Also, there are plenty of people who are 'cultural catholics' or 'cultural Jews'.  It is possible to follow the community and rituals without believing, if that is what it takes to make you happy.  (I don't think I could do it at this stage, but I'm not you!)

Hey Solipsistic, here's perhaps a useful message for ya, "You're not alone!" Literally. There are actually other people in the world. Solipsism is a dead-end philosophy. I guarantee you, I exist as an independent mind from your mind, and here we are interacting through the real, physical world, even if it seems 'virtual' due to it being the Internet and all.

You are not alone. Not only do other people exist, but other people have gone through similar problems as you have, and they've come out of it okay on the other side. Myself, I've never been religious, so I can't give you advice from my perspective. But from spending lots of time on this site over the years, I've seen many people struggle with lingering religion. From what I've seen, it just takes time and patience and a desire to be true to yourself. You're going to get through this rough patch just fine.

You may feel 'comfort' from trying to remain Christian, but I don't think it's going to last. I don't know of anyone who is really 'comfortable' with lying to themselves. The only way to fake belief is to lock a little part of yourself away; the part that keeps asking, "Hey, doesn't that sound a little bit like bullshit? Do I really believe this stuff?" That's your questioning mind, your wondering mind. Essentially, you have to kill your wonder in order to 'compartmentalize' your brain into 'Everyday me' vs. 'Religious lying-to-myself me'.

Killing your wonder is no fun. It's downright unhealthy for you. Life is so much more awesome and amazing than any ancient story book can paint it.

Did you know that if your entire life (everything you can ever remember) were compared to the entire history of modern Homo sapiens (that's our species, ya know!  ), your life would seem really really short. I'll assume you're around 20 years old, and so, let's pretend that H. sapiens was only 20 years old (it's actually about 200,000 years old), then your life in comparison would be like: 20 / 200,000 = 0.0001 = 0.01% of the lifetime of H. sapiens

So, if H. sapiens was personified as a girl about your age (assuming 20), your life in comparison would be about: 0.01% of 20 years = 0.002 years = 0.73 days = 17.52 hours, which is about 5:30pm.

So, H. sapiens has only known of you since you were 'born' midnight last night, and it has invited you over for dinner at 5:30. I wonder what the dinner conversation would be like if you could ask your species anything you wanted about its entire life-history? Better use your time wisely, you're unlikely to live longer than 3 more days, so you don't have much time to get to know your mother species.

Of course, H. sapiens is a relatively young species, in comparison to the 4.5 billion years of the Earth itself. If the Earth itself were a 20 year old girl, it would only have known H. sapiens for: 200,000 / 4,500,000,000 * 20 = 0.00889 years = 0.324 days = about 7.8 hours, or 7:47am. So, H. sapiens was 'born' at midnight and has just made it to an early breakfast with the Earth mother itself. Mother Earth greets the newborn baby H. sapiens, "Welcome to reality, H. sapiens, and good morning! What's on your mind, on your first day of life?" H. sapiens replies, "Oh, I just thought of a young girl 2.8 seconds ago! She's rather nice. Struggling with that silly Christianity thing, though, which has only existed for about 4 and a half minutes. Not sure why it should bother her so much.... Oops, she's slipping from my memory. Has it been 14 seconds already?"

The young, 20 year-old Mother Earth laments, "Poor things, those fleeting humans. They're lucky if they last more than a dozen seconds of my lifetime. All their worries, all their problems, *poof* out of existence just as quickly as they *poof* into existence. I wish they weren't so sad all the time. If only they could just realize how precious their short time is."

"Don't worry, my dear Earth," counseled Grandma Universe, who recently had her 61st birthday. "Just enjoy them while they last. They are rather cute, aren't they?"

"I guess so," says Earth, "Usually they just make a stinky mess, but sometimes they can do some pretty amazing things. One time, a few of them made a little dart and shot it up out of my atmosphere, and wouldn't you know it, it landed right on my pet moon Luna. I was even more astonished when the ones that were hitching a ride on the little dart managed to shoot an even tinier dart off of Luna and they landed back on me, safe and sound. I wonder how much more they could accomplish if they stopped making so many stinky messes and learned to play nicely and work together a bit more."

Make the most out of your 14 seconds, Solipsistic. Show Mother Earth and Grandma Universe some of the amazing feats and beautiful art you can create. Inspire Baby Sapiens with some lasting life-lessons, rather than nasty and scary horror stories like those in the Bible, that only serve to spread fear and give the poor kid nightmares (and cause stinky messes)! Baby Sapiens seems to be suffering from chronic depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies. Poor kid! There's so much more to life than fear and suffering. Baby Sapiens has got some serious misconceptions about reality. She seems to be living in a fantasy-land most of the time. But we've learned a lot about reality, and there's so much more to learn. Much, much more!

Reality is freaking cool! Do you realize you're interacting with real people in real-time all around the planet using a device that has only existed for about 30 years, and a network that has only existed for about 15 years? There was a time, not too long ago, when sending a letter to someone on the other side of the planet would take literally *years*, and there was no guarantee the message would even get there. And before that, there was a time when you couldn't communicate with anyone beyond a few hundred miles, because no one had even thought of reading and writing yet, and the only people you knew were your own tribe, and the neighbouring tribes. And usually 'communication' with them consisted of mutually bashing each other over the head with clubs.

Now you live in a time when you can contemplate this incredibly rich history of the universe, and the astoundingly novel creations of the human mind. Do you really appreciate that fact? I hope you can, because it's truly mind-blowing. We've come a long way in only 200,000 years. Most of it in the last 10,000, and most of that in the last 100!

