Confessions of an anxious Athiest.

Religion is a backwash from a time where we knew very little about the frightening world in which we live. We've outlived it's purpose, and the sooner we rid ourselves of the necrotic claws digging into our flesh, the better.

I find it liberating to know that, as Cosmology teaches, I am as much as a part of the Universe as it is of me. I'm not living in the Universe as such, but a part of it. What happens after I die? I really don't know. I don't really require much consoling on the issue as it's a rather pointless subject. When I die, the likelihood is that I'll be gone. Incapable of experiencing anything. Why worry about such a thing? Better to enjoy this life, as it won't come again - belief in afterlife or not, this life only happens once. So my intention is to live the best I can, helping the next generation to carry on and enriching my life with experience - I focus on that, the journey, which truly is most important.

I think to understand that, brings a much more sense of fragility to life. And how important it is to treasure it. Religion doesn't even come close to the way that understanding the University brings you closer to the cosmos.
 
I do prescribe to an organised religion however my personal mantra is to live a good life.

If, when this mortal life come to an end, there is an afterlife then you will benefit from having done good. If on the other hand 'the end' really is The End then I'm not going to know (because my concious will have ceased to exist) so it really doesn't matter however if I've done good then others will have benefited by my existence which is no bad thing.

Death is really not something I worry about, I'm sure maybe on day in 40 years time I may start to fear it more as my natural mortal life draws ever closer to it's end but the reality is that I could die tomorrow so if I was going to worry about it I'd be a paranoid wreck and never accomplish anything, however fleeting, at all.
 
vincent1989 said:
I do prescribe to an organised religion however my personal mantra is to live a good life.
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I don't follow any religion, however, my personal mantra is, "don't be a ****" (rhymes with hunt). If only everyone decided to pick up on this amazingly original idea instead of doing as they are told to by some mental preacher, the world would be a better place in all honesty.
 
fus said:
No, you're right, it is an arrogant position and I freely admit that. I guess it's a case of you don't miss what you never had re: the 1900's. :D

It might be, as Bill Hicks says, 'just a ride'.
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It's not arrogant to wonder whether your corporeal life is all there is, it is simply human curiosity of the unknown. As Bill Hicks says, it may be 'just a ride', but like a merry-go-round, sometimes when you get off, there is always the Ferris Wheel.

You need not believe in God or Spirits or even the idea that you will continue to 'be' who you are after death, transcendental ideas do not need religion or God or anything other than you exploring within yourself, how you connect to the world and the wider Universe around you. Is there a beginning and and end to everything?....or are we simply part of an ever changing Universe, and is our immortality not about our extent perception of self, but our innate connection with everything else. It doesn't have to be supernatural, it is simply unknown. You do not have to comply to the labels that people attribute to philosophical positions such as Atheism, Theism, Agnosticism and so on, there is too much emphasis on pigeonholing people's beliefs and ideas in 'this or that', ignore it.

Essentially, don't let others tell you what to believe or what to think, listen to them, agree with or disagree with them, but do it on your own terms and devise and explore your own philosophy because that will give you more answers to your questions than any religion or philosopher.

One thing is for sure, one day we will all know the truth...or there is no truth to know.
 
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Narj said:
I don't follow any religion, however, my personal mantra is, "don't be a ****" (rhymes with hunt). If only everyone decided to pick up on this amazingly original idea instead of doing as they are told to by some mental preacher, the world would be a better place in all honesty.
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Be it following a mental preacher or a fanatical scientist some people will always be ***** ;).
 
vincent1989 said:
Be it a mental preacher or a fanatical scientist some people will always be ***** ;).
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True, true...

Also, the idealistic part of my brain thinks that the deep field images from the hubble, for one, should have humbled humanity and stopped all kinds of squabbling some time ago (whether you are religious or not) but nevermind.
 
Narj said:
True, true...

Also, the idealistic part of my brain thinks that the deep field images from the hubble, for one, should have humbled humanity and stopped all kinds of squabbling some time ago (whether you are religious or not) but nevermind.
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lots of things should have stopped humanity squabbling however every new thing we invent usually stems from us having tried to butcher each other. The fact of the matter is no one is willing to live beneath their current standard of living because psychologically we want to be the best (or at the very least to be better than someone else!), sadly we want to be the best individually not as a species. Psychologically we haven't evolved much in all of written history.
 
