lpetrich

For my part, the only afterlife I'd have any taste for would be to become a ghost. Perhaps I could find some house to haunt, and follow it over the generations to come.

And belief that there are no deities does not necessarily imply belief in nonexistence after death -- some Buddhists believe in reincarnation without believing in deities.

Treacle Worshipper

Eric,
This is the kind of thing I was talking about when I said "In my personal experience people who suffer from low feelings or depression are told that this is because their relationship with Jesus is wrong, and as soon as they get that sorted out, everything will be hunkydory. " :
Quote Radorth:
Approaching Christianity with the attitude of what the heck, why not be a hypocrite so i can be ignorant and happy isn't a great way to go about it. <snip>
The truth is, God doesn't gaurantee happiness on earth.<snip>
But God is always there for you if you sincerely seek him, even if its sometimes hard to tell.

Life is ultimately pointless, because everything will come to an end. But are you really worried about what might happen millennia hence?
Well, one reason for bothering is that finishing college should enable you to get a better job which will give you a better standard of living while you are here. It's not much of a goal on the cosmic scale, but it's still a reason for doing college. I think one way of coping is to set very short term goals, and just not think about the ultimate fate of the universe. Another form of self-deception, if you like.
Why should the fact that something will ultimately be destroyed make it worthless in the present? Was Einstein's life useless because he is now dead? Or Shakespeare's? Or are they both useless because ultimately their work will be destroyed?
If you can explain your answer to those questions, I will try to come to a better understanding of you p-o-v.
TW

Benjamin Franklin

It is very emotionally comforting to believe in poetic justice but poetic justice has always and will always remain in fiction and fairy tales. If God cannot get things right in this world, what makes you think he will get things right in the next world. Reminds me of the story Animal Farm where the leaders kept promising the animals that life will get better if they will just put up with suffering now. As Benjamin, the donkey said, life has always been bad and will always be bad.

BF

Ps - If life in this world in unfair, would life in the next world also be unfair to average it out ? Some of the blacks in Africa converted to Christianity believing that in the next life they will be the dominant race and the whites will be their slaves. If that's the case I look forward to being tall, dark and handsome in my next life

philechat

Hmmm...I have always thought atheism to be a tragic philosophy, given its ability to look "in the face of the void", instead of copping out in some wishful-thinking future. For some reason this thread just confirmed my opinion about it, and the funny rants of certain Christians on the pointlessness of life without God only left me wondering whether it actually do take some strength of mind to accept "the world as it is".

Could people really brainwash themselves into a religion because they, well, are too paranoid about their mortality? Are atheists as a group somewhat different in personality make-up from the believers? All seems quite interesting in my opinion.

Radorth

I became a Christian at 26, and it had nothing do with fear of death. People claim otherwise, but at that age one feels immortal, for practical purposes. I did anyway, looking back. My religion then was my sense of humor, and I was quite happy with it. Even though I thought all Christians were morons, I purposed to search for God diligently, whoever he might or might not be. I truly hoped he wasn't the Christian God because I might have to give up something, like women. (So I thought). I finally prayed that if God was real he ought to manifest himeslf, and if he was at all Christiian, he could count on me to give up absolutely nothing.

Which means fear had nothing to do with it, at that point anyway. In fact the only thing I feared was finding out he was real, and had a bunch of dumb, unhealthy rules to obey. That's why I said (out loud) he could forget about that, more or less hoping he would get lost even if he was real. It was strictly an issue of searching out the truth, whatever it might turn out to be. I realize everybody says they are doing that, but that is exactly what I did.

Rad

Radorth

You mean if everybody there is a servant of God and one another? Sounds like utopia, and I think Marx will be insanely jealous.

Just a tiny bit of Thomas Hooker's voluntary "mutual confederating and covenanting of the saints" got us the model Connecticut Constitution in 1639, and finally the Constitution after bitter, divisive arguments about state's rights (What else?). Yeah I know. God had nothing to do with it even though Washington insisted over and over that he did.

So yeah. I want to try complete mutual submission with "the meek" in charge of the earth.

Rad

copernicus

I think that BF's statement is quite interesting. Christians have to admit that this is not a "perfect world". Traditionally, theists take the position that this world is some kind of "test" for the soul. You get free will as "God's gift", and he doesn't manifest himself in order to make sure that we get the chance to "choose" salvation. But then, once having chosen correctly and passed the test, you get to live in eternal bliss. Losers either get eternal torment (which helps keep the congregation motivated to pay the weekly dues) or maybe you just don't get the reward of life everlasting. Anyway, the imperfections were built in specifically to make this place a testing ground for the soul.

The problem is that you can't think too hard about it, or it all starts to come apart. Having given us "free will" by not meddling in our short lives, we pass on to heaven. Does that mean that we lose our free will now that God has decided to manifest himself? We get everything we really want--the equivalent of an eternal orgasm--so I guess that free will was never such a great gift in the first place. But some of us keep wondering why we didn't all just go straight to heaven. What was the point of the test?

