Do Any Atheists Feel This Way? (page 2)

AuldSoul

...one Thursday, early two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change...

Sorry, SeattleNiceGuy. Never read it. Actually, if I were to try and pinpoint the exact thing that led to my current state of disbelief in JWism I would have to give the credit to Douglas Adams. The man was brilliant when it came to looking at things differently than is customary. It is sad about the lady in the Rickmansworth café, though. Would've been nice to know what it was all about, and how it would work this time 'round.

I have digital watch, though I must admit, it is small comfort. I'd much rather have more bits of green paper but I can't seem to convince anyone to shuffle some my way.

AuldSoul

Seeker4

After believing for so long that I'd never die, due to my years in the Witnesses, it's been a struggle for me to accept my mortality as well.

That having been said, I've come to see things the way many of the other atheists have written here.

Life takes on a whole new and wonderful meaning.

S4

tetrapod.sapien

big dog,

you don't get off that easy. LOL .

but seriously, dave expressed it incredibly well. i will try myself, but ya, what he said.

when i first became an atheist, i spent several days mourning over the loss of my immortality, even if it was just in the memory of some supreme being that is simply observing us. i still do sometimes.

but i got over it. i just thought about the idea of non existence. why is there anything instead of nothing? and since there is something, why is there me? and i could glimpse that i was a complete miracle in the light of probability. but then also not a miracle at all, if this is all there is. the only thing that could be, would be me.

atoms. i have always been a part of the universe, and i always will be part of the universe, long after consciousness has flickered out, and the last dance, danced.

but why do we have to be special? why can't we just be? why do we have to accomplish things, and try to leave the world a better place than it was before? the answer again is two sided. for one is no reason at all. ultimately it is just loving our genes, and they don't love us. and the other is because for all we know, our universe may never have another chance like it. us. the chance to beat the odds and become a sustainable super species before the next big extinction. to pass on consciousness, and to contribute to evolution.

you are part of something bigger than you, but don't forget spring break in Cancun either. seriously, you know?

it is depressing sometimes, i'll admit. but who was it that promised that life could be a bowl of cherries? god did, that's why he's so popular. the atheists cannot compete with such comforting simplicity, even though atheism is simpler in principle. one ironies of many ironies. does that make it real though? this comforting simplicity? no. if anything it makes it unreal.

but you can find meaning in it. it's going to have to come from inside you though. you are all you have ultimately. in one way a god, and in another way a nothing.

it's that there are no easy answers, that makes existence meaningful. that you can know reality, and see beauty in it. but you have to work for it. that life is not comforting is what makes happiness what it is: happiness.

live like a god. know and respect the trillions of other gods around you. die like a god.

TS

Seeker4

Wow, Tetra.

live like a god; know and respect the trillions of other gods around you; die like a god.

Nicely put!

S4

kiddotan

live like a god; know and respect the trillions of other gods around you; die like a god.

I like this sentiment.

I am not an atheist, but i don't believe in a higher power. Mortality is kind of a nice thing to have, makes me like where i am, enjoy the people around me and the make the most of the life i have. I am more aware of the hurt i do to others. (My poor excaping JW partner finds my family scary). Being nice to everyone is very new to him, regardless of what religon they do or do not belong to.

He feels like he is losing his safety net. This seems to be very common to many leaving a belief so strongly built in. Seems easier to defect from life than from the JW. Is this right?

Big Dog

BigDog, so why the long face?

Honestly? Because I went to the cemetary today and stood looking at my father's grave in the cold rain. He's been gone about 14 months, died in my house of an inoperable brain tumor. I sat and held his hand for the last 36 hours of his life as his body struggled to survive. It was the saddest more horriffic thing I have ever seen, the way we cling to life so desperately, the body struggles vailiantly to survive, to repair itself, but in the end it loses, it always loses, and I saw something in his eyes I had never ever seen before, fear. He was a combat vet, and he used to love to say, no atheists in the foxhole, I wonder if I do fully accept disbelief, if when my time comes I'll stick to it.

I miss him, I used to take comfort from hoping he was in a better place and that maybe he was sort of watching over me, but now I am beginning to think that is all bunk, when he closed his eyes that last time and drew his last breath, that was it, nothing, no more. Everything he knew, every memory he had gone when the neurons stopped firing. I was thinking of my children, they are going to watch me go someday and the whole cycle of it, I watch them come into being and they watch me exit just brought me down.

So that's where all of this is coming from, if there isn't anything else, if he is nothing but dust I'm saddened by that. Its fairly easy for me at a healthy 41 to pump myself up and think yes, life is good, I've got lots of years hopefully, and I try to enjoy every mintue, but I only have so many minutes, and, well, they just aren't enough.

Darth Yhwh

Big Dog, I’m sorry. Don’t take my remarks in the wrong manner. I had no idea that you were dealing with this loss.

My father too is plagued with a deteriorating physical vessel. He as an advanced abdominal aortic aneurism. He also has severe heart damage and artery blockage from years of smoking and self neglect. As a result surgical options are limited. Combine that with the fact that my mom is a blood phobic JW and you can begin to understand my situation. I’ve been dealing with the fact that I don’t have much time with him for a little while now and I’m trying to enjoy every single moment. We’ve been spending much more time with one another and communicating more than we ever have in the past. My biggest fear is that he’ll go when I’m not around, that I’ll get a phone call from my mother telling me that he’s gone and I will have missed my last opportunity to say goodbye.

All of your feelings and emotions are all to familiar and I appreciate you sharing your experience. Thank you.

Big Dog

Darth,

Don't worry, I took it as you were very astute and picked up on the fact that there was something going on besides just wrestling with the concept of no god.

I'm very sorry to hear about your situation, of all the things we have to deal with in this life, nothing even approaches the death of a loved one.

DanTheMan

I was reading something about the bird flu the other day, and how an outbreak in the U.S. could cause thousands, even millions of deaths, even among healthy adults like me. So I have to consider the possibility that I might be pushing up daisies really soon here. Not that I'm panicking, but it could happen.

Since I've left the JW's, my usual response to such news is to fall into despair and anger at what seems like cold cruelty on the part of viruses, natural disasters, automobile accidents, or any of the myriad faces that death takes. I have no illusions to comfort me when confronted with the fact that I will die, maybe sooner, maybe later, maybe slowly and painfully, maybe quickly and without much suffering.

However, I'm trying to formulate a new attitude, where I no longer view death as a stalking predator out to rob me of the eternal happiness that I once felt so entitled to, but as something to be embraced, a liberation of sorts. Not a liberation of the soul from the body, but a liberation from the struggle to survive, the struggle to make sense of this existence, the struggle to prolong the inevitable. It's a radical shift in thinking for me, but one that I think is taking me towards a more serene outlook. Not that I'm looking forward to dying or anything, but the prospect of it is becoming less monstrous in my mind.

However this new attitude pretty much blows up in my face when I think of children dying, I really hate that. Death is an evil monster in those cases.

Do Any Atheists Feel This Way?

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