As an atheist, i'm not afraid of death or have a need for there to be a god to give me permission to carry on after i shuffle off this mortal coil. I am however afraid of dying, i would hope it is peaceful and with loved ones, the idea of pain and suffering at the end scares me to death if you pardon the pun.
 
You know how you go to sleep every night? Well that's what dying is like, except you don't wake up. Unconsciousness is the same as death. You do not exist as a soul, you are a combination of chemical processes inside an organic computer. When that computer is damaged you can lose memories and functionality - you cannot somehow regain these when your brain shuts down for good. If there was an afterlife, can you imagine how terrible it would be for babies? Absolutely nothing to talk about for eternity. And you would have no need to eat or reproduce, so there would be no pleasure to be had.

The soul was just ancient man's explanation for life, thoughts and feelings. Imagine trying to explain to ancient man why living things are warm and dead things are cold. The simplest explanation is that magic in the creature keeps it warm like a fire, and animates it. We know this is ridiculous now, but we kept the soul concept so we can feel special, even though bonobos, chimps, dolphins and whales have a similar self awareness. Some people still use love as proof for God, but love is simply measurable chemicals in the brain. It even reduces in couples over the first 3 years as this is sufficient time to raise a baby to a toddler, so the man can move on to another female.
 
fus said:
To those who are atheists, how do you reconcile the inevitability of your end? How can the thought of this ending not be a frightening one?
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Honestly I don't give it much (or any) thought at all. Nothing you can do about it. There are plenty of other things to worry about while I'm alive, and spending time thinking about what will happen when I die seems all together pointless. :) Just live and enjoy your life, and worry about death when your dead.
 
modo77 said:
Honestly I don't give it much (or any) thought at all. Nothing you can do about it. There are plenty of other things to worry about while I'm alive, and spending time thinking about what will happen when I die seems all together pointless. :) Just live and enjoy your life, and worry about death when your dead.
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I agree with you and that's pretty much my outlook on life and always has been. For me, as I've got older (I've no idea how old you are) the thought of saying goodbye to loved ones gets a bit worse. Not bad enough to subscribe to the lunacy that afflicts most religious people though.
 
fus said:
I get this. However, the scary thing to me is that not being aware. I enjoy being aware, I don't want it to stop. :p




I think this is where I am about now. I just feel that the New A position is so convincing, and, particularly with Hitchens, have not found a strong counter argument to his points. Accepting the most evidenced position is what I do with other things, why should religion be any different? I just wonder how, particularly people like Hitchens, are so content with just popping out of existence. I guess we all just popped in, so it's not that strange. Hitchen's book 'Mortality' brought this point home to me a lot.




Sorry to disappoint! I feel that this is different to the threads before, though, particularly given the fact that I would really like to be religious because it seems a much more pleasant fate than the alternative, but that's no reason to believe!
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I think part of the problem is that a lot of people can't separate "religion" with any kind of spiritualism. Additionally, a lot of people who fall in to the Atheist category are almost in a religion of their own, with the extreme way it's often shoved at people.

A lot of atheists have just as little respect for other people's beliefs as a lot of the followers of organised religions, but love to whinge about the actions of religious people whilst ignoring their own.

Another mistake people often make is that disproving the claims of organised religion seems to mean to some people that it's disproving the existence of a "god" or anything else. Realistically, the validity of organised religions has absolutely no basis on the truth of anything, so you can if you so wish, be against organised religion (to the extent of not wanting to be part of it yourself) whilst also maintaining some sort of faith in something. Personally, whilst I'm not a fan of organised religions, I do believe there is a lot more to everything than the whole "cold hard science" that people love to push across, whilst also making fun of people who don't agree with their stand point.

I would say that I am agnostic, since I don't follow or subscribe to the organised religions, but I'm not completely closed to to notion of there being something more to my existence.

