Infidelettante

quote:GPLindsey
I lost my Dad when I was a Christian and my older brother when I was an atheist. I suffered no less as a Christian than as an atheist.

The wife and I saw James Taylor in New Orleans this weekend. What does Christianity have to compete with that?

Personaly Yule is my favorite holiday. Santa, lighted trees, yule logs, Dec. 25, presents etc. We Pagans celebrated the rebirth of God long before the Christians found a way to make a buck off it.

And so you come to the heart of the matter. Religious thought exists on an emotional spectrum not a rational one. So? Religion can serve to alienate people from their culture and separate them from family and friends. It can bring people to the darkest pit of dispare and hoplessness. It can produce emotional turmoil and depression and do real damage to the mind. Perhaps you need to rethink your understanding of both religion and atheism.

Religion will not do all the things you listed for all people nor will it do all the things I listed to all people. There are joys and sorrows enough for all of us in life. I hope you find your way though them.

JT

tekora

You know, all the things that have been pointed out as "missing" from atheism were very specifically Christian. Do Jews, Buddhists and Muslims suffer from not hearing "Amazing Grace" in a cathedral? For that matter, Christians don't get to experience the transcendence possible in a good Buddhist sit (meditation). Is that the end of their world?

You can find transcendental moments in a lot of things and places. Everyone does.

But as for comfort about life's tragedies... if I believed in a God, I'd have to believe he's an asshole who despises me and enjoys watching me suffer, because that's been a big theme in my life the past few years, which is not comforting. Lots of trauma, lots of pain. And yet, somehow, I just know I'm better than all that. I'm okay with who I am, and THAT is the greatest comfort imaginable.

Wyrdsmyth

You have a relevant point. But the flipside is, for many of us, all of those hymns and good-fellowship and Christmas lights don't mean a damn thing if their foundational belief-system is contradictory and incoherent. Yeah, it's comforting, if you can just 'believe' it, and block out all of the flaws and problems that Christianity and the Bible has.

"Come on, just believe. What do you have to lose?" the well-meaning relative asks. "What do you have to lose?"

My reasoning ability. Or, rather, I would have to lose my reasoning ability before I could believe. That's what most people can't understand about atheists. To us, how we believe what we believe is not a gambling bet, but an assessment of plausibility.

In order to believe in, say, the Bible, I would have to not be able to see all the earmarks of mythology, all the contradictions, all of the myridad details that make it (to me) overwhelmingly obvious it is the product of human beings and not some divine source.

So, it's not comforting if it's not true.

Atheism has nothing to 'offer' because it is not a belief-system. It only says "I'm not buying into any of that supernatural god stuff." Atheism only states what it doesn't believe, not what it does. It will never offer salvation or comfort or solace, because it never offers anything. All it does is clear away the ruins of old gods to make room for something new.

LLaurieG

Atheism's biggest problem is that it offers no solace. When a father gets a phone call that his son was hit by a car after a soccer practice and is gone, what comfort does atheism offer?

(Laurie) What solace does Christianity offer? "God took your son for a reason. His ways are mysterious. Suck it up. God's plans are larger than your puny comprehension. Your beautiful son getting splattered all over the asphalt is part of God's mysterious plan for the greater good. He was your only child? Tough. God had his reasons. Now you will never have grandchildren? Your suffering is part of God's plan too. This tragic accident was your son's fault? Then he's probably burning in HELL!"

Come listen to the pretty church music. Maybe that'll make you feel better.

Ah, the solace of religion...

Kintaro

Thank you. Religious solace can be resumed as bullshit, but I'll always remember that paragraph if ever people want a definition of said bullshit.

Rushianbeing

I must agree with ComestibleVenom's "monstrously beautiful desolation of the universe" statement. That is a great comfort to me. And it continues to be a comfort, almost two years after the sudden, unexpected, and completely (even now) unexplained death of my sister-in-law.

I have a personal refutation of GPLindsey's assertion that the parent who gets a phone call telling them their child is dead could not possibly be comforted without religion. I cannot disagree with this assertion strongly enough. As you will hopefuly see from my perspective, atheism was a great comfort to us in our loss, and Christianity was a great DISCOMFORT and source of undue stress for me and all my family, when my sister-in-law died. What kind of a so-called benevolent, all-powerful god would strike down this young (31), beautiful, wonderful woman who had JUST GIVEN BIRTH 11 WEEKS AGO TO HER ONE AND ONLY DAUGHTER, WHO WILL NOW NEVER KNOW HER??? What kind of an omnibenevolent being would cause my little brother, at the age of 29, to come home and find his wife's dead, discolored body on their kitchen floor, and his baby in the crib all alone?

