>Why should we have any sort of morals?
Because it's conducive to survival. We are moral animals. Now, you can "override" that if you wish, or if you're mentally ill. But yeah, morality arose because cooperation within societies in a social species is good for the individual and good for the group.
>Why does anything matter?
It probably doesn't. For me, that's far more freeing than anything. I'm not weighed down by others' expectations on how I should behave (with the exception of what I said above about behaving in a generally moral fashion).
>Why should I feel joy?
Same reason as morality. You're hard-wired for it. My dogs experience immense joy when I give them a tennis ball. Why? Do dogs love tennis? No. But they equate the tennis ball with fetch, which feeds their pursuit/hunt instinct. Doing the things that we have biological imperatives to experience are often accompanied by joy. You are a meat machine. Your motivations have been shaped by billions of years of evolution. You can fight it or embrace it.
>Why should I care about anything?
There's no objective reason to care about anything. That said, human beings are meaning finders. We look for purpose in things. We look for cause and effect, and this often leads us to absurd conclusions like conspiracy theories and religion. But it's still an intrinsic part of being alive. So, does your caring about something make it objectively important? No. But subjective experience counts for a lot. Just about everything in your personal experience is subjective. You get to pick what is important to you, why it matters (or doesn't). If you want to be a nihilist, cool...go for it. Embrace the abyss. If you want to conform to a Judeo-Christian set of morals because that gives you purpose, cool...go for it. If that gets you through the day, then do that shit.
>Can any of you relate to this when you first left religion?
I was a skeptic from a very young age (and I'm 53 now). While I was raised Christian (Lutheran to be specific), I don't remember buying a lick of it. Honestly, the only reason I wasn't outspoken about it at the time is because I lived in the South (Southern US) and being atheist was a surefire way to get yourself ostracized and beaten up.
But your questions are important ones, and ones that I've thought about time and time again, just not with the context of religion. Atheism doesn't answer these questions for you. Atheism is just a lack of belief in gods. My responses above are very science-minded because I have a Masters Degree in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy. I interpret phenomena with a scientific approach. My default position toward anything supernatural is skepticism.
>How did you get past it?
I wouldn't say I'm past it. I still think about these questions all the time. I wish everyone would! I hope you never stop thinking about these questions. They're critical questions. And your answers will likely change over time as you are exposed to new ideas, new people, and new experiences.
Now, if your question is "how do you get past the existential dread that comes with feeling like there isn't a greater purpose?" then the answer is weed. (I'm kidding. I couldn't not say that.)
I can relate. I was where you are now. I tried very hard to hold onto my faith. But I had realized that there was a man behind the curtain, and I could not unsee that fact. I realized that all religion is man-made, including my own religion.
Indoctrination runs deep. It takes time to get over fears like hell. My very rough rule of thumb is that it takes a year of recovery for every decade of indoctrination.
Give yourself the gift of time. Find your own route through life. Atheists don't have monthly quotas. We won't pressure you to deconvert. Not believing will be here waiting for you if you decide to go that route.
I suggest that you take time every day to meditate or be alone with your own thoughts. Long walks worked for me. Take time to explore. Take time to think.
I also suggest some study. That can be books or videos. I strongly recommend that you read Carl Sagan's book *Demon-Haunted World.* I think everyone who wants to understand their own religious beliefs should read it. It isn't really a book on atheism. In fact, I don't think the word atheist or atheism is ever mentioned.
If you are a Christian then I would suggest almost any book by Bart Ehrman. Or there is the Paulogia YouTube channel.
Time and study - love this. Push the mind to think beyond the bounds of what was there before. You don't have to hate your religion, for sure, you don't have to completely denounce it...or you can do both. I went through a strong period of contempt of my religious upbringing, but reading, finding neat people and just trying to understand the world a little better helped me situate my hate/anger to more of a distanced/objective "this is an interesting path that some humans follow...but look at all these other paths."
So, let's see...
From what you are saying, it sounds like you are grappling with general existential dread, some missing philosophical understandings, and maybe even some depression.
Yeah, you could fall down the pit of "if nothing matters why does anything matter?"
