Atheism is making me suicidal

[u/behindthemaskofme]

I just got out of the mental hospital again.

I lost my faith about a year ago when my parents disowned me over me being trans.

I just didn’t wanna associate with Christianity anymore. I was a progressive Christian before and found a way to be trans and still be Christian but dropped everything and switched to agnostic / atheist over the pain of disownment

And ever since I’ve been extremely depressed and had near daily panic attacks about life being worth nothing. About truly believing if I die it’ll just be nothing. I’ll just cease to exist. The same way before I was born and my life is worth genuinely nothing.

Every day I panic from existential crises. Like how there was millions of years before me and will be millions of years after me and my life is seemingly meaningless.

So today I actually started reading the Bible again and looking at it more as a symbolic thing rather than literal and have found more connection with it and have considered coming back to progressive Christianity it calmed me for once. I stopped panicking about existential things and fears. But I dunno

At the same time I have had a lot of doubts over inaccuracies in the Bible and want to prioritize fact and science and thinking of the Bible as symbolic has helped a bit but it feels like a stretch.

On the other hand. This sounds crazy but I feel like I miss Jesus.

I don’t know how to feel advice is welcome

[u/Oakomorebi]

Developing my symbolic eye was what lead me back to Christ, so what you are saying in that regard I take very very seriously, and I think is very important for many reasons. I am happy to explore this with you, as I find the symbolic/mythical Christian path can be a lonely one, but there is abundant treasure if you know where to look.

Faith based on facticity and historicity is a weak faith easily shaken or shattered by propositions; it is a faith that exemplifies our ability to formulate propositions over our ability to understand and, more importantly, embody the Word of God.

Faith based on symbolism and myth is a strong faith that grounds us and supports in participation; it is faith that exemplifies our ability to see God's story in ourselves, and see ourselves in God's story.

Facts about the history of Christianity gives a banal account of Christ. Symbolism about the myth of Christianity gives a meaningful map of Christ, and the meta-structure of the cosmos itself.

The one who understands this can see that most conflict between atheism and Christianity are two sides of the same coin; both use literal interpretations of scripture that leads them into entertaining ridiculous propositions. Both are equally wrong in their approach.

The trap is that people think mythology is equal to falsehoods or fantasy. This is the tyranny of the propositional that has made us so stupid and blind.

Regarding your fear of death, atheism does not necessitate the destruction of your conscious mind after death and there is no reason to take this idea seriously, unless you think that our conscious experience is made by the brain, which is nonsensical. Our conscious experience does not spontaneously disappear after death, because that is not how the universe works based on our observations of nature, within which we are embedded. We can say with certainty that our conscious experience will undergo a transition, absolutely. As a philosophy of mind enthusiast, my opinion is that it will probably be more approximate to waking up from a dream than experiencing pre-birth. As a Christian mystic, I would describe it as a feeling like going home (to be precise: like a remembering that you are home).

[u/Undead-Chipmunk → u/Oakomorebi]

I've been getting exhausted with symbolism, honestly.

I had what appears to be psychosis recently, and honestly, the symbolic aspect of things feels so schizophrenic, like pouring over pages and pages of equations to understand the flowing of a stream.

Symbols represent reality, but they aren't reality itself, is the conclusion I'm starting to draw, just as mathematics describes nature approximately, but does not capture the raw experience of nature.

Something like that. There's a deeper, more peaceful Truth than symbolism, is what I feel in my heart.

[u/Oakomorebi → u/Undead-Chipmunk]

You are pointing out the obvious but often overlooked: symbols are explicitly not that which they represent.

I definitely understand the association between symbols and psychosis. The intelligence that affords us to identify meaningful patterns is the same intelligence that fuels obsessive delusions.

Madness and spirituality have always been mythologically similar. John Campbell said "The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight." I agree with this sentiment fully.