I consider myself a believer. I also consider myself in the search of God. However sometimes I feel empty, It's not about God leaving me, it's about vacuum, me being nothing, going nowhere.
I have friends with a strong faith, my faith is small. They say God could fill all your needs. Ok, I believe that, but I'm still empty.
It's not a problem with God, it's a problem with myself.
What do you do when you feel this emptiness?
You probably just need a hobby. Find something productive that will kill a few hours per day, or however many feels right to you. I like to grow plants personally and find it to be a rewarding experience.
You need purpose. Something to strive for will give everything meaning.
Failing that, you could get medication, but that is a superficial way out.
I am too busy to feel empty – work, home life, a wife and two kids keep me pretty much occupied most of the time.
If you don’t have the luxury (or burden) of a satisfying home life, get a hobby or volunteer at a local hospital (that will surely make you feel better on how healthy you are and just what’s important in life).
Find something to do, spend time with the people who love you and want you around, stop relying on some big guy in the sky to make you feel good.
If you're a non believer, you'll have this feeling more often then if you're a believer ( in my opinion)
Because non believers ( like myself ) believe that this is the only life we get... and that we need to struggle for like another 40-80 years and then die... While believers can comfort themselves with the idea of the better life they'll have in heaven (or something alike )
I don't feel empty, I feel meaningless, 1 person on the entire earth's population is nothing...
Makes you feel small and if you think about this to much it might drive you to suicide.
- kev -
| Poetsunited wrote: |
If you're a non believer, you'll have this feeling more often then if you're a believer ( in my opinion)
Because non believers ( like myself ) believe that this is the only life we get... and that we need to struggle for like another 40-80 years and then die... While believers can comfort themselves with the idea of the better life they'll have in heaven (or something alike )
I don't feel empty, I feel meaningless, 1 person on the entire earth's population is nothing...
Makes you feel small and if you think about this to much it might drive you to suicide.
- kev - |
Respectfully completely disagree. | Poetsunited wrote: |
| If you're a non believer, you'll have this feeling more often then if you're a believer ( in my opinion) |
A non-believer in what? In gods? If so, your opinion is unfounded, and wrong.
Many famous believers have expressed exactly that kind of emptiness. The most recent example that springs to mind is Mother Teresa.
| Poetsunited wrote: |
| Because non believers ( like myself ) believe that this is the only life we get... and that we need to struggle for like another 40-80 years and then die... While believers can comfort themselves with the idea of the better life they'll have in heaven (or something alike ) |
Non-believers like yourself do not necessarily represent all or even most non-believers. There are many people who don't believe in gods, but believe in life after death.
| Poetsunited wrote: |
I don't feel empty, I feel meaningless, 1 person on the entire earth's population is nothing...
Makes you feel small and if you think about this to much it might drive you to suicide. |
i can't imagine why you would feel meaningless just because you're one of many. Do you believe that every time a new person is added to a family, the value of the other members decreases?Identify the weak points in yourself and seek wisdom to strengthen these points so you are no longer vulnerable to harm according to your potential.
| Quote: |
If you're a non believer, you'll have this feeling more often then if you're a believer ( in my opinion)
Because non believers ( like myself ) believe that this is the only life we get... and that we need to struggle for like another 40-80 years and then die... While believers can comfort themselves with the idea of the better life they'll have in heaven (or something alike ) |
Not even remotely true.
"Mother Teresa, a globally beloved symbol of saintly devotion to the poor, spent her last 50 years secretly struggling with doubts about her faith, her newly published letters show.
"If there be God - please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul," she wrote.
"How painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith."
The letters paint an astonishing alternate portrait of the nun revered for her selflessness and serenity. In reality, she was tortured for decades by her inability to feel even the smallest glimmer of the Lord's presence."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/08/24/2007-08-24_mother_teresa_god_abandoned_me.html'Mother Theresa' is not globally loved, though I would agree that she is nearly so.
She was a deeply flawed individual and I, personally, have little time for her beatification and for those who describe her as a saint. I recommend Christopher Hitchens' book on her - The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.
Although I have problems with Hitchens on many matters, I think he cut right through the bullshit on this issue.