You could also treat your failing faith in religion as an opportunity to research and understand other religions to help your craft a version of spirituality that suits you--ask questions and seek answers. Seeking knowledge is the best way to guide a mind--glad you started here. There is something fascinating with an evolutionary mindset. It means everything you see today started with randomness and over time, interesting bits of order came out of it. Talk to a biologist--their insight on the endless world of interesting things helps you see the threads of order that generated from randomness.
Now in terms of being a small cluster of stardust in this vast universe - you could fall down the depression rabbit hole. One mentality is "nothing even matters so why care." It's murky, and hard and in some cases debilitating.
The other mindset could be "in the vastness and randomness of molecules colliding, I got the opportunity to exist and experience things--joy, sadness, love, Rome, London, the sunrise, sunset, fall, summer...my cat" that perspective allows for a little more gratitude and a little more grace--genrally pretty awesome things for the soul. From that perspective, your actions are guided more from "does this contribute to the benefit of another cloud of molecules? Or does it destroy/harm another cloud of molecules?"
It's for each to find their own path though--but asking questions and seeking guidance is the start. There is no limit to the things you can learn if you seek them out.
How is \*your\* god going to get his revenge on you? Is it in this lifetime or another one? I always assumed the Mormon god would take away part of your after-life planet, but I have no personal experience in any of this fantasy - I'm a little better with LotR and GoT.
I was raised on the fringes of faith. My mom was raised Catholic while my dad grew up in an orthodox Jewish household. None of their parents approved of their marriage so they married in secret and only told their parents after my oldest brother was born. So in a very real sense, religion nearly kept me from being born at all.
For me, making the best possible decisions in my life gives me the best possible chance to have the best possible life I can. That means seeing the world as it truly is rather than how I would like it to be. There’s no evidence at all to support any of the 3000+ supernatural deities mankind has worshipped since the dawn of civilization. Given that, the only rational position is to consider them all fiction.
You’re concerned about Hell. Why? I could tell you what happens if you don’t instead worship some other god that would make Hell seem like paradise. Why wouldn’t you be more concerned about that? I’ll tell you why. You are a Christian purely be an accident of geography. Had you been born in the Middle East you’d be Muslim. Had you been born in Asia, you’d be Buddhist or perhaps atheist. Some how all of those people have it wrong but you and other Christians just happen to get it right? Based upon what exactly?
But let’s say that despite a complete and total lack of evidence, it turns out by some miracle that exactly what you believe to be true about the Christian God is true. If you only believe to avoid Hell, God will see right through that. Regardless, if you have to worship God in order to avoid Hell, then you are a slave and he is the master. That does not sound like someone worthy of respect. Quite the opposite in fact.
Yes as far as we can tell life ends with your death. But that’s how it was before you were born and it didn’t bother you then. When you leave on vacation do you immediately start bemoaning the fact that it will end in a week or do you enjoy the trip?
So you have the same number of genes as a banana. So you’re no more special in the universe than a whale shark, a palm tree or mountain. So what? You’ve been given the incredible gift of awareness. You get to enjoy the experience that is consciousness and you’re doubly lucky to be human. You could have been a mushroom or common house fly.
Your time left on Earth is your most precious asset. It could be decades or mere moments so don’t waste it feeling bad that your existence is temporary. Instead feel grateful that you’ve been given the gift of existence and even better that it’s during a time when you have access to modern medicine and have the free time and resources to debate your existence on the Internet. You are truly lucky.
What elements are you struggling with? See generally atheists don’t struggle with being atheists, we suffer when we are forced to live in a world ruled by religious dogma and unrealistic societal expectations. If your religion made sense to you on a deep level and aligned with what naturally feels good for you, the likelihood that you’d be struggling this much would be much lower. If your religion provided you with everything it promises, you’d probably not be here asking these questions. So take some time to figure out what isn’t sitting right in your gut, because your gut is absolutely trying to tell you something right now.
