A question for Atheists if there are any on this forum ?

mad_scientist said:
Certainly I must have misread something, an atheist is always right? Right?

You were barking, as all atheists do, that you are trying to live a happy life. The very fact of you thinking that you can try to live a "happy life" implies that you have, in your mind, tried hard to make death something trivial. If it was not the case, youd be going through existentialist crises and nihilism and melancholy and could never make sense of your existence while holding to your thoughts that God didnt exist, in such case your whole life would be spent in finding answers to painful questions while being extremely depressed, sad, melancholic due to not being able to make sense of it all (the fact that you think youd have a happy life in such a case makes me think you are dishonest in trying to find answers and dishonest with realizing life what it would be if God really didnt exist: a painful journey to endure every single second for the non-existence that lied ahead and was approaching at an astronomical rate as years of life passed by)... but of course atheists are not that sincere to find answers.
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And yet, here I am, happy with my achievements, my friends, myself, my family, my girlfriend, my beliefs, this planet, and humanity in general. I certainly have ambitions and wants and my life certainly has room for improvement, but just as you don't spend every waking moment considering god and religion and trying to match scientific reality with your beliefs (you and I are both too busy living our lives for that! :) ), I don't spend every waking moment of my life trying to figure out what a life without a god means.

Without the existence of a god, a lot of questions I have are left unanswered, such as the question at hand: what does life mean? / how should I live my life? (among others, such as, how was the universe created? Why do we exist? How did we come to exist? etc. etc.). The fact that these questions are unanswered is not a problem for me. I don't need to know why the universe is here, or why I am here, or what I am "destined" to do. I certainly am curious to find the answers to these questions, but until I can find a solid, evidence-based answer to these questions, they will remain unanswered in my mind - and that's cool. It is for this reason, that I don't grapple every moment with the conflict between the unknown and my lack of a belief in a god.

I digress. Your point is that if I am trying to live a happy life, I must have trivialized death in some way or another. I suppose in some way, this is accurate, but I would say that my view of death is more of an inevitability, and while it is something to try to delay, it is not something to run from - because no one can run from it! I certainly don't want to die, but if I do die, there's not much I'm going to do about it, is there? So, while death is equally important in my life as my birth, it is certainly not something to dwell on or spend a lot of time thinking about. However, the fact that I believe there is a definitive end to my life prompts me to try to live the best life I can - and that is something I DO grapple with. I am constantly asking myself the question, "How can I make the best of my time here?" My answer to that question is constantly evolving as I have new life experiences and meet new people.

I guess it would be kind of cool to have guidelines from a religion telling me how I should live and so on, but I really like the freedom I have to carve my own path and to make my own decisions. If I can live my life as a good person without religion telling me what to do, does that show anything about a human's ability to be inherently good? Do you believe a person could be a good person without religion? Do you think I can live a good life knowing it will permanently end one day?
 
Death is what it is so there's not much to do about it. I'd really like it to happen a long time from now so I can see my kids grow up.

On the long term view, I just would really like to know how this whole human race thing works out, but Cest la vie, I guess.

Thanks.
 
From all your (atheists) testimonials, it seems that you all view everything is chance, including existence of the universe, existence of life and everything that plays out.

Is that true?
 
naidamar said:
From all your (atheists) testimonials, it seems that you all view everything is chance, including existence of the universe, existence of life and everything that plays out.

Is that true?
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To some degree, I suppose. At least for human interactions, it seems to me to be a sum of many factors that contribute to what we see in everyday life. The use of the word "chance" comes in because our minds just can't keep track of all the variables and decisions that are being made by everyone and everything at a given moment. If we were able to do that, the world and the people around us would be much more predictable.

As far as inanimate objects in the universe go, things act according to physical laws we have made theories for. Why these laws exist, or why they are the way they are is still a mystery for science (God fits in here? I don't know... maybe...), but there is a lot we, as human, can piece together from our observations. So, new stars forming in a stellar nursery, for example is not due to chance, it just happens because of the laws governing the universe.