Yep, Jebus helped us all out a LOT on that one, by remaining silent and uncaring like his daddy.

And anyone who tried to jump on this opportunity to proselytize to us was posed the above set of questions, and could come up with nothing more than "God has a plan". Oh, so his plan was to kill my sister-in-law and deprive her daughter of her mother forever? Very, very nice.

Not that any of us were xians to begin with. The point is, we comforted each other through this ordeal. We did what my sister would have loved the most: we didn't have a liturgical, icky funeral, we simply took turns standing up and recounting funny stories about our sister and friend, for three straight hours, and this included her parents, until we were all laughing and crying and feeling like a community. Yes, a COMMUNITY. And the night of her funeral, we had a good-old-fashioned Irish wake, got exceedingly drunk, and stripped naked and jumped into the ocean at Pensacola Beach. And now, almost two years after her death, we continue to feel solace in the memories of her, and in sharing stories of her, and finally in the knowledge that we simply do not know what's next (if anything). Believe it or not, that mystery gives us great solace.

If we were xians, we would have to believe that our sweet Lena is burning in hell right now, and bullSHIT if I'll ever get on board with THAT one.

Is all that clear as mud?? Sorry to sound so melodramatic, but I just wanted to make my point!!!

Peace!
Rushian

Shake

What? I can't go enjoy an organ recital at a church? I'm an atheist, but I love organ music, and where better to hear it than in a church.

In part, I will agree with the o.p.: atheism doesn't offer a lot. But it doesn't pretend to! It's not a religion, a belief system, or a worldview! It's simply the lack of a belief in god(s). Many atheists are something else as well. Some consider themselves (secular) humanists, for example! We do still have many other beliefs, but they are non-religious in nature. We have social, political, and economic beliefs. We even have physical and moral beliefs.

The loss of loved ones is painful, but it's part of life. If no one died, there'd be no reason to procreate, since doing so would only strain our limited resources. Nobody wants to die, but if you ask people, very few would want to live forever either. (Which makes you wonder what's to keep people in heaven from getting bored - but that's a whole other thread).

Someone above said we find comfort in justice. We also can find comfort among friends and family. There are more groups of non-theists all the time and they are growing. The power of the internet has brought folks like us together and given us a way to have a semblance of support from people just like us. It facilitates the aforementioned groups getting together and expanding their influence and size. I recently attended my first atheists Meetup, and it was great to meet intelligent people from my area that think the same way I do about religion. I will definitely go again.

Religion can be divisive within a family, too. Many here will attest that religious differences have caused them trouble with family members (some still do). I'm not necessarily even talking about people suddenly coming out as atheists to their families! People, being different, can have different opinions on all sorts of things, especially religion. What happens when one member of a Xian (say) family decides that the particular sect they're involved with just doesn't fit with their personal beliefs? They find another branch that does. Maybe they never renounce their faith in God, but decide to worship Him differently. Splits such as this have caused family disputes as severe as if one announces they are atheist! Imagine an extreme example of an Irish Catholic converting to one of the Protestant sects!

Also, in reference to the above quote by JTVrocher, part of what I think is also being said there is that rational people also have emotions and are capable of great feeling. There is no need to have religious beliefs to be able to feel great emotion!

CV said::notworthy

mark9950

The truth sometimes hurts,but that is the way it is and we all must face it head on.

By the way, why does this God who is all powerful and omnipotent,stop these things from happening in the first place?

If he is all powerful as he claims why not prevent tragedies from happening in the first place?

I hate to bring this up,but I must ask "where was God when 9-11 happened"?And why did this God not stop it if he is all powerful?

TomboyMom

:notworthy
You said it all and succinctly too.:notworthy

Glass*Soul

Thank you, Wyrdsmyth, for reminding me of the constant low-level tension that I suffered during those years that I struggled against myself to "block out all of the flaws and problems" involved in Christianity.

I have found great solace in letting go of that old, anxiety-plagued paradigm of heaven and hell, and embracing the Universe, not as a spiritual battleground, but as my home.