How it feels to be a young man today

And how religion can fix it even if God isn’t real

I feel nihilistic because I was born into a world with huge and growing inequality which leaves me with an outlook of the future that is verging on dread. The only way I found to combat this feeling is by trying to live a virtuous life and to reject materialism. Materialism induces isolation as I am in constant competition with those who should be my brothers. I want to reject materialism, but I want material goods to attract hot women because I love hot women. It all leads to greed,

What woman will want me if I have no possessions? She won’t live in a barrel with me, will she?

(picture above of 2,500 euro a month luxury apartment in Dublin)

Now without getting too sectarian on you I believe the answer to fight greed is religion. Now I’m not on about slapping a bomb to my chest and shouting ‘glory to god’ and blowing up an apple store to fight capitalism. I’m talking about religion in the way of loving your fellow man and life. I’m pulling this out of my hole, but they say religion started whenever our brains first started to evolve past the basic ape stage and when we started to interact with each other more often. Social cohesion became necessary. When you boil most religions down, they preach much the same thing. To live a virtuous life and avoid sins like adultery, murder, theft and greed. Funny how these laws are essential for strangers to live together. Societies wouldn’t get too far if everybody was raping and murdering each other. Religion wherever it came from gives us some good rules to live by. Rules we seem to have forgotten today. As Nietzsche said, ‘God is dead, and we have killed him’.

By religion I’m not talking about a divine being in the sky doling out punishment to private equity managers who take money from the workers and give to themselves. Side-note that’s basically what uber eats is. The drivers make less than what delivery drivers used to , and they have no rights at all. When your break room is the town square something is fucked up. The consumer and the company providing the service save money, but the worker who actually has to deliver the food is fucked. Some poor bastard who used to live in the middle east who had his house blown to bits by America (fuck yea!) and now he has to deliver cheeseburgers for 8 euro an hour. No there truly is no God.

What I am mean when I say religion is treating each other as ourselves and the whole human population as one person. If I screw over one person and I gain money I have lost spiritually. It doesn’t matter what God you choose. We could be living on heaven on earth if we truly loved each other but instead we are in hell. I believe we can change. We are letting our basic human nature control us. We stockpile resources and our pockets become fat, but we become increasingly lonely as we build walls to protect our piles of gold. We are envious of those with more and have hate for them instead of love. Corporations are the priests of this greed. They summon profit at the altar of the markets. Champions of the dark arts.

Religion used properly is a type of social regulation. If we were all truly virtuous there would be less need for regulation. It could act as a primary law. Before people make decisions they should think first, ‘Is this virtuous? Am I looking out for myself or the whole? ‘. Aurelius talks of how our job is to be social creatures. He said something along the lines of bees make honey, horses run, women complain(joking), and vine bears grapes and that humanity role is social. To help each other.

Our society needs to put more effort into teaching virtue. This isn’t even religious. I’m saying that because a lot of parents these days don’t want their kids learning religion in school. Religion gets a bad name and rightly so as too many priests have slipped the hand .Also a note to the extremists : just take it easy boys if you believe there’s a big man in the sky who wants you to sit in a bus with a bomb packed with nails set to blow and lodge shrapnel up some infidel’s ass so that he bleeds when he poos, you’ve probably taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Why do I know the difference between stalagmites and stalactites (g for ground, c for ceiling) but I didn’t hear of Marcus Aurelius’s meditations until I was 23? The French teach philosophy in secondary school, but they must be taught Kafka cause they’re all pricks (c’est une blague). Charity, exercise, love, communication needs to be taught. With these society can thrive, and all will have enough, and I won’t have to buy Nike Tns to impress women.

Please like this post if you found it interesting it means a lot to me. Also fun religion fact below.

Fun fact on why God isn’t real. Religion acts as a primary law of how to live together in harmony but I don’t think it comes from a divine being. I watched an old fat nerd break it down on YouTube. He argues that Religion as in the belief in a divine being is a secretion of the brain. During a religious service in a place of worship whether it be a cathedral or a poor church, serotonin is released in our brain and consumed by our brain. Serotonin is a feel-good chemical related to status. In a study chimps were given status, I’m not sure how, they probably put him in a Gucci tracksuit, or a Conor Mc Gregor suit and Serotonin increased. However, once the researchers snatched his chain i.e. took the clothes back thus diminishing his status serotonin crashed and stress hormones like cortisol increased.

(Definitely stuck the monkey in this, he’s balling)

Whenever you enter a church, everyone is equal except for the priest of course. The priest is in a constant state of edging with a vibrating dodo plugging his hole. Everybody else though is equal. We all sit together, kneel together, stand together, sing together etc. This must be why the serotonin is produced. A loser can go and for an hour be equal to everyone in there. Also, another fun fact, attending a spiritual ceremony once a week adds 7 years to your life. So put on your squeakiest shoes and best God-fearing smile and get on your knees and service the Lord.