Getting back to Eric's dilemma, I can't imagine how it is possible to simply decide to believe something that you don't. Most of us would like to have an eternal orgasm--that's true enough--but the whole thing sounds so ludicrous and implausible. Why not just convince yourself that you are a billionaire, and go around with a happy buzz on all the time? You would have to be careful not to actually spend your money or do anything that would really test your self-delusion, but wouldn't it be worth it to have that false belief? God-belief must be a little easier on the mind, because there really isn't much you can do to test the unreality of the idea. Still, you have to be careful not to let those nagging thoughts about religion's implausibility creep into your head. It's the old cliche joke about doing something and not to thinking the word "hippopotamus" at the same time. You don't normally think that word, but you can't "decide" not to think it.

lisarea

I'm going to try to answer some of your questions and address some issues here, but I'd like to note that I'm doing so strictly from a personal perspective. These are my understandings and the conclusions I've reached thus far. I don't mean to imply that I'm always right (I'm not) or that I'm somehow more enlightened than anyone else. The reason I stick to my personal interpretations is that I'm not qualified to address anyone else's.

I think this is often the case. For me, though, I don't want to live for their nebulous rewards. I want to actually live the life I have, and not compromise its potential by subscribing to some dogmatic code that I know was invented by some guy or guys.

I won't lie and claim that I don't sometimes wish there were some great reward I was going to, but when I really think about that: Meh. Would I want to live forever in some quiet, predictable world where everything happened The Way It Should, sitting around on clouds and watching bad people be smited? Absolutely not. Forever is a long time. I get bored sometimes as it is.

Aside from that, though, I know it's not true, and I don't want to waste this life I have pining for something afterward.

I'm gonna sound a little theistic here, but there is a very important distinction, which I'll get to.

I believe in intelligent design. I have studied different types of complex systems at different points, and I'm absolutely awed by them. I do not believe that things are 'random.' Randomness doesn't work because it can't, because everything is ruled by natural laws. The universe fits together so elegantly, from the tiniest microcosm to the universe as a whole; and everything fits just exactly the way it should. It's stunning, it's beautiful, it's fascinating, and we are each a part of that. Every person in the world advances the cause of humanity in their own way, and humanity advances the cause of the universe in its own way, tying in with everything else there is. I see everything as a big dynamic discourse. Sure, we all die, but we all leave our marks, and those never go away. On a personal level, we alter others' perceptions, and they go on to alter others' perceptions, so our influence carries on, chronologically and geographically, in ever-expanding spheres. On a physical level, everything you do changes something. Every breath you take jiggles the air, changing it permanently. Everything you touch 'remembers.' Pound on your desk. It will never be the same again.

This brings us to the real questions, though, like "Why?" The only honest answer to that is "Why not?" I have no idea why you or I exist or why the universe exists or anything. Maybe no reason at all. But I can never know that for sure.

The distinction I make here, though, when I talk about things like 'intelligence' and 'memory' is that I don't believe that these things require sentience. I believe in a big intelligent system. I do not, however, anthropomorphize it. I don't think of it as a discrete entity, even, really, but more of a set of natural laws that govern things simply by way of possibility. Gravity is the boss of me, for example, but that doesn't mean it's emotionally involved, and I am able to accept it as it is without picturing it as some guy. It's just the way it is. And if I were to somehow subvert its laws, it would not give a shit either way because it is incapable of giving a shit. To give a (proverbial) shit requires consciousness, and natural laws just don't have that.

One final distinction is that, if I learn something new that requires me to discard my current beliefs and conceptions, I don't have to have some bigassed identity crisis. I'm not attached to a single interpretation. In fact, I relish the opportunity to change my ideas and my understandings of things. I love being proven wrong.

Again, every person has their own perspective and understanding, and that is the way it should be. It's all about diversity.

But I'm happy because I know that I have the integrity to at least try to understand things the way they really are, rather than the way I want them to be; and I geniunely pity those who trade that integrity for a little cold comfort from some judgmental superentity with nothing better to do than boss them around.

openeyes

Eric, You appear to be struggling with many large questions, but blaming your parents for not "giving me a religion" is hardly a helpful point of view. It wouldn't have necessarily made life easier. As many on this board will attest, the demand or maybe just heavy pressure that many parents place on their children to believe as they do can have many negative consequences. Be glad that you can think and act for yourself.

I'm sorry that those of us you find meaning in our lives (as large or as small as that may be) and believe that's all there is haven't been able to help you with your struggle. Although it's causing you some pain, try to appreciate this time of discovery. The struggle to consciously deal with life's dilemmas and contradictions is part of being human, IMO. I hoping time will help you feel more positive, no matter what you decide makes sense.

lpetrich

I'm reminded of my sister, who once found fault with my mother for not teaching her a religion when she was growing up. She claims that she now has nothing to fall back on in times of stress, because the religion business now looks so silly to her.

I'm reminded of Karl Marx's famous comment about religion being the opium of the people.