Zone1 Is Atheism Depressing?

[BreezeWood]

It is 100% correlated that atheism does not believe in a spiritual realm beyond the material existence.

what their belief in certainty is their disbelief for any theistic religion.

your insinuation they are obsessed w/ materialism is just your own peculiar fixation.

- what could be more materialistic than the 10000 pg christian bible - of forgeries and fallacies.

 

[ding]

your insinuation they are obsessed w/ materialism is just your own peculiar fixation.

- what could be more materialistic than the 10000 pg christian bible - of forgeries and fallacies.

I never said or implied atheists were obsessed with materialism. I said that materialism (i.e. believing that only the material exists) is an artifact of their belief. And it is the affirmative description of their belief. It's just logic.

 

[BreezeWood]

I never said or implied atheists were obsessed with materialism. I said that materialism (i.e. believing that only the material exists) is an artifact of their belief. And it is the affirmative description of their belief. It's just logic.

there are as many atheism's as there are religions. your texas preacher has been lying to you.

 

[ding]

there are as many atheism's as there are religions. your texas preacher has been lying to you.

And by definition every single one of them believes all there is is the material world. Why is this concept so difficult for you to grasp?

 

[BreezeWood]

And by definition every single one of them believes all there is is the material world. Why is this concept so difficult for you to grasp?

... your texas preacher has been lying to you.

wake up bing, they believe in the natural world like jesus - the desert has been dead since the 1st century hiding behind a 10000 pg bible in a texas basement isn't helping you - try a little sunlite.

 

[Thunderbird]

I think we can divide atheists into two groups:

Group 1: Intelligent and honest atheists
They feel the universe is a chaotic ugly absurd mess - cold black empty dead and indifferent to human hopes. Humans are merely bags of chemicals that happen to be good at survival. These atheists feel there is no afterlife. They deny the existence of freedom or consciousness or love or beauty or truth or joy or anything other than inert matter.

Group 2: Dumb or dishonest atheists
They try to PROMOTE atheism. They are worse than any TV evangelist. They claim atheism will solve all our problems, cure all our ills. They are often intolerant.
Examples: Karl Marx, who promised a workers’ paradise but delivered only dictatorship. Christopher Hitchens, whose jaded palate could only be excited by bombing those he disagreed with (especially impoverished and helpless Muslims). Karl Pearson, who endorsed eugenics.
Petulant adolescent male atheist boosters you encounter on the internet fall in this category.

 

[ding]

wake up bing, they believe in the natural world like jesus - the desert has been dead since the 1st century hiding behind a 10000 pg bible in a texas basement isn't helping you - try a little sunlite.

Thank you for proving ignorance is often insolent.

But no, they don't believe in the "natural" world like Jesus. Jesus said the flesh is of no avail. Atheists believe the flesh is all there is.

 

[BreezeWood]

Thank you for proving ignorance is often insolent.

But no, they don't believe in the "natural" world like Jesus. Jesus said the flesh is of no avail. Atheists believe the flesh is all there is.

you're off the deep end - of course they believe in the natural world, who doesn't ...

- there are as many atheism's as there are religions.

your sunday school teacher has been lying to you, jesus found no fault for the naturalists ...

doesn't matter in the heavens to believe in deity's or not - just try not sinning for even a day that's all that matters.

* and remember the 3rd - that's when the religious zealots got their asses kicked at gettysbury to turn the tied of their evil war they were then destined to lose. the heavens were ever so happy the triumph of those in blue.

 

[ding]

you're off the deep end - of course they believe in the natural world, who doesn't ...



your sunday school teacher has been lying to you, jesus found no fault for the naturalists ...

doesn't matter in the heavens to believe in deity's or not - just try not sinning for even a day that's all that matters.

* and remember the 3rd - that's when the religious zealots got their asses kicked at gettysbury to turn the tied of their evil war they were then destined to lose. the heavens were ever so happy the triumph of those in blue.

I think you are too dumb to follow what I am saying.

 

[ShahdagMountains]

OP …….


I don’t know. I’ve never been one.

 

[forkup]

Atheism and agnosticism are depressing.

I am NOT saying atheists are wrong because atheism is depressing.

I am only suggesting atheism is a bleak philosophy.

Some quotes:

“That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.” Bertrand Russell



“I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.” Thomas Huxley



“Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon its naive self-love. The first was when it realized that our earth was not the center of the universe, but only a tiny speck in a world-system of a magnitude hardly conceivable; this is associated in our minds with the name of Copernicus, although Alexandrian doctrines taught something very similar. The second was when biological research robbed man of his peculiar privilege of having been specially created, and relegated him to a descent from the animal world, implying an ineradicable animal nature in him: this transvaluation has been accomplished in our own time upon the instigation of Charles Darwin, Wallace, and their predecessors, and not without the most violent opposition from their contemporaries. But man's craving for grandiosity is now suffering the third and most bitter blow from present-day psychological research which is endeavoring to prove to the ego of each one of us that he is not even master in his own house, but that he must remain content with the veriest scraps of information about what is going on unconsciously in his own mind. We psycho-analysts were neither the first nor the only ones to propose to mankind that they should look inward; but it appears to be our lot to advocate it most insistently and to support it by empirical evidence which touches every man closely.” Sigmund Freud

I don't think trying to live your best life for your own sake is depressing at all. For one thing I don't have to worry about pleasing some deity, for what are often arbitrary reasons.

For another, I don't have to constantly ignore things I can test because they don't fit my belief.

My partner at work is Muslim. He has to get up with the sun to pray, and continue throughout the day. In summer that means he's obligated to be sleep deprived. At least that's how he looks at it.

A Christian, according to dogma, can flee responsibility for his actions throughout his entire life as long as he's really, really sorry at the end of it. I find that a depressing thought.

Etc.,etc.

I will die and become nothing more than atoms in space, true. But I'll be nothing so it doesn't bother me all that much.

 

[Thunderbird]

I don't think trying to live your best life for your own sake is depressing at all. For one thing I don't have to worry about pleasing some deity, for what are often arbitrary reasons.

For another, I don't have to constantly ignore things I can test because they don't fit my belief.

My partner at work is Muslim. He has to get up with the sun to pray, and continue throughout the day. In summer that means he's obligated to be sleep deprived. At least that's how he looks at it.

A Christian, according to dogma, can flee responsibility for his actions throughout his entire life as long as he's really, really sorry at the end of it. I find that a depressing thought.

Etc.,etc.

I will die and become nothing more than atoms in space, true. But I'll be nothing so it doesn't bother me all that much.

A theist can live for himself and mankind in general. God may want what’s best for individuals and mankind as a whole.

Wouldn’t an atheist have to constantly ignore things he can test because they don't fