Organized religion helps strengthen faith and create a sense of belonging, but I think faith should first stem from a personal experince. For me, the religious belief shapes my worldview and is about two things: 1. A feeling of complete reliance on God, as my creator, to help and guide me throughout life, which feels.. liberating. 2. It gives a purpose to life, so I believe in the after-life and that we were not created and do not die in vain.
I consider myself a rational person, and I do not think that faith is irrational. Besides historical and natural evidence, If you dig into the notion of rationality itself, you'll find that our actions and beliefs are based on a set of axioms/assumptions anyway, and that those assumptions themselves are not subject to rationality. As Ludwig Wittgenstein said: "At the foundation of well-founded belief lies a belief that is not founded".
Good luck on your journey!
While it is still hard sometimes to just accept that we are here and we will die and thats it, religion has surprisingly nothing to say in this regard which would help me.
From a pure study perspective, cultural enlightnment or whatever you wanna call it, of course. When i went on holiday before covid struc, i did read up on local culture and their believes.
There are believes i personally like as they sound funny/nice while i still will not do them. Like believing in a toilet god :)
I personally think it will make dying easier with my current nihlist mindset than a religious one.
The main problem with this question is its representation of faith as a binary system: either an atheist or an agnostic or a christian or a muslim or a... The truth is religion has been (and will be for years to come) a massive part of the story of mankind. There is no penalty to exploring faith and a lot to gain from it: you'll either find yourself on a spiritual journey that will take you somewhere and influence you deeply (the religious, believing way of seeing this) or you will have learnt about how humans have interpreted the world around them and told each other stories about it in the form of scripture and from there religion (the sceptical way of seeing this). You'll either find the Truth or you'll realise you don't believe its there - but you'll have learnt a lot about other people's exploration of what the Truth is and what it means for them.
Should you explore Faith? Definitely. Should that mean you'll be on an unstoppable course towards becoming a devout Christian/Muslim/Insert your faith here? No. It means you're learning about human experience and listening to other's beliefs. Take it from there and decide what that means to you.
I am the same age and I recommend that you come to your own conclusions, based off of falsifiable evidence and your own beliefs.
Perhaps instead of the blue pill, directly address your own fears. Everything dies, it is a natural process. None of us, nor will the Earth and Sun itself, escape fate. Learn to appreciate and maximize the time you have.
Or take the blue pill and die all the same, you won't exist consciously in any way, shape or form anyways, so no harm there. So perhaps its a useful, comforting delusion if you find that you can't accept the reality presented by the evidence.
So if you ask me should you explore the Faith, I answer with a counter question: do you want to know what - or who - the Truth is before you die? In your dead bed you won't regret exploring it but you may regret not doing so.
Enjoy your search!
I am very fascinated with many aspects of religions: from the beauty of idea of devotion to a divine omnipresent entity, serving God as a meaning of life to the evolution of Christian doctrine, religious thoughts, and influence of religion on art and architecture.
But I do not believe in God. I cannot take the concept of afterlife, for example, in Christianity seriously: either praising the Lord for eternity on Heavens or suffer in searing flames in Hell. In addition, such important decision is made based on how dedicated you were in following one of the many ancient moral codes, that is far from being universal and timeless. And then the very grand and picturesque Judgement Day, that belongs more to the realm of fantasy literature... I may imaging myself ending up with a belief that my soul will be dissolved in or unite with the universe in some way - like people feel under psychodelics or in deep meditation.
If you cannot find answers and comfort on the topic of mortality in religion, I would suggest to check Stoicism, Hackagure the way of the Samurai, or even Objectivism. I want to explore the latter after listening to Lex Fridman's podcast: youtube.com/watch?v=SOr1YYRljV8
As an atheist, I can tell you that donating to SENS will be much more productive than any time or money invested in honoring false gods or other irrational beliefs.
[0]: https://www.sens.org/our-research/intro-to-sens-research/
* Explore faith under the guidance of an organized religion or movement or school of thought
* Explore faith all by yourself
There is the obvious third option of combining these two options, but you are going to do that anyway.
The first choice will right away give you an initial path for faith. You can create your own, once you have mastered theirs.
The second option involves creating a path all by yourself. When you do this, look at existing schools of thought, and use them as a foundation to create your own path.
Regarding rationality:
Faith, by its very nature, is relative. What is rational to one person is irrational to another. That is why we have well-intentioned and highly intelligent atheists, agnosts, and religious followers arguing (let us consider only the mutually respectful arguments and discussions of the past, because the rest require their own topic) for eons, without reaching a common consensus.
Your rationality can also change with time. What is rational to you today may not be rational to you tomorrow.
So what should you do?
You need rationalism NOW. So, follow the rational path, based on how rationalism appears to you TODAY. Just accept that it will change, as time goes on and the neurons in your brain change/evolve. Do not be afraid of change.
One thing I might try is looking at different religions and seeing what they have in common and what's different, what you like and don't like. You can select one of them, or none of them. You could also mix and match aspects from these religions for your own faith/moral outlook. For example, many faiths share some common principles that manifest in reality such as charity, treating others with kindness, supporting one another in a community, etc. So you could find actions/attributes of a religion to be helpful, or the community aspect of a faith-based congregation. You may not need to fervently believe in a higher power/being to benefit from these. Many faiths welcome skeptics and encourage questions and discussions for learning. Of course you may encounter pushy or dismissive zealots in any of them.
One thing that I find really fulfilling to my existential needs is learning about the universe. In the past few years I learned about relativity, quantum mechanics, astrophysics and it was all without having to do complicated math or read books: I did it while watching youtube. I highly recommend it. There are a ton of really good channels, but my favorite by far is PBS Space Time. Also Startalk. And sometimes Kurzgesagt presents some nice views on exsitential topics, like nihilism.
If you are ever curious, this is my church: https://www.comeuntochrist.org
Good luck to you on your journey!