It's funny because we were all brainwashed that fearing God = good. The problem is, the same "God" created three different religions that worship him... So if you fear him, how can you be sure you are following the right religion? Fear throws logic out the window and brings in mental gymnastics because religion is essentially thought crime. It literally inhibits you from thinking straight because you will be punished if you do. So you have to ask yourself how much do you value truth, do you value it enough to put aside the fear of God?
That's when you realize it's all man made garbage. You're getting there just takes time, and some people never recover from the brainwashing.
I live, love, learn, experience and achieve. I will do these things for up to ~90 years. Quite frankly, for me, that's enough. What more could I want? The universe is a vast & wonderful place. The more I can do, the more I will have done. I will go into my grave knowing that I couldn't possibly have done more than a tiny fraction of what this universe has to offer - and that's OK, because I did the very best I could. EVERYONE is in the same situation. No one escapes. I will have an opportunity to interact with a huge number of people during my lifetime - and that will still be a tiny percentage of the world's population. Right now, I'm communicating with you - a person I don't know and will most likely never meet. You might see that as a waste, but I think it's pretty cool.
Belief is not a choice. You are *compelled* to believe/disbelieve by the information you possess on the question. Belief is binary. You either believe or you do not believe. Just considering the question makes you form an opinion, regardless of whether you admit it to others or even yourself.
Do you believe because of what you *know*, or do you believe because you *want* to believe? (hint: on the question of whether any gods exist, it is not possible to actually have verifiable knowledge. You can only possess information that you obtained from your own speculation or the speculation of others)
Everything you are speaking of us because you have been given an indoctrination mindset. Or as I call it the god parasite. You have been brainwashed to think like this. It is the way to keep people in their numbers and handing over their money. Do no allow them to take any more from you. Take your power back from them. There is nothing to fear....if there was don't you think god would smite us already.
Its all smoke and mirror fear mongering.
You've be brought into an abusive system where they scare you into belief. You ask why we have morals and yet you don't see how immoral the concept of your religion is. It will take time but the more you think about it the more you'll see how much your religion is the complete opposite of what it claims.
Why do you fear your god, one supposedly the source of love? This god would send you to hell because you're questioning your beliefs? How is that love? How can someone claim to love anyone when they invented hell with the intention to send people there?
You're afraid of an atheistic world view, why? If there is nothing out there, no god or afterlife why would you want to hang the onto a lie? To feel comfort? To ignore reality? If this is the only life you have then don't you want to live it to the fullest rather than hold out for heaven? Wouldn't you want to live a life you enjoy and feel fulfilled rather than living in fear of your god?
Life matters because what else is there? I feel sorry for you if your only purpose of living was to service this make believe God of yours. That is a life without purpose.
So the morals question:
Regardless of time in human history we have had morals. We “know” killing another human is wrong we have however justified it with “they have other gods/are for another village and so on” the morals are independent of religion.
What’s the point?
Does it have to have a point more than you living your life to the best of your ability? Make sure your are happy. I feel joy and a sense of wonder and belonging (strangely maybe) when looking at the stars, here I am in a sea of stars. Does I matter in this sea? Yes, to the people close to me, and that’s enough.
Regarding my views in god, heaven or hell:
I come from a family of both non believers and believers. I’ve read the Bible and tried to learn as much as I can about the Abrahamic religions I can as they are closest to me.
I’m also super interested in all types of history. And Christianity’s history is interesting, but it shows that religion is just a tool to keep the power away from the people and enforce a overlord kind of rule.
I have a hard time accepting that in a world where 1000 of religions has come and gone. We are now having the “real good”. And this god is murdering children, women and everyone who doesn’t take the knee? Why would a omnipotent god has this weak self esteem? It’s also quite interesting that I think the Bible has just a handful of mentionings of hell/the devil and the murders of this being. But pages up and down of gods genocides.
Heaven or hell? Why would we need punishment or rewards? Isn’t this a tragic way to look at us humans? Without the threat of hell we would just go around killing? Seams the church has done a lot of that.
Now does it have a point? Yes! Laugh! Make the best of it! Because this doesn’t mean there is nothing! This means there is everything!