If we're playing a game with dice, for example, is that really random? Only because we can't sum up all the factors in our heads fast enough to predict the outcome. If we could somehow know the force, velocity, rotation speeds, air currents, height, friction coefficients of the table and dice, bounciness of the dice, etc., we might be much more likely to predict the outcome of a roll of dice. Life itself and the universe have way more things happening than even a simple dice roll... so yeah, things to appear to be "random" or by "chance", but there are always some underlying factors that cause an event.

To sum, I will say that most of the world around us is far out of our control... the actions of others, the weather, the universe, animals, governments, etc., but these things aren't happening by chance, they are just happening. The existence of the universe and of life, I don't know how to explain. The creation of the universe and where the first life forms came from are still unknowns at this point to me. Ha, I kinda rambled on there... sorry.
 
Look who is back you guys.. it is skacowwwwwwwwww..

time for a dose of the funny things kaffirs say.....
 
Within less than 10 minutes of my 'returning' post, I get a warm welcome and a link that I can only assume is in the muslim only subforum.
 
naidamar said:
From all your (atheists) testimonials, it seems that you all view everything is chance, including existence of the universe, existence of life and everything that plays out.

Is that true?
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In my opinion, its more of a chaotic system, but yes, I believe "chance" is a driver of how the universe works.

Thanks.
 
I'm not afraid of death itself, as I firmly believe I will simply cease to exist. Since this brief span of existence on earth is all that I have however, I feel it's my obligation to take full advantage of the time I have and I'm certainly not looking forward to its termination. I am definitely afraid of wasting my life.
 
said:
I'm not afraid of death itself
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a true muslim would also tell you the same.

said:
I firmly believe I will simply cease to exist
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we differ in this. Muslims believe in the hereafter.

said:
I am definitely afraid of wasting my life.
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A true muslim would also say this, but maybe for different reasons. We believe we should not waste time and that we should strive to do good and prepare for the day we die.

said:
Since this brief span of existence on earth is all that I have however, I feel it's my obligation to take full advantage of the time I have and I'm certainly not looking forward to its termination.
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Say, you have a choice between:
a. life in this world only
b. life in this world and eternal life after that
which one would you choose?
 
naidamar said:
Say, you have a choice between:
a. life in this world only
b. life in this world and eternal life after that
which one would you choose?
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I'll take up on this point. Most atheists I know and watch all state that eternal life would be a burden, not a gift. I personally disagree with them - as to me, eternal life would in its simplest form mean eternal existence. I personally certainly don't desire the inevitability of death simply on the fact that I will no longer be. To exist in most instances is always preferable to not existing.
 
^^ why is this particular atheist still here after his clear violation of copy right infringement and overt antisemitism?
Do we not have infractions and dismissal from the forum for that?

:w:
 
I'm not afraid of death itself, as I firmly believe I will simply cease to exist. Since this brief span of existence on earth is all that I have however, I feel it's my obligation to take full advantage of the time I have and I'm certainly not looking forward to its termination. I am definitely afraid of wasting my life.
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^^^^ This is what I believe. I feel that what follows this statement are simply more questions that each individual must answer (or try to answer) for themselves, namely: How do I take full advantage? Do I turn to hedonism? Do I turn to giving? Charity? Should I help people or only myself? What memories do I want to leave of myself? What monuments? What impact will I make on this world? Do I want to make an impact? Do I care? What is important to me at this moment? What do I think will be important in the future? How can I work towards that? On and on and on... Being an atheist is kind of a burden, haha. Too many decisions!! :)


Say, you have a choice between:
a. life in this world only
b. life in this world and eternal life after that
which one would you choose?
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Assuming the "eternal life" is one that I wouldn't mind living ETERNALLY (I wonder if I would get bored about 1000 years???), I would definitely go with that! But, as an atheist, I just can't convince myself that this eternal life really exists beyond the grave. What I do know concretely, however, is that I am existing now - "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
 
Gator said:
In my opinion, its more of a chaotic system, but yes, I believe "chance" is a driver of how the universe works.

Thanks.
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It's not chaotic, "extremely complex system" would be the correct term to use.
 
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Argamemnon said:
It's not chaotic, "extremely complex system" would be the correct term to use.
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Just to clarify, chaotic systems are deterministic, so the usage is correct. Another word would be gaussian. Thanks.
 

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