Estebanrey is a perfect example of the type of person I'm talking about. Incredibly pompous self sure arrogance in that everything they say is correct, likely to be backed up with something along hte lines of "well I wouldn't say something I wasn't sure of".
 
but love is simply measurable chemicals in the brain.
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Do people actually think when they come out with comments like this? Don't get me wrong, you are entitled to your opinion but I am rather left with the impression that you are either a loner or have never been in a meaningful and deep relationship etc. This is not to say the people who are loners or unnatached would necessarily come out with your kind of statement either so I'm just assuming it must be lack of awareness.
 
ethan said:
Do people actually think when they come out with comments like this? Don't get me wrong, you are entitled to your opinion but I rather left with the impression that you are either a loner or have never been in a meaningful and deep relationship etc. This is not to say the people who are loners or unnatached would necessarily come out with your kind of statement either so I'm just assuming it must be lack of awareness.
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Whereas I suppose your explanation of love is 'magic'?
 
estebanrey said:
Think of it this way. Does it bother or scare you that you weren't about in 1900 or 1800? Death is no different to not being born yet and you happily spent the vast majority of the history of the universe in that state already.
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Never heard it put like that. I like it. Sometimes when I think about it I get scared but then I just think, if there is nothing beyond the grave then I won't have a clue. My consciousness will cease to exist or care.

The idea that living a good honest life would get me into heaven doesn't agree with me. I try to live that kind of life because it makes me happy and hopefully does the same for others. I dislike the idea that someones good will is a product of anything but their own free will telling them that it is the right thing to do.

Science gives us so many ideas about everything that religion encompasses that I can't find a place for it anymore. It's proven that people are happier helping others than they are helping themselves. If you and a friend need 2 things doing and you each help each other you will feel better than if you both dealt with your own task. That to me is a much more persuasive argument for helping others than the teachings of religion in my books. You can lose your faith in religion but I never doubt science.
 
tbf if one breaks it down to a brain function level. love is chemicals in the brain.

i would never say 'just' chemicals in the brain for such a function though.
 
fus said:
[..]
To those who are atheists, how do you reconcile the inevitability of your end? How can the thought of this ending not be a frightening one?
[..]
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I'll answer your second question first:

Are you frightened of, for example, 1756? Or 1898? Or 4765 BC?

You didn't exist at any of those times.

If you're not frightened of those times, when you didn't exist, why be frightened of other times in which you won't exist?

The only reason for fear of what happens after you're dead is a belief in an afterlife of suffering. If you don't believe in an afterlife of suffering there is no basis for fear. I don't believe in any afterlife of any kind, so I'm not scared of time after my death any more than I am scared of time before my birth.

The first question is more difficult. There is an instinct to survive and the inevitability of death conflicts with that. I reconcile the two because it's necessary to do so.

Aging and dying bother me. Being dead doesn't.
 
I am an atheist and am not afraid of turning to dust. I can't comprehend what heaven is supposed to be, but even the promise of it doesn't sound all that appealing. As the saying goes, no light without darkness... or if you like, hunger is the best garnish (yes I'm thinking about that tasty Chinese take-away I've just munched on). What I'm getting at is that I can't imagine such perfection bringing the joys that life can, not when the joy is constant and exclusive. To be sated when it is not possible to be wanting, can there be any satisfaction in that at all? I understand that through the machinations of a supreme being all things are possible, but it still seems that even though I would not recognize it, it would be secondary to the small victories enjoyed in our fragile, earthly manifestation. Well it's too much for my brain, but either way I can't understand the allure, not to the degree with which it has taken hold in various forms.

What I thought this thread was going to be about was a fear that you might meet a not-so-benevolent deity after you pop your clogs, and that it was this prospect that was giving you pause, by comparison, ceasing to exist is not such a bad option after all. If there is a 'my kind of God', he, or she (balls on the outside, not a design I would have gone for) is one who will only reveal their existence after we perish. I'm dreading the "It wasn't only ceiling cat watching you pleasuring yourself" part.

However while I do not envy the religious for what they believe, I do seem at odds in that immortality, without such frailty with which one would welcome death, is not something I would dismiss as easily as it seems many others do.

ethan said:
No my understanding of love is a lot more measured and considered more-so than your poor excuse for a comment.
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You should share your understanding of love, as unlikely as it is to sway either estebanrey or myself, I would be interested to hear it, to better understand those who think there is something more to it and perhaps even take a little food for thought.
 
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