cydonia

I can relate to this as well, though I feel a little differently about death now than when I first started questioning the existence of a here-after.

I was never really a christian. I still believed that I would suffer hell for not being one, so I guess I bought into it. I knew I was going to burn but I was doing it on principle, any God who would allow me to suffer like that didn't deserve my praise. God (and his mouthpiece, my family) scared the blank out of me.

As a reaction against that I turned to
"new age" beliefs for quite a few years. Those set of beliefs were just as limiting as christianity, they just didn't have hell involved. I was constantly trying to "manifest" happiness in my life by demanding the universe bend to my will, since I was one of the universe and it is only here to fulfill all my wishes and desires, or some nonsense like that. I couldn't imagine doing ANYTHING without the involvement of some supernatural power.

Maybe it's morbid, but now I actually like the idea that there is no after life and that it's all over for real. It's how the world works, apparently, and wanting something to be true doesn't make it true (took a while for me to get my head around that).

After all, when you're dead, you won't know it. It's only now, while you're still kicking, that any discomfort can happen.

joedad

A most memorable atheistic experience happened shortly after leaving home, when I took a weekend to drive a couple hundred miles and walk through Carlsbad Caverns. As I walked, I kept comparing what I was seeing to all my religious experiences in churches and realized that no church experience even came close to what I was feeling. There have been many Carlsbads since that time, and in retrospect, being in a church is very Matrix-like. So, I think I took the right pill that day.

But I was never afraid for the experience, and since that time I have regularly experienced a connectedness to the cosmos and its wonder, an honest exhilaration and freedom, no more happy enslavement. The only fears I've experienced have been simple human fears about life's insecurities, too many to enumerate. This past weekend I was invited to attend a church service with my in-laws and found all the sermonizing about immortality very interesting. It was like they were still searching for what I'd found.

Like yourself, I may well have speciest tendencies but possess knowledge enough to understand them, and have an optimistic outlook on the future of humanity.

You'll probably never loose all the fears you have relative to life's responsibilities. Maybe that's the price you'll pay for your freedom. Seems an equitable tradeoff, especially when you consider how you may be positively affecting future humanity.

joe

Shake

It takes a little more inner strength. You actually have to rely on yourself, rather than the Sky Daddy.

Anyway, if you want to share your lonliness, try Atheists Meetup!

Jack Kamm

I love it. I'm going to start saying that now.

Although that part about death being much like a dreamless sleep is the reason I'm not afraid of death anymore (especially when I'm really really tired).

Jamie_L

ProNihil:

I wasn't ever part of organized religion (though I was a believer), so I may not be in the same boat as you. I do, however, have an intense fear of death that never subsides. Mostly, I just ignore it.

As for feeling alone, try this on for size: With no God or supernatural power, you never need to ask "why" when bad things happen to you. You will never get "screwed" by God for not being faithful enough, you will never be "tested" by heartache and tragedy. Intense pain on your part is not required by some inscruitable "divine plan".

My first child was stillborn, and that loss was immense. However, I took some strength from the fact that this wasn't the work of some great being with vile plans. It was but a speck in the cosmos. A big uncaring universe may not look out for me, but it isn't out to get me either. Just because one terrible thing happened, it didn't mean the universe had it's guns sighted on me. I did not have to fear that this would be "done to me" again. It was just a thing that happened, like comets smashing into Jupiter or lightning blowing up a 100-year-old tree.

In my youth, I used to cry "why me" to God every time something awful happened. I had to reconcile these things with my belief in a loving diety that cared about me. That was difficult. Now that I've thrown that off, it's much easier to accept the bad things and deal with them. While other people go to their ministers with aching questions about why God does these things, I deal with my pain and get on with life.

Jamie

christ-on-a-stick

Bunny Lover wrote: I had to read that twice to let it really sink in, but wow - there is a lot of clarity (and irony) in that simple statement. (So I intend to steal it and claim it as my own profundity. Hehe. )

But it does make a lot of sense. I freak out sometimes on the concept of all that I will "miss" when my time here has passed, but remind myself that I won't know the difference... like going under general anesthesia, but never waking up.

On a side-note: Jamie_L wrote
I identify with that completely. On one hand, people say that it is scary and "hopeless" to feel that there is no "ultimate purpose" in life, but I find it somewhat comforting in a way to realize that a lot of the bad shit that happens to us IS random and not because we "deserve" it. From my perspective, it would be very demoralizing to go through life believing that every bad thing ever to befall you was a punishment, and that the good things were a "reward" as opposed to being the fruits of your own doing.

