The upside of atheism (page 13)

Twitch

"Life is a swirling, sucking eddy of despair filled with brief glimpses of false hope in an ever darkening universe" - Bill Maher

Always makes me laugh for some reason

paul from cleveland

"Life is a swirling, sucking eddy of despair filled with brief glimpses of false hope in an ever darkening universe" - Bill Maher

Always makes me laugh for some reason

Wow, that doesn't seem funny to me.

Even though I believe in God, I always know I could be wrong. Most of us believed what we learned as Witnesses was the truth only to learn later that we were wrong. Seeing how we were deceived for so many years, how can we have 100% confidence now?

The scripture about God putting 'eternity in the hearts of men' really seems true in my case. I just can't get used to the idea of death. Maybe I'm selfish. I've noticed on other links that some people say that if you want to live forever you're selfish. Some people say I'm depressed because I think about it too much. Maybe I just feel this way because I was taught this from birth and never had the opportunity to get "used" to it from childhood. It's come as a shock to me to learn that death is inevitable as an adult. But if it's true that it's natural to have eternity in our hearts, then it would be natural to fear it. There is nothing wrong with me. Every day I wake up, I'm grateful for another day. I realize that any day can be my last and I live that way. I focus on letting the people in my life know that I love them because I could be gone tomorrow. I feel that I've gone to the doctor and he told me I only have "X" amount of years to live. Wouldn't anyone feel bad about that? I really want to be able to accept it like atheists do just in case I'm wrong about God. Forgive me for always going on about this.

Twitch

I sometimes forget what it was like back when I believed in god, eternity and salvation. Forgive me if I seem flippant about things; I don't take these things that seriously anymore.

I find this funny coz of the wry grin on Bill's face when he said it. I appreciate fine sarcasm and I'm a bit of a nihilist. Plus, I look good in black,...lol.

You will feel better when you come to terms with your mortality. It is inevitable. You'll find you appreciate life more and you won't fear as much. Strange but true. Of course, it's your choice to believe that you'll live on forever in some form. But absolute truth is a moot subject especially when it comes to faith and belief. Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

I could die today and I'd be ok with that. I wouldn't want to of course, but it's beyond my control. So it's been accepted.

AwSnap

littlebird

Some people say I'm depressed because I think about it too much *****I think its a withdrawal process, you were taught to think aboutlife & death all the time. Be patient with yourself. Also, check your pm again, hon.

nicolaou

Paul, I owe you an apology man. I had you down as someone just trying to stir things up for the sake of it. I was wrong, you actually remind me a lot of my younger self.

Thanks for giving my cynicism a much needed slap!

Nic'

paul from cleveland

I'm a bit of a nihilist.

Nihilistic thoughts are what really get me down the most. I shouldn't have read so much Nietzsche. Once those ideas are in your head, you can never get them back out. Now that philosophy is one of several competing ideas I have about ultimate reality. For me, the only escape from them is music, dancing, drinking and drugs (preferably all at the same time). The other ideas I have include God.

Paul, I owe you an apology man. I had you down as someone just trying to stir things up for the sake of it.

Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I never want to stir things up. I didn't want to start a discussion about what's "true". I just wanted to see how people can be comfortable with the idea of atheism, just in case it's true.

AK - Jeff

I am still writing the label that can fully describe my viewpoint. Latest level is Christianized Agnostic for me.

I like some of the standards/ideas/teachings of Christianity. But I don't believe any of them to have originated from God via the Bible. I don't pray. I am unable to prove God's existence or non-existence. In otherwords, like all the rest of mankind, I cannot verify anything that I would call faith. No one can.

A philosopher named Hicks called this problem 'non-verifiable eschatology'. He asserted that a believer in God and an atheist walk the same pathway till death, both claiming to be right about the afterlife. Death is the very first moment in which either view can be fully proven, but even then it is only proven to the one who is dead. And if he has no afterlife, well no one knows. If he does, no one on this plane knows either.

If we spend our energy trying to determine the un-determinable of what gain is that? If we argue in favor of a position that is unprovable - whether for theism or atheism - haven't we wasted life, be it the life the God granted or the life we gained by chance? That is why I call myself agnostic. I don't know - and frankly the only thing I do know is that I will never know.

This journey changes when we finally take charge of our own thoughts and don't let a religious institution do our thinking for us. It is the journey that matters. We don't recall the beginning of life, and we don't know if anything exists after it ends. The fruit is in the middle.

Jeff

Caedes

Perhaps it is worth thinking about what things were like for you before you were born, as an atheist being dead is going back to the situation before you were born. You didn't feel a thing, so the only thing I fear about death is not achieving everything I want to do before I get there. Knowing that this brief shining moment is all we get concentrates the mind wonderfully, as an atheist I 'have' to make the most of life. Holding back and worrying about death is utterly pointless as far as I am concerned.

I think you may have missed the point I was trying to get across with my point about santa, I am as indifferent to god as you are to santa. The 'Santa Claus' argument in no way proves anything one way or another, it illustrates the point that it is possible to say 'I know there is no god' without being intellectually dishonest or somehow managing the feat of proving a negative. Your counter-example of love is particularly weak since love is a verb, the evidence for the existence of love is easy to find. The fact that love may be a chemical reaction is no more relevent than the fact that thought is just electrical signals or that colour is merely the reflection of certain wavelengths of light. Understanding the mechanics of human beings, human society and human relationships doesn't lessen the value of human life or undermine human emotion. By making the assumption that there is something inherently worthless about life if you are an atheist you are saying a lot more about your view of life than that of any atheist I have ever met.

The upside of atheism

Share this