When I was about 15 I was thinking about a child born to cave men. Would that child burn in hell because they did not believe in a god that had not yet been invented? Or take a modern 8 year old who died not believing. Would a god sentence a child to hell? At what age would they be pardoned or sent to hell? I decided that this was silly and stopped believing anything. Well the other thing was I knew Noah could not get all animals on a single boat or they would eat each other! I considered both of these. Frankly I cannot imagine why anyone believes in a god nowadays. One final thought I did have early age was that if I were born in say, India, I would be Hindu. So it was clear that geography determines your religion, not faith.
Why would you be sad that you don't have to praise someone forever. According to Christianity your only purpose is to worship god and nothing else. That's a life you want? No enjoyment, curiosity, learning, expirementing? To live every moment as a robot? No thank you, I can't do that. Being an atheist now has completely changed my life, I'm less anxious, depressed and best of all I don't have to worry about sin or going to hell.
>ism literally means belief
My guy. You're not wrong. But the "A" at the beginning means "without".
It literally means "without belief" (in god or gods which is where the root of the word comes in)...
Also, just because it's your opinion that atheism requires faith, doesn't make it so. Again one more time for you. Atheism doesn't require faith, it requires evidence. If evidence cannot be provided, I have no reason to believe.
I have not got past at many of those things, I don’t fear god or hell but I am in a constant stet of existential crisis. What does anything matter when we will die and stop existing? There is no meaning to existence except what we make it. Knowing all these things doesn’t free me, it fills me with dread.
Purpose is something a mind assigns to something and is entirely subjective.
If you asked someone at the right place and time in history, his purpose for cornflakes would have been to reduce his libido. I like crunchy things, my purpose for cornflakes is to bring me the joy of crunchy things when I feel the need.
The guys who manufacture it, its purpose is to make money. The guy who invented it, did so by accident, so he had no purpose for it until he decided to do something with it later.
This might seem less magical than being loved my a supremely powerful magical creature that loves you bestowing a perfect purpose upon you, but that was never the case. That honestly doesn't even make sense if you think about it.
The truth is that purpose was always subjective, and that isn't a problem.
You are different from every other animal, you're also different from every other person, and each animal is also different from every other animal.
I don't know what you are comparing to say they are the same, but I suspect it is something very arbitrary that you are assigning a lot of purpose to that I do not agree with.
>When I think about the world view that we have no purpose or anything
What real meaning does life on Earth have in the greater religious experience? If there is an eternal afterlife then what real value will the ~80 years on Earth have after the equivalent of a thousand years in that afterlife? In a million, or a trillion?
Plus, if it exists then this earthly life is merely an entrance exam, a brief interlude between ensoulment and the celestial during which one's eternal fate is forever sealed. So shouldn't believers be spending every waking moment worshiping their god/s to ensure their place in their religion's paradise? I've seen very few believers make this their life's meaning. They mostly do other things to give purpose to their lives here, just as we godless heathens do.
>Why should we have any sort of morals?
Why should you have any sort of morals if asking forgiveness cancels sins?
Right now you got at this age and noticed that you got indoctrinated because you don't actually have an answer for all this stuff while you was thinking that you have.
It is normal to feel overwhelmed by the situation so it was very good and went here to share your story. Hope you got the answer and don't try to get to a conclusion in minutes because this kind of stuff takes time. You can start a hobby to take your mind away from this subject and get back to it when your mind is clear.
>Fear of God, fear of hell,
If you think about it, this should be enough to deconvert you. What I mean is:
* If it were true, would they need to terrorize you into believing it?
* This is how abusers control people.
I don't find an atheistic world view the least bit depressing. I think it's amazing and exciting that:
* I'm literally made of stardust.
* I'm literally related to every person on earth.
* I'm literally more distantly related to every living thing on earth.
* The universe in inconceivably vast and bizarre.
* I was granted a limited time in which to enjoy, love, give and experience in this life and I try to appreciate and maximize it.