ComestibleVenom

I'd like to reitterate this admonition. Should we more fear death or a wasted life?

chanoc

What fears me is some of the most blatant disrespect I get from some people when I say, "I am Atheist."
I could care less what they think, but the fear is violence from the fundee-on-the-spot, thinks Atheist means Satanist, and thinks kicking the shit out of me is the right thing to do. Yes, I was in just this situation the other day. Although no violence resulted from it, it could, as hate is known to lead to violence.

Last week I was kicked out of a bar for saying that I liked a porn Web site. The bartender told me, "You are one fucked up individual, finish your beer and leave."
This was not the first time I got kicked out, other times it was because patrons hated me for talking about tech stuff, like computers. Another time I got kicked out for talking about mathematics. So, why do I keep going back? Well, it's in the same building as my apartment, thus convenient for a cold beer.
So, I went out the door, upon leaving I approached a guy cooking bbq food outside. "Damn, the bartender just 86ed me for saying I liked a porn Web site, how intolerable of him."
"Why do you like something so Satanic as that," he said, "Are you a Satanist?"
I looked at him and laughed. "No, I am an Atheist."
"You're one sick man! You damn devil worshippers."
"I came here for food, now I want 15.00 worth of tacos, please."
He just glared at me, and did not say anything. I started talking computers, which dumbfounded him even more.
"I still want those tacos BTW!"
Then the bartender comes out and yells, "You are trespassing, leave now!"
I said, "Would you explain yourself in a scientific manner, please?"
He got really pissed and said, "Listen motherfucker, leave now or I am calling the cops.".....
Anyways, I learned a few things from that event: (1) Some people in Alaska hate Atheists, (2) I should get a t-shirt that says, "Born Again Atheist",(3) Get a t-shirt that promotes BangBus,(4) Drink at home, it's safer, to protect myself from fundees, and especially the wannabe-instant-fundee rednecks.

* I told my fellow Atheist coworker about this, and he told me, "I tell people I'm Agnostic because most people don't know what that means. Yes, Squire's Rest is a fucked up bar, and the biggest redneck bar in town."

:banghead:

{{Removed Porn Link - Maverick}}

YouWannaDoWHAT?

My name is YouWannaDoWHAT?, and I'm scared of death.

I never believed in God or heaven, even as a child - infinite happiness would be infinitely boring, and anything else couldn't really be called heaven. It didn't help that I started going to church right after I stopped believing in Santa Claus - it always seemed to me that God was just a replacement. If the universe was so complex, why did it need a creator? Wouldn't something need to be more complex than the universe even to comprehend it, let alone create it? Why were these people trying to complicate things?

Instead, I chose to believe in reincarnation, but I grew out of that a few years ago, when I realised that even if I was reborn as another person I wouldn't remember anything about this life, and I probably wouldn't really be me. Now it feels like I'm running out of time... even though I'm only 17 years old, and I know I'll probably be alive for at least another 50 years, it's creepy to think that one day, everything will just... stop.

orpheus last chant

the only quote that made me feel good, in a bitter sweet way is this one:

i plan to live forever....
so far so good.

one of the few things i remember from being 6 or 7 is that i got my own room, and going to sleep was hard so i had to think my way to sleep.
now i think it's pretty weird that all i thought about was death adn i was terrified about it. after soem time i though about it in the day time too adn start crying just like that, then it stoped.

another obbsesion of mine was people from the past. i used to think about the gzillions of lives that passed that had similar thoughts or ideas. and the more i thought of them the more clear was teh picture fo their humanity. it was such a burden. i read a lot and still do and any type of diary or autobiography brohgt me the blues.

yet all that happened when i was a christian. it is weird but from the moment i deconverted it all seemed acceptable to me. read philosophy and it felt if not pleasant but natural. i especially like camus.

i like soem scifi ideas. one is that the smaller particles are just tiny unverses that go infinetly in divising. think about it. in you there might be people who think that you are the pan-universe. or that this universe we are in is the n'th particle from soem lost neuron inside an alien's dog's head.
(well i spent some time thinkin about it)

or another is that if the universe chrunches back and it's a pulsatory universe then in an infinity of time there's every chance I will be again, complete with teh same choises and thoughts, and in other versions of universe i'll choose a diffrent path.....