You were brought to life to live for a short amount of time and then you will leave your body and your belongings to decompose to the earth. It's up to you to decide of your ultimate goal in this brief moment in this world. "The weakest home is the home of the spider" and you are the spider.

You will naturally love life, and grow attached to the beauty of things around you. You will naturally think about yourself first before others, seek your own advantage over others, try to be better than others. You will naturally want to stack up money and own as much as you can. You will naturally want to belong in a pack and have a shepherd lead you to the barn. etc. etc. But in summary "The life of this world is but a deceiving enjoyment"

So you, not really you, but rather your body is engineered to grow attached to this life, and seek this and that. Your mind/spirit isn't. And that's what you need to seek. Find that part of you that is your Mind, separate your Mindful judgement from your Body's wishes, and then exercise Mindful action. You will need self knowledge, so question everything that goes through your head, where does it come from ? what does it lead to ? Be as much awake to what's going on inside you as someone traveling in the night on a dangerous road.

People will tell you that isolation is dangerous, and it is indeed, because most people do things for the sake of not being judged, and in lack of any external judgement one can take a dark path pretty easily. But in your isolation you will see your true self free of any acting. So in your isolation you should learn about yourself. God will make manifest to you your hypocrisy. You can imagine that an invisible being is looking at you when no one else is, OR, don't be a hypocrite and instead be honest and truthful in action and thinking, publicly and privately. Hence why the exercise of virtue is what brings you closer to God more than anything else.

I would advice you to seek philosophy, it will awaken your mind when religion puts it to sleep and will make you ask relevant questions about YOURSELF more than anything else. I suggest Stoic philosophy for a starter, with Marcus Aurelius.

The short advice is Always stick with your own conscience.
You have DIRECT relationship with The Ultimate (with whatever name you call Him/It).
No holy book / religion / holy man is necessary as a mediator.. even if you say you don't believe in His existence, it really doesn't matter.
Because He speaks through your conscience.

Just ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find...
Those who didn't ask will not receive and those who didn't seek will never find.

First of all let me re-enter to this wonderful forum after having pleasant time...
What you are going through is very good for your future if you are smart enough.. Dude you are very very young and in sha Allah you have long life and lot to go through and suffer and learn and experience....
My personal best advice for you is not theory but practical life... You are feeling that you are going away from Islam or islam or from Quran... It's fine go away from it at least for a 6 months or one year and do things which you prefer to do, away from restrictions that you felt you were living... And let us know in sha Allah after one year or so whether you are much satisfied with your new life. .. But you need to have only one restriction that is... You should have essence.. You got to believe that there is someone who created you and someone who will take your life... But you don't need to respect Him and dont do what He ordered you to do.... But you you live with your choice...
Small advice and reminder . Whether you are happy or not you are restricted in this world if you live in a country which has law and order.... Even that law and order satisfies you or not... That restriction You can't escape even how much you try... But God's restriction is with free will and freedom...
Even if you happen not believe there is no God you will be under restriction.. If you breach you will be chased by various people for life... So restrictions are something that cannot get rid of...
Even if you live a life without God, still you need to believe lots of things in this world to live a life... And you won't find most of those truth but deception...
It's your life... Do what you want... Coz As far as what you have writen above I understand you have more than basic knowledge of Quran...
After all why to live in a manner which doesn't give you pleasure and confidence save irritation ... Find what you have lost in your past in other ways away from past life....
Enjoy life dude.. I am sure God is with you... It's your test....
Peace...

i was thinking when we take this term ? EVERY thing/s from GOD?.

at the same time we hear two answers either YES or NO
logically both of them got reasons for their claims.

the people who SAID no its a big claim so thats y they said.
rape/murde/stealing/etc are not from GOD. if its from God then its not fair before we go more further lets see people who are saying YES.

if we scientifically see our bodies and system of our body parts its like a universe is going on there and every particle that make a command of getting something done from body. there is a force whatever name we give to that force that put ideas in our mind.
and logically only creator can make that kind if force so yeh everything is from GOD.

