Atheist support, discussion, and information sharing thread

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Jar

I didn't mean it to be rude. I just mean that anyone that doesn't think there's more is out of tune. Just my opinion

I wasn't going to respond, but then you came back in and said it again. So here is my opinion...

It doesn't matter if you meant to be rude, you were rude. I am one of the more outspoken non-theists on the board. I have been accused of being just like a fundamentalist just because I steadfastly refuse to pretend that there's one set of rules for dealing with the physical world and there's another set of rules for dealing with the 'spiritual world' that somehow is able to effect change in the physical world in a detectable fashion--as long as the means of that detection are not scientific. Now, it may be the case that I am wrong and there's one or more gods or everyone gets two or more lives or the Universe is the result of this or that divine being with this or that egg or what-have-you. I fully admit that I *might* be wrong.

However, when I look out at the Universe, when I contemplate the thirty-seven orders of magnitude we have access to from sub-atomic particles at one end to the large structure of the Universe at the other, I see something just as beautiful and probably quite a bit more terrifying than you may. I see a universe that at the finest scale plays merry havoc with all our intuitions about how matter and space and time 'should' work. Yet, our description of the universe at the sub-atomic scale, while incomplete, appears to work pretty well, pretty much of the time. The universe at the scale of the very small is sublimely beautiful. On the other scale, that of galaxies and superclusters of galaxies, of solar systems and the very 'beginning' and 'end' of the Universe, I see a landscape of incredible majesty, phenomenal energies, and deep, deep mysteries. I also find monsters. The kinds of things that will keep you up at night. Black holes are monsters. A black hole appearing in our neighborhood would visit unimaginable catastrophe on our planet. Yet, that is not even the most terrifying of the horrors. A few hundred light years from us, there's a star system which rotates on its axis in such a manner that one of its poles is pointed right at our planet. This star is MASSIVE and is a prime candidate to die in such a way that it could become a gamma ray burst. From so far away that it will take the light a century to get here, that star, if it blows up in the manner that stars of its size tend to do, could wipe out at least half the life on this planet--depending upon how long the burst lasts. And then, closer to home, somewhere on a very eccentric orbit there is likely a very big rock with our planet's name on it. The last time something really big hit the planet, it made the Yucatan get its unique shape and likely took down the dinosaurs.

And of all the potential ways our species could shuffle off our mortal coil, we can do something about *one* of them--the rock. There's no divine being that will make the star not die in such a way as to make a gamma ray burst. Either it will (or already has) or it won't. In my world, death is death. If you are the one left behind, you have to find the inner fortitude to go on missing someone you loved. If you are the one leaving, you have to find the courage to come to grips with your non-existence. It adds urgency to my life, makes it *vitally* important how I live. Because life is done in one shot, one take, in real time, in front of a live and participating audience who all are being imperfect humans as well. If it didn't have poetry and dogs, good food, art, music, cats, sex, beer, coffee, pot, writing and storms it would be a whole lot less enjoyable. As it is, it's a good life. I don't feel like I'm missing much of anything and I've been a believer--in both the Christian and New Age senses. I know what it feels like.

I'm a better person without spirituality or religion. I live my life more presently. My only reward for being any kind of decent human being is that I get to be some kind of decent human being. I think that is a rich and wonderful life and while I am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, I recognize that I will. I don't like that, but no one ever does.

You may think we're out of tune but I prefer to think of it like this; my job is to accept the Universe on its terms, not try to make it conform to my terms. That doesn't mean I don't work for change. Because the universe is impersonal any justice, any love, any kindness or any mercy that exists in the universe will have to come from us or some other sentient species. That makes working for those things all the more important because if we fall down on it, for all we know that quality is diminished in the universe.

I don't know what you think I'm missing out on just because I don't expect the universe to conform to my own ambitions or my own desires. I don't think I'm missing much at all.

Cheers
Aj

ps. You get to have your opinion. I get to have an opinion *about* your opinion.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I'm a better person without spirituality or religion. I live my life more presently. My only reward for being any kind of decent human being is that I get to be some kind of decent human being. I think that is a rich and wonderful life and while I am in no hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil, I recognize that I will. I don't like that, but no one ever does.

You may think we're out of tune but I prefer to think of it like this; my job is to accept the Universe on its terms, not try to make it conform to my terms. That doesn't mean I don't work for change. Because the universe is impersonal any justice, any love, any kindness or any mercy that exists in the universe will have to come from us or some other sentient species. That makes working for those things all the more important because if we fall down on it, for all we know that quality is diminished in the universe.

I don't know what you think I'm missing out on just because I don't expect the universe to conform to my own ambitions or my own desires. I don't think I'm missing much at all.

Cheers
Aj

Yes, this exactly. Thank you for saying it so beautifully Aj.

In a different thread, someone (other than Jar) posted that a life without belief in God basically had no meaning. Frankly, I got pissed.

I hear this a lot. And yes, a life without belief in God is still a life abundant with meaning...and values and love and joy and sadness and all the rest of it.
When Scoote and I were in the Bahamas on her award trip, her company did a day of volunteer work and guests (like my son, her son and myself) were invited to join in. We painted, landscaped, built bicycles for kids....lots of good stuff. We brought joy to a lot of people (including those of us who were doing the work ).

I know that many, including the founder of the company, included their belief in God in that experience and verbalized that. I'm fine with that. I'll even bow my head while you pray, out of respect for your beliefs. However, the experience was not any less touching or meaningful for those of us who participated simply because we were making the world a better place for some folks living on it who had less than we did, and who could use a hand.

What's frequently also implied is that somehow atheists are worse or less moral people than those who believe in God. It frustrates me....because not all of those who say they believe live a life that would meet my moral standards, let alone those that are espoused in the new testament of the Christian Bible. (And yes, I know that not all those that are believers are Christians....that's only an example.)

At the end of the day, I don't judge those who do believe in God. And I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

[Slater]

Originally Posted by JustJo

In a different thread, someone (other than Jar) posted that a life without belief in God basically had no meaning. Frankly, I got pissed.

I heard an argument made that a belief in God (at least in the Christian style) renders life meaningless. What happens here isn't really important, what truely matters is what comes next.

I don't entirely believe that argument but it makes an interesting point. I think it's one of the things that has always bothered me about most religions. I believe, regardless of whether or not there is a "next", while we are here then here is all that matters. If there is anything beyond here, it will attend to itself when the time comes. I cannot accept that life is nothing more than the drudgery we have to endure to earn a reward in some afterlife.