Religion fiend

Friend writes:
I got stuck on this whole religion kick a few weeks ago, and then I found that there is just so many things that don't sound right about it, and the wars started over it... I mean it just seems far from a good thing. (besides the whole going to heaven thing)

so i started reading stoic philosophy and I'm in love with it, but I'm having a hard time applying it to modern time.

I write back:
food for thought: the problem with stoicism is that it creates for "feelings" that are not real. perhaps feelings is the wrong word, but rather feelings that are merely illusions of your rationality. it seems to me that stoics were looking for truth and merely were able to hide behind stoicism, or more intrinsically rational thought, in order to bide there time.
In the modern world, content-ness is often something that people are constantly seeking and rarely find. Mind you if content-ness is what you are looking for then stoicism is definatly for you, however, if you are looking for raw feelings. true gut wrenching feelings that are both good and bad then i would imagine stoicism is not for you.
However, in throwing stoicism away, seeming that you are looking for a method of feeling and have already discounted religion as your anecdote, then, my friend, i am a girl without any answers and have thus rendered any hope that you perhaps might have had free into a world where good dogs and bad dogs are waiting to chew on your raw emotions at the minute the dinner bell rings.
but with so much madness who needs method. Love. anger. happiness. sadness. embarressment shyness. joyfulness. all the same eat it up. love it. when it comes to emotions allow for them to be fully enjoyed. neither covered up. eaten up. or thrown up. it is with emotion that we truly experience life. it is how you use your emotion that gives you life.

True wisdom is when both emotion and thought can exist, one with the other, never hiding the person, but rather manifesting the person that exists and develops both.