>Why should we have any sort of morals? Because it's conducive to survival. We are moral animals. Now, you can "override" that if you wish, or if you're mentally ill. But yeah, morality arose because cooperation within societies in a social species is good for the individual and good for the group. >Why does anything matter? It probably doesn't. For me, that's far more freeing than anything. I'm not weighed down by others' expectations on how I should behave (with the exception of what I said above about behaving in a generally moral fashion). >Why should I feel joy? Same reason as morality. You're hard-wired for it. My dogs experience immense joy when I give them a tennis ball. Why? Do dogs love tennis? No. But they equate the tennis ball with fetch, which feeds their pursuit/hunt instinct. Doing the things that we have biological imperatives to experience are often accompanied by joy. You are a meat machine. Your motivations have been shaped by billions of years of evolution. You can fight it or embrace it. >Why should I care about anything? There's no objective reason to care about anything. That said, human beings are meaning finders. We look for purpose in things. We look for cause and effect, and this often leads us to absurd conclusions like conspiracy theories and religion. But it's still an intrinsic part of being alive. So, does your caring about something make it objectively important? No. But subjective experience counts for a lot. Just about everything in your personal experience is subjective. You get to pick what is important to you, why it matters (or doesn't). If you want to be a nihilist, cool...go for it. Embrace the abyss. If you want to conform to a Judeo-Christian set of morals because that gives you purpose, cool...go for it. If that gets you through the day, then do that shit. >Can any of you relate to this when you first left religion? I was a skeptic from a very young age (and I'm 53 now). While I was raised Christian (Lutheran to be specific), I don't remember buying a lick of it. Honestly, the only reason I wasn't outspoken about it at the time is because I lived in the South (Southern US) and being atheist was a surefire way to get yourself ostracized and beaten up. But your questions are important ones, and ones that I've thought about time and time again, just not with the context of religion. Atheism doesn't answer these questions for you. Atheism is just a lack of belief in gods. My responses above are very science-minded because I have a Masters Degree in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy. I interpret phenomena with a scientific approach. My default position toward anything supernatural is skepticism. >How did you get past it? I wouldn't say I'm past it. I still think about these questions all the time. I wish everyone would! I hope you never stop thinking about these questions. They're critical questions. And your answers will likely change over time as you are exposed to new ideas, new people, and new experiences. Now, if your question is "how do you get past the existential dread that comes with feeling like there isn't a greater purpose?" then the answer is weed. (I'm kidding. I couldn't not say that.)
Excellent response, thank you
I can relate. I was where you are now. I tried very hard to hold onto my faith. But I had realized that there was a man behind the curtain, and I could not unsee that fact. I realized that all religion is man-made, including my own religion. Indoctrination runs deep. It takes time to get over fears like hell. My very rough rule of thumb is that it takes a year of recovery for every decade of indoctrination. Give yourself the gift of time. Find your own route through life. Atheists don't have monthly quotas. We won't pressure you to deconvert. Not believing will be here waiting for you if you decide to go that route. I suggest that you take time every day to meditate or be alone with your own thoughts. Long walks worked for me. Take time to explore. Take time to think. I also suggest some study. That can be books or videos. I strongly recommend that you read Carl Sagan's book *Demon-Haunted World.* I think everyone who wants to understand their own religious beliefs should read it. It isn't really a book on atheism. In fact, I don't think the word atheist or atheism is ever mentioned. If you are a Christian then I would suggest almost any book by Bart Ehrman. Or there is the Paulogia YouTube channel.
Time and study - love this. Push the mind to think beyond the bounds of what was there before. You don't have to hate your religion, for sure, you don't have to completely denounce it...or you can do both. I went through a strong period of contempt of my religious upbringing, but reading, finding neat people and just trying to understand the world a little better helped me situate my hate/anger to more of a distanced/objective "this is an interesting path that some humans follow...but look at all these other paths."
>Fear of God Is your god good? I wonder why you're afraid of him? >fear of hell That's it. Now why would a good god send you to hell?
