Atheist struggling with thoughts of emptiness at the end of everything, want to believe in something but has never felt any presence of god
Brand new account because this is something heavy weighing on me I don't really want to put elsewhere.
I was raised with no religion- agnostic father, non-practicing jewish mother. As I grew up, I grew curious about religion, and learned as much as I could about different faiths, and I found all of them equally invalid. To be clear, I think many religions have wonderful teachings, I have incorporated Buddhist aspects into my thinking, and I believe strongly in many of the things Jesus preached. I also find many things in the jewish bible, the torah, to be incredibly fascinating, especially how it was constructed.
That said, none of it is divine to me. I do not believe in god of any kind. I am no longer agnostic, I am an atheist. I have read the christian bible, I have read the tenakh. Haven't read the Koran yet, but I find it difficult to believe it will be different. I would love to believe in an afterlife, but I find the possibility of that way too convenient. The universe is so immense, so massive, and our brains are so malleable. I could be shot through half of my brain and half of it would continue to work, but I would be a different person. For that reason also, I do not believe in souls.
I hate the idea of vanishing forever. I hate the idea that I am made up of electric impulses. But it is true, it is observable. No god has made itself known to me, though I have tried. I've tried praying, I've felt emptiness. Nothing has helped. I often feel like people who are born into religion have it good, because they are trained from birth to practice praying and believing, but I just cannot. I can't switch off the skeptical part of my brain knowing what I know about religion, it is man-made. The universe isn't. And I will die, and we will all die. And it will be empty, and the universe will be empty. I don't know what to do.
So I guess my hope is that there is someone in some religion who has answers or comfort- Christians who have come out of this. Are any of you raised atheist who have converted even after knowing so much about science and the brain that you can't turn it off anymore? It may be selfish, but I would be so comforted knowing there's something larger and/or an afterlife waiting, and I don't want to feel this way anymore.