Having got that off my chest - yes, I agree with the main thesis. I don't think religion 'fills the void'. That 'empty' feeling is common to most people at some point of their lives - religious or not. Some people seek to fill it with religion, others with drugs/drink. You have to find your own meaning in this life, and part of that is accepting that there is no 'answer'. Anyone who offers easy answers or personal fulfilment in instalments should be treated with suspicion.
| Bikerman wrote: |
| Having got that off my chest - yes, I agree with the main thesis. I don't think religion 'fills the void'. That 'empty' feeling is common to most people at some point of their lives - religious or not. Some people seek to fill it with religion, others with drugs/drink. You have to find your own meaning in this life, and part of that is accepting that there is no 'answer'. Anyone who offers easy answers or personal fulfilment in instalments should be treated with suspicion. |
This is well put Chris. In addition I also think the emptiness can be induced physically, either through chemical imbalances, lack of a proper nourishing diet, sensitivity to certain foods. Lack of sleep or any other kind of physical discomfort or pain. On the more emotional level, lack of love. Lack of love not being necessarily of the romantic kind, but ability to love and find fulfillment in oneself. The latter of course can come natural to many people, others have to struggle more than a lifetime, and some are lucky to have attained that state now and then. | Poetsunited wrote: |
If you're a non believer, you'll have this feeling more often then if you're a believer ( in my opinion)
Because non believers ( like myself ) believe that this is the only life we get... and that we need to struggle for like another 40-80 years and then die... While believers can comfort themselves with the idea of the better life they'll have in heaven (or something alike )
I don't feel empty, I feel meaningless, 1 person on the entire earth's population is nothing...
Makes you feel small and if you think about this to much it might drive you to suicide.
- kev - |
I thought we were past this whole Jungian "lack of religion is a bad thing" thing. | Poetsunited wrote: |
If you're a non believer, you'll have this feeling more often then if you're a believer ( in my opinion)
Because non believers ( like myself ) believe that this is the only life we get... and that we need to struggle for like another 40-80 years and then die... While believers can comfort themselves with the idea of the better life they'll have in heaven (or something alike )
I don't feel empty, I feel meaningless, 1 person on the entire earth's population is nothing...
Makes you feel small and if you think about this to much it might drive you to suicide.
- kev - |
this is one the most rediculopus things I have seen typed in here. I am a non believer and have never felt empty, Just because "non believers" dont worship big anonymous entity in the heavens doesnt mean we lack something in our being that creates a sorowfull existance.
outrageous.
*sorry about typing and lack of spelling i am in my lunch break and dont have much time*are you saying that you feel empty and bad at the same time? or only clearly blank ..... maybe you can't do what you liked to when you weren't empty
its all about yin and the yang!
To feel whole you need to sometimes feel empty, completely emty!
cos in a relative world one thing must come with the oposite.
IE you are in a normal state if you sometimes are empty.
Or if someone always is empty another always are full!!!
| spinout wrote: |
its all about yin and the yang!
To feel whole you need to sometimes feel empty, completely emty!
cos in a relative world one thing must come with the oposite.
IE you are in a normal state if you sometimes are empty.
Or if someone always is empty another always are full!!! |
Hmmmmm .... that sounds like serious ups and downs, rather than being in balance! Agreed. I do believe in Yin and Yang, but that there has to be a balance between the two opposites, rather the one completely without the other, or the other way round. Think our physical body has to have the same balance of toxins and good stuff, i.e. in homeostasis, otherwise we will suffer an instant death.But why run from the emptiness? - if we take it for granted that it's a part of being a human being. Why not let the feeling fill you, and see were it's going. Most likely you'll be "back in the flowing wave callled life" in a couple of hours or so, anyhow, so why not enjoy it whenever you get a different perspective?
It has nothing to do with belief or no belief, it has to do with knowing yourself and (not) controlling your life. The dizziness of having choices, as Kierkegaard would have put it.
Just take a deep breath and live. - Because after all, that's all we can do 
Since this is in the philosophy and religion forum, I never thought I was so deeply misunderstood. I don't feel my life is empty, my life is plenty of occupations, sometimes I'm so exhausted, others I'm more relaxed. I have a family who loves me. That get bussy suggestion doesn't apply to me, I have interests and things to do.
I mean about feeling empty of God, looking for Him, but not beign enough to find him. He is still there, but you simply can't reach Him.
This is a feeling for believers, non-believers can't feel God emptyness, because, they don't believe in God for the first instance.
I feel that when i gaze the star in the sky its look like there is not thing we are just a small people like a ant very small on the crazy galaxy and never know where am i ?