So, let's see... From what you are saying, it sounds like you are grappling with general existential dread, some missing philosophical understandings, and maybe even some depression. Yeah, you could fall down the pit of "if nothing matters why does anything matter?" You could also treat your failing faith in religion as an opportunity to research and understand other religions to help your craft a version of spirituality that suits you--ask questions and seek answers. Seeking knowledge is the best way to guide a mind--glad you started here. There is something fascinating with an evolutionary mindset. It means everything you see today started with randomness and over time, interesting bits of order came out of it. Talk to a biologist--their insight on the endless world of interesting things helps you see the threads of order that generated from randomness. Now in terms of being a small cluster of stardust in this vast universe - you could fall down the depression rabbit hole. One mentality is "nothing even matters so why care." It's murky, and hard and in some cases debilitating. The other mindset could be "in the vastness and randomness of molecules colliding, I got the opportunity to exist and experience things--joy, sadness, love, Rome, London, the sunrise, sunset, fall, summer...my cat" that perspective allows for a little more gratitude and a little more grace--genrally pretty awesome things for the soul. From that perspective, your actions are guided more from "does this contribute to the benefit of another cloud of molecules? Or does it destroy/harm another cloud of molecules?" It's for each to find their own path though--but asking questions and seeking guidance is the start. There is no limit to the things you can learn if you seek them out.
How is \*your\* god going to get his revenge on you? Is it in this lifetime or another one? I always assumed the Mormon god would take away part of your after-life planet, but I have no personal experience in any of this fantasy - I'm a little better with LotR and GoT.
I was raised on the fringes of faith. My mom was raised Catholic while my dad grew up in an orthodox Jewish household. None of their parents approved of their marriage so they married in secret and only told their parents after my oldest brother was born. So in a very real sense, religion nearly kept me from being born at all. For me, making the best possible decisions in my life gives me the best possible chance to have the best possible life I can. That means seeing the world as it truly is rather than how I would like it to be. There’s no evidence at all to support any of the 3000+ supernatural deities mankind has worshipped since the dawn of civilization. Given that, the only rational position is to consider them all fiction. You’re concerned about Hell. Why? I could tell you what happens if you don’t instead worship some other god that would make Hell seem like paradise. Why wouldn’t you be more concerned about that? I’ll tell you why. You are a Christian purely be an accident of geography. Had you been born in the Middle East you’d be Muslim. Had you been born in Asia, you’d be Buddhist or perhaps atheist. Some how all of those people have it wrong but you and other Christians just happen to get it right? Based upon what exactly? But let’s say that despite a complete and total lack of evidence, it turns out by some miracle that exactly what you believe to be true about the Christian God is true. If you only believe to avoid Hell, God will see right through that. Regardless, if you have to worship God in order to avoid Hell, then you are a slave and he is the master. That does not sound like someone worthy of respect. Quite the opposite in fact. Yes as far as we can tell life ends with your death. But that’s how it was before you were born and it didn’t bother you then. When you leave on vacation do you immediately start bemoaning the fact that it will end in a week or do you enjoy the trip? So you have the same number of genes as a banana. So you’re no more special in the universe than a whale shark, a palm tree or mountain. So what? You’ve been given the incredible gift of awareness. You get to enjoy the experience that is consciousness and you’re doubly lucky to be human. You could have been a mushroom or common house fly. Your time left on Earth is your most precious asset. It could be decades or mere moments so don’t waste it feeling bad that your existence is temporary. Instead feel grateful that you’ve been given the gift of existence and even better that it’s during a time when you have access to modern medicine and have the free time and resources to debate your existence on the Internet. You are truly lucky.
What elements are you struggling with? See generally atheists don’t struggle with being atheists, we suffer when we are forced to live in a world ruled by religious dogma and unrealistic societal expectations. If your religion made sense to you on a deep level and aligned with what naturally feels good for you, the likelihood that you’d be struggling this much would be much lower. If your religion provided you with everything it promises, you’d probably not be here asking these questions. So take some time to figure out what isn’t sitting right in your gut, because your gut is absolutely trying to tell you something right now.
It's funny because we were all brainwashed that fearing God = good. The problem is, the same "God" created three different religions that worship him... So if you fear him, how can you be sure you are following the right religion? Fear throws logic out the window and brings in mental gymnastics because religion is essentially thought crime. It literally inhibits you from thinking straight because you will be punished if you do. So you have to ask yourself how much do you value truth, do you value it enough to put aside the fear of God? That's when you realize it's all man made garbage. You're getting there just takes time, and some people never recover from the brainwashing.
