Without God, what's the point?

From John --

I am a 17-year-old Christian guy who grew up in a Christian family. I'm close to deconverting. I'm close to that because I'm filled with doubt (Biblical contradictions, etc), and I'm gay.

Image by the|G|™ via Flickr

No one knows I'm gay, and I won't be able to tell them for a long time, but... yeah. And I had a few quick questions.

The first is that I see life without an omniscient creator with a plan dictating everything to be useless. Because, look at how depressing a life without a god would be -- we live, we die, we're forgotten. And the small pleasures we get during life (which get nowhere close to outweighing the pain) aren't worth the uselessness of the brief existence. Can you explain how I could live a happy life without religion?

And, secondly, but along the same track, I'm trying to discover what I'm supposed to do with my life. I'm trying to make big decisions like college, career, how I can change the world, etc. So how am supposed to do that if there is no plan from a creator? Because that would mean if I screw up, I screw up, and have wasted my entire existence. That's too shaky of a foundation for me to build a life on. So what do you recommend there?

And what do you see are the benefits of living without a religion? Are you happier? And if so, how so?

Thank you,
John

Comments

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