On the other hand, you could -- if you really wanted to -- just ignore all of the deep mysteries (and discoveries!) of the cosmos, bury your brain in a dusty book written by men who lived in a time when there was no such thing as a toilet, let alone toilet paper, and pretend that the book they wrote is the most awesome and perfect book ever, and there will never be anything better than this book. And the story in the book is the best story ever written, even though there are at least 4 different (official) versions of the story, and they all conflict and contradict each other. And the main character of the story is both god and man, even though as a god he was a complete nut-job and worse than the worst serial killer you've ever heard of, and as a man we can't even verify that he even existed, and if he did exist, he didn't actually say anything new, he just kind of cobbled together some inspirational sayings that were going around at the time. And he said some pretty stupid things besides the inspirational things, like endorsing slavery and dumb shit like that.

And the religion that resulted from this book is *obviously* the most true religion ever, even though nobody can agree on what *exactly* this religion means, and there are literally *tens of thousands* of different sects, and each person seems to think this 'god/man' is exactly just the way *they* think he is, and anyone who disagrees is obviously wrong, and not a True Christian(tm). And all the other *thousands* of religions around the world are obviously totally wrong, even though some of them have better stories than the ones in your dusty book, and some of them can even prove that their original author actually existed.

And the result of believing in this ancient story-book that gives little kids nightmares of Hell, is that you have to pretend that Mother Earth is just a ball of mud put here for humans to suffer on until they can finally be happy in an imaginary Heaven that no one has ever seen or can describe, and the only way you can ever get there is by dying (how convenient....). And basically, the whole universe was created by this psycho god so he could fuck with humans until he decides to destroy them all, except he'll save a few if they kiss his ass just right.

And the whole vast universe is really just window-dressing to make sparkly lights in the night-sky of this one tiny little planet, even though the scientists say that there could be literally billions of other Earth-like planets out there, and who knows if they might have some sort of life on them.

And of course, the whole dinosaur thing. Let's just sweep that under the rug, even though *every kid* I've ever met thinks dinosaurs are incredibly cool and amazing. But no, you've got to kill that wonder again, because the dusty book forgot to mention dinosaurs, so obviously they're not relevant to the blood-torture-Human-sacrifice-cannibalism thing where you get to go to happy land when you die, but this life is all about suffering.

And don't ask any questions, cuz if you've got any doubts, you don't get to go to happy land! So just shut up and follow what the authorities say, cuz apparently for some reason, they know what the book *really* means, even though when you ask them about the weird bits, they just cough and change the subject, and who do you think you are asking them questions anyway?!

Right. That's clearly the more inspirational and 'comforting' view of the world. Ignore reality and brainwash yourself into obedience to you-don't-even-know-who-or-what-maybe-just-some-antiquated-book. Well, at least you don't have to think for yourself. That sure is a relief! Who wants to think for themselves, anyway?!

But then, you've got to kill your wonder. There *is* that little minor detail.

Myself, I like my wonder. I like asking questions. I like finding real answers. I like learning. I like the universe as it is. In fact, I think it's awesome, and the more I learn about it, the more awesome and amazing it is to me.

I've never found comfort in lying to myself. In pretending I know things I don't really know. In pretending reality is different from what it actually is. In pretending I'm some magical spirit chosen for greatness by an even more magical spirit. In pretending I'm something I'm not. In pretending I'm anything other than simply what I am. A person. A human. An ape. An animal. Alive. On a tiny blue planet. Warmed by a giant ball of fire. In a vast wilderness so big we don't even know what lies beyond it. But in the company of 6 billion others like me who could, if they stopped lying to themselves, explore it together and celebrate its awesomeness.

You're not alone, Solipsistic. There are lots of other people around. Real people with real ideas of their own. You're one of them. You're quite lucky in that you're able to consider some different ideas and see which ones make sense and which ones are just nasty horror-stories of self-delusion. Which ideas you allow into your mind will determine how you experience reality. The questions to ask yourself are: Are you willing to sacrifice your wonder for an imaginary comfort? Or are you willing to face reality as it is, the good and the bad, and make the best of it? Are you going to help wake up Baby Sapiens from her chronic nightmares, or just pretend reality doesn't really matter, let Baby Sapiens cry in her sleep, because your fantasy after-life is the only thing that counts?

Questions, questions, questions. Your wondering mind keeps asking them. Maybe not exactly the same questions I've posed here, but I know you have your own. The only way to remain a Christian is to lock away your wonder-self, to kill your wonder, and ignore the questions. The only reason you would do that is if you fear the questions, fear the answers, and fear reality.

So, which is it? Wonder, or fear?

@Natural:

If you are an atheist, go with it, mom will get over it. If you are a christian, go with it, mom will get over it.

My dad is the most fundamental, creationist I have seen or heard of. He told me yesterday if he had the power he would destroy the internet. He knows I am an atheist and he is over it. He claims to be disappointed in himself for not making me a christian, I have told him I am disappointed in him being a closed minded creationist. Real shame, my dad is pretty smart, he just chooses to remain blind to any alternative thought and reminds me of our little fonzie zealot. I have had to make 1 concession on this matter, which pains me. I have to see him program my little adopted sister. He is trying very hard with her, because he failed with me. I am 37 and have an 11 year old sister, how did that happen!

Anyway, parents will get over it. If you are really an atheist and trying to be a christian, there is nothing so bad as lying to one's self.