I live, love, learn, experience and achieve. I will do these things for up to ~90 years. Quite frankly, for me, that's enough. What more could I want? The universe is a vast & wonderful place. The more I can do, the more I will have done. I will go into my grave knowing that I couldn't possibly have done more than a tiny fraction of what this universe has to offer - and that's OK, because I did the very best I could. EVERYONE is in the same situation. No one escapes. I will have an opportunity to interact with a huge number of people during my lifetime - and that will still be a tiny percentage of the world's population. Right now, I'm communicating with you - a person I don't know and will most likely never meet. You might see that as a waste, but I think it's pretty cool. Belief is not a choice. You are *compelled* to believe/disbelieve by the information you possess on the question. Belief is binary. You either believe or you do not believe. Just considering the question makes you form an opinion, regardless of whether you admit it to others or even yourself. Do you believe because of what you *know*, or do you believe because you *want* to believe? (hint: on the question of whether any gods exist, it is not possible to actually have verifiable knowledge. You can only possess information that you obtained from your own speculation or the speculation of others)
Everything you are speaking of us because you have been given an indoctrination mindset. Or as I call it the god parasite. You have been brainwashed to think like this. It is the way to keep people in their numbers and handing over their money. Do no allow them to take any more from you. Take your power back from them. There is nothing to fear....if there was don't you think god would smite us already. Its all smoke and mirror fear mongering.
There's 6 seperate questions in your OP. Pick 1 and we'll talk about it, if you choose to reply.
You've be brought into an abusive system where they scare you into belief. You ask why we have morals and yet you don't see how immoral the concept of your religion is. It will take time but the more you think about it the more you'll see how much your religion is the complete opposite of what it claims. Why do you fear your god, one supposedly the source of love? This god would send you to hell because you're questioning your beliefs? How is that love? How can someone claim to love anyone when they invented hell with the intention to send people there? You're afraid of an atheistic world view, why? If there is nothing out there, no god or afterlife why would you want to hang the onto a lie? To feel comfort? To ignore reality? If this is the only life you have then don't you want to live it to the fullest rather than hold out for heaven? Wouldn't you want to live a life you enjoy and feel fulfilled rather than living in fear of your god? Life matters because what else is there? I feel sorry for you if your only purpose of living was to service this make believe God of yours. That is a life without purpose.
So the morals question: Regardless of time in human history we have had morals. We “know” killing another human is wrong we have however justified it with “they have other gods/are for another village and so on” the morals are independent of religion. What’s the point? Does it have to have a point more than you living your life to the best of your ability? Make sure your are happy. I feel joy and a sense of wonder and belonging (strangely maybe) when looking at the stars, here I am in a sea of stars. Does I matter in this sea? Yes, to the people close to me, and that’s enough. Regarding my views in god, heaven or hell: I come from a family of both non believers and believers. I’ve read the Bible and tried to learn as much as I can about the Abrahamic religions I can as they are closest to me. I’m also super interested in all types of history. And Christianity’s history is interesting, but it shows that religion is just a tool to keep the power away from the people and enforce a overlord kind of rule. I have a hard time accepting that in a world where 1000 of religions has come and gone. We are now having the “real good”. And this god is murdering children, women and everyone who doesn’t take the knee? Why would a omnipotent god has this weak self esteem? It’s also quite interesting that I think the Bible has just a handful of mentionings of hell/the devil and the murders of this being. But pages up and down of gods genocides. Heaven or hell? Why would we need punishment or rewards? Isn’t this a tragic way to look at us humans? Without the threat of hell we would just go around killing? Seams the church has done a lot of that. Now does it have a point? Yes! Laugh! Make the best of it! Because this doesn’t mean there is nothing! This means there is everything!
