Constantly think about it, think about what you're going to do in life with this. If you find something you love, you can make it through anything.

>818764

Why is it bad news that being dead stops you caring about anything? Would you rather live for the rest of eternity, never able to ever stop? Fuck that, bring on the worms!

>>818740 it just made me want to kill myself.

Fear of death made you want to kill yourself? huh?

Yeah the thought of not existing is shit. Try and get by on the thought that you may as well do as much of what you love whilst you can, try not to comprimise on being happy and don't worry about stupid shit like "I need to work this job and this wage to buy this house and this car and this tv" If you have to work work doing what you love and if you can't do that work just enough to get by and take up hobbies.

i dont know if any of you have this
but sometimes when im alone in my room, or sometimes even on the bus and im staring at one point or outside and realise existence (or try to realise it), it just hits me that existence itself, pure being, pure existing of things in front of you is just so fucking unexplainable. we will never ever be able to understand it. but just just the fact that existence itself exists and the epiphany that i get everytime i realise this, calms me down in a way like something is assuring me that there is something else, something beyond what we consider as our world, our lives.

>>818868

To get it over and done with.... rather than waiting for the innevitable. At the time I was thinking it would be better than spending the rest of my days fearing the day it would come

>>818968
Qualia.

I find that very thought comforting, if I fuck up everything in my life, rot in the ground for a few years and no one will remember. If I do amazing in life, rot in the ground a few years, no one will remember. It allows me to let go of everything, and just not care. This way, I can live for now, live to make myself and those I care about happy.

>>818968

This is close to how I think. Nothing makes sense man, that's why I'm going to become a physicist and hopefully help the human race slowly uncover more answers.

HEY OP!

Guess what, my man, you'll never be gone. Though your consciousness will cease to function, you will always be there for the rest of eternity.
Thanks to the conservation of mass the subatomic particles that you're composed of may migrate from your body during decomposition, but they'll continue to exist in the thousands of other cycling processes of the universe. Feel useful man. Because you always will be.
*Thumbs up*

>>819257
That happens anyway when you exhale, shit or piss.

>>818740
It's impossible to truly know what happens after death.
Don't be so sure it's a black nothingness.

>>820240
Don't be so sure it isn't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KGCAffvGIw
This song always helps me out of a slump =)

>>819257
doesn't that mean that.. I will be back?

Bro. I think I had something kind of like you.

I would zone out for a good ten to fifteen minutes just wondering what would happen if life simply didn't exist. Or even better, if the universe itself didn't exist. What would become of everything?

Weird.

>>820246

He didn't say that he ws sure that it isn't.

Are you retarded?

>>818740

not sure how you got depressed, the idea of death makes me love my current life so much more. because its only a blink in the timeline of the universe.

>The thought of the universe aging for eternity but you are still dead just made me feel physically sick. At that age I didnt sleep at all that night and started crying.... what would hapen after a billion years have passed, and you're still just, nothing.

still happens to me

This is one of the biggest reasons why people find so much comfort in religion. I never really was sad after pondering the thought of not existing, but it does make me appreciate my life more if anything.

It's times like those I wish I still had some kind of religion... It's a lot easier to think that there is something after. There is no reward for dragging myself through hell with these thoughts, so all logic says I should try to convince myself of god...
...
I've been saying this for 7 years...
and I still can't do it...

>>821315

Science and truth is more powerful than any religion in the world.

Science IS my religion bitches, I worship it.

>>821285
How the fuck do you do it?
How do you convince yourself of such things when you don't feel "it" anymore?
Once you become so critical of the world, and chastise various religions for their dogmatic and pragmatic thinking, how do you turn back?

>>821324

By swallowing your pride in admission that maybe you were wrong, and that the truth and your eternity are more important than any fleeting emotion.

That's IF you can find convincing evidence that any spirituality is legitimate. I honestly hope I will find one as well, I get this feeling all the time, I've been quite depressed recently because of it, in fact.

>>821336
Id sooner blow my brains out than get down on my knees again.

I had night terrors until I was 12 (very rare, was studied by local university sleep research center etc.) All I remember from the dreams that caused them was just feeling completely hopeless at how huge the universe is and the concept of infinity and how insignificant our entire world is.

When the night terrors went away I started getting sleep paralysis and still wake up to it 3-4 times a week. Fucking hate sleep >_>

>>821323
Throughout your entire conscious life: you've experienced...well...consciousness. It's all you've ever known and observed; you can't imagine anything past it because it's everything you could imagine...
religion: When you die, this trend continues
science: It stops...You can't imagine what that feels like, but it'll happen...
...
Worshiping science is a romantic thought, but I really don't see how it helps in those "end of the universe" fits of depression.

>>821350

Assume that some religion, we'll use Christianity for simplicity, is 100% true. ASSUME.

You have this revelation now, after years of openly insulting, criticizing, and using every ounce of your not inconsiderable intelligence to combat it. According to our assumption, you are now aware that all of your actions on earth influence a REAL and TANGIBLE eternity. Fuck, I would do anything if I KNEW it to be true. The problem is I can't even bring myself to believe that it is true.

But I definitely understand how some of the people who believe whatever they do wholeheartedly will do anything their religion commands them to. Eternity is a long fucking time if it turns out you've made the wrong call. Pascal's wager bro.

>>821324
It isn't a matter of convincing yourself, you just have to accept that death is inevitable and beyond that you have no control.

Everyone must face death alone

>>821377
If the Abrahamic god is real he can blow it out his ass, if a deist god is real, he loves me.

actually had this revelation when i was like 8..started crying in the bathtub haha my family freaked.

but anyway, ITT- people who are atheists but will eventually fool themselves into becoming religious again.

First there was the big bang, and everything was created...In a few billion, there will be the big crunch, and everything will be wiped clean...
The cycle has repeated an unlimited number of times before. Each iteration brings about new civilizations which take different times to come up with technologies, conquer other species, and figure out the mysteries of existence.
It's like a game to see which iteration can get the furthest...
I don't know how others have done in the past. I don't know how others will do in the future. But I know that we've gotten pretty far, and I'm damn proud of us: each and every one of you in this thread.
I know you all will do your duty and contribute to how far we get before the universe resets...Good job, guys.

>>821418

That's a point a lot of people don't seem to grasp. I don't believe in any god, only the scant possibility of some kind of superior entity that may or may not have a connection to the universe (but fuck, that's just pure imagination). But if all of a sudden, I were to be aware that there was indeed a God (capital G), ANY God, I would bow to his will and dedicate my life to him. It's not a matter of pride or vanity, it's a matter of reality and the sculpting of the rest of your life (and given our conjecture, personal eternity).

That's what bothers me about Christians, the New testament tells them to sell their possessions and follow the Lord, if they actually believed it as much as they say the do, why don't they do that? I sure as fuck would if I claimed to have so much certainty about something like that.

>>821448

damn, assuming this god is omnipotent, and generally "perfect" by any standard. Basically the god described by any monotheistic religion.

>>821384
>you just have to accept that death is inevitable and beyond that you have no control.
What the fuck?
Fuck no. I'm not studying science and engineering so I have to accept nature. We do it to combat nature are much as possible. You can't get anywhere if you just lie down and accept anything!

>>821315

You don't need religion, just philosophy. Check out the non-religious aspects of Buddhism.

You are not who you were a moment ago. So is that previous you now dead?