although we cannot go beyond our limits
example if someday scientists find multi universes where dark energy reacts differently than out universe ? and may b find life that support only that universe laws. thats y we human think according to the laws what we see in our universe so we thi k everything must created by someone including God.

sometimes i amazed how the system of cosmos is going on and how accidently earth make its place where that can support life HOW?

although both science and religion is unable to percieve that being science gave it name force of nature religious people give that being name God.

but there is someone who caused it.both are finding and approaching him and he didt stop sending the signs. some new signs are just discovered by a comapny name NEW HORIZON.

theories varies from mind to mind.
intresting thing to note whatever comes in our mind ( whats the source of that information).
its all on source the same source what make information differently in different minds.

about 2 billion christians
1.5 billion muslims
buddists,hindus all of those different minds.

why they exist differently ? becoz author of quran was aware about it and he never denied it and also explained the bit of his plan GOD wanted to do in such a way. otherwise he can easily make u one nation.

in some cases this theory appeared as weak when we ask the reason behind rape? that idea generated by special kind of brains who considered as abnormal/damage and hence act according to the commands considered illegal. but the cause of theor abnormality in genetics of mind is not his fault ? who make that abnormality happen.

so if we think about source lot of things come in mind. and we ended in comfusion in lot of mathers either related with science or religion.

if somebody desire something like bisexual he cant change it . it dosent matter society permits or not ? same goes for everything what considered sin/crime as per religion/law.

AL -LAW can u pronounce it as Allah yes u can.everybody will gona find and see things by the system in which they born and breed.

need of somebody even in shape of God we want to visualise it even after knowing we can only see three dimenshns shapes with human eyes.

we have mysteries ahead

TL;DR I taught myself much of Islam, but I never could shake my major doubt, which is the lack of objective proof of an afterlife. I believe in God, but I am unsure if Islam is the truth. I am having trouble practicing Islam in the absence of full faith and conviction.

Peace plshelp and welcome to the forum welcome

I understand your doubts/your journey. We all have submitted to the creator
. The question is how do you want your life to play out, if you want a
good life don't sin, adopt personality traits that benefit both you and society.
The Quran can assist you in your journey of a good life. External things
that you have mentioned (1-6) you may solve in your journey.

Welcome to the forum.

Can you clarify if you having doubts about Islam (capital "I", title of a religion) or islam (small "i", as described in Quran)?

Here is a decent start http//misconceptions-about-islam.com

I guess capital I, but I still need strong evidence to submit (lowercase i).

There is no poof either that there is not an after life.

In fact the answer to that rests on ourselves, on each one of us.

No that we cannot have any feed from outside, as much as we want or are able to get or to digest, but ultimately it is us, each one, who validates and perceives what is there to validate or perceive.

On the other hand, if we expect that somebody owes us any proof of anything, we are barking at the wrong tree. Nobody owes us such a thing and we cannot give such a thing to anybody.

The whole open world is before us and our own depth is within us. It is up to us to resolve our problem, if it is a problem.

It is up to us to be honest and sincere with oneself and not cheat or delude oneself. We get no benefit from cheating on ourselves.

So if we have questions we should ask ourselves in all honesty and give ourselves time, patience and benevolence

and pray.

We do not need to sign anything or contract anything to pray. We do not need and image either to pray, whether material or mental. Just long for the good and the pure, and pray for it.

Salaam

Allah / The Ultimate / God / Brahman / Tao (Whatever names one calls it) is real and Islam is NOT the true religion.
Infact there is no such thing as 100% true religion / ideology / doctrines.

Have you ever thought that those 'itchy' feelings upon of detecting nonsensical and absurd ideas from a religion are among Allah / God's sign?

Why aren't my duas answered?

They were always answered, but perhaps most of the time the answers were not as you expected or as you wish it to be.
Thus you are considering it as unanswered...

I didn't know if the afterlife really existed, and if not, am I living a life of restriction for nothing?

Ask and you shall receive the answer..

My family smokes weed and drinks alcohol, so all family gatherings are miserable for me. I get made fun of for refraining, I get made fun of for being uptight. I sit there on the couch with hate in my heart toward their alcohol and marijuana, with discontent in my environment. My friends, both Muslim and non-Muslim, also indulge in these things, so parties are also spent with hate in my heart and immense guilt. However, that's not the problem, the problem is that I don't know if Islam is the absolute truth.

Apologize to be blunt, but those kind of family gatherings are problems...
Follow your conscience and stick to it, as God speaks through your own conscience...

It would essentially be Allah saying "Islam is the truth, and no other religion is true."

Like I said above, God answered your questions, but it's not as you expected, and you consider it as no answer...

To complicate it, I am bisexual, which might gain me hate on here, but it's a huge influence on my life.

I will not comment on your personal matters...

1. There is no reason for slavery to not have been abolished, and not a SINGLE argument has satisfied me. Yes, it was an integral part of society, but so was alcohol and polytheism and divination. All were made away with. I recognize slavery in Islam is NOT African-American slavery. Still, I don't understand why the descendants of prisoners of war (who would be the ones enslaved) are also slaves. That's unjust to them.

You are right.. slavery must be abolished..

2. No matter how you explain it, Aisha's age is incomprehensible. Muhammad was not abusive or a bad husband, but I still can't wrap my head around the best human in history who serves as a role model for all could do that. I know there is wisdom behind it (namely that she served to transmit ahadeeth and sirah), but it doesn't outweigh my repulsion. Any claims that there is scholarly disagreement will not be considered, because the overwhelming evidence points to her being 6.

Based on myth and legends which impossible to be proven true or false...

Based on the myths and legends I also consider Muhammad to be a narcissistic psychopath, if those myths and legends are true.
Yet like I said; it's impossible to prove those myths and legends to be true or false.

3. If Islam is not exclusively for Arabs, why are the laws conveniently based on Arab laws at the time? Literally almost every shari' punishment is based on a law the Arabs used. On the one hand, you can argue that the Quran was sent to the Arabs because Allah's laws aligned with theirs the most. On the other, in all of time, and of all cultures, the best laws were the Arabs' in the 7th century?

The religion of Islam was created to serve the purpose/goal of a 7th century empire.
The law that such empire invented was initially based on Judaism law before introducing other key elements from neighboring area (Egypt, Arabian, Persian, Babylonian, Syrian etc..)

4. The arguments for God and such in the Quran is also clearly based on the Arabs' beliefs at the time. It boils down to you believe in a supreme god named Allah, and you have set up minor gods with Him. Get rid of the minor gods, because Allah is the only god. This is not the model of every religion at all.

It was clearly based from Judaism.... and not from native arabian bedouine belief... and their many gods and idols...

5. There is a lack of awareness of the Americas... the fact that scholars had to invent ways for people living in Alaska to fast and pray shows an absence of awareness. If the Quran was meant for all of mankind, then it should've provided ways for them.

Or any other areas for that matter (such as the north or south pole) or relevant ideas related to how to govern riverbanks, jungle and forest as middle east are lacking of those. The Quran was written NOT for all mankind...

6. If the Quran is so clearly from God and any sane person would recognize it as the truth, then how is there a test of faith? What is the test? If it's so clearly true, then there is no test. If a professor gave me a test but gave me all the answers, it isn't a test.

Babylonian law, book of the dead, torah, gospels, quran, harry potter, moby dick, 7 habits of highly effective people and millions of other titles, all of those books were authored and written by human.

Again, these doubts are incredibly minor in comparison to my main one

It's not minor, it's major, especially those regarding the slavery... or any other ideas were it was used to justify the oppression of a group of human by another group of human.

Welcome to the forum.

Can you clarify if you having doubts about Islam (capital "I", title of a religion) or islam (small "i", as described in Quran)?

Here is a decent start http//misconceptions-about-islam.com