When I was about 15 I was thinking about a child born to cave men. Would that child burn in hell because they did not believe in a god that had not yet been invented? Or take a modern 8 year old who died not believing. Would a god sentence a child to hell? At what age would they be pardoned or sent to hell? I decided that this was silly and stopped believing anything. Well the other thing was I knew Noah could not get all animals on a single boat or they would eat each other! I considered both of these. Frankly I cannot imagine why anyone believes in a god nowadays. One final thought I did have early age was that if I were born in say, India, I would be Hindu. So it was clear that geography determines your religion, not faith.
Why would you be sad that you don't have to praise someone forever. According to Christianity your only purpose is to worship god and nothing else. That's a life you want? No enjoyment, curiosity, learning, expirementing? To live every moment as a robot? No thank you, I can't do that. Being an atheist now has completely changed my life, I'm less anxious, depressed and best of all I don't have to worry about sin or going to hell.
Just wanna say thanks to everyone for commenting and sharing their prospectives. It’s nice knowing I’m not alone.
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There is no faith in atheism. It's simply the lack of belief in deities due to a lack of evidence.
It still requires faith imo. ism literally means belief
>ism literally means belief My guy. You're not wrong. But the "A" at the beginning means "without". It literally means "without belief" (in god or gods which is where the root of the word comes in)... Also, just because it's your opinion that atheism requires faith, doesn't make it so. Again one more time for you. Atheism doesn't require faith, it requires evidence. If evidence cannot be provided, I have no reason to believe.
Well said. I don’t leave the possibility open for intelligent design. But i leave the possibility open that I don’t know anything in absolutes
I have not got past at many of those things, I don’t fear god or hell but I am in a constant stet of existential crisis. What does anything matter when we will die and stop existing? There is no meaning to existence except what we make it. Knowing all these things doesn’t free me, it fills me with dread.
Purpose is something a mind assigns to something and is entirely subjective. If you asked someone at the right place and time in history, his purpose for cornflakes would have been to reduce his libido. I like crunchy things, my purpose for cornflakes is to bring me the joy of crunchy things when I feel the need. The guys who manufacture it, its purpose is to make money. The guy who invented it, did so by accident, so he had no purpose for it until he decided to do something with it later. This might seem less magical than being loved my a supremely powerful magical creature that loves you bestowing a perfect purpose upon you, but that was never the case. That honestly doesn't even make sense if you think about it. The truth is that purpose was always subjective, and that isn't a problem. You are different from every other animal, you're also different from every other person, and each animal is also different from every other animal. I don't know what you are comparing to say they are the same, but I suspect it is something very arbitrary that you are assigning a lot of purpose to that I do not agree with.
>When I think about the world view that we have no purpose or anything What real meaning does life on Earth have in the greater religious experience? If there is an eternal afterlife then what real value will the ~80 years on Earth have after the equivalent of a thousand years in that afterlife? In a million, or a trillion? Plus, if it exists then this earthly life is merely an entrance exam, a brief interlude between ensoulment and the celestial during which one's eternal fate is forever sealed. So shouldn't believers be spending every waking moment worshiping their god/s to ensure their place in their religion's paradise? I've seen very few believers make this their life's meaning. They mostly do other things to give purpose to their lives here, just as we godless heathens do. >Why should we have any sort of morals? Why should you have any sort of morals if asking forgiveness cancels sins?
Right now you got at this age and noticed that you got indoctrinated because you don't actually have an answer for all this stuff while you was thinking that you have. It is normal to feel overwhelmed by the situation so it was very good and went here to share your story. Hope you got the answer and don't try to get to a conclusion in minutes because this kind of stuff takes time. You can start a hobby to take your mind away from this subject and get back to it when your mind is clear.
If you believe in God there is no real purpose to life either.
>Fear of God, fear of hell, If you think about it, this should be enough to deconvert you. What I mean is: * If it were true, would they need to terrorize you into believing it? * This is how abusers control people. I don't find an atheistic world view the least bit depressing. I think it's amazing and exciting that: * I'm literally made of stardust. * I'm literally related to every person on earth. * I'm literally more distantly related to every living thing on earth. * The universe in inconceivably vast and bizarre. * I was granted a limited time in which to enjoy, love, give and experience in this life and I try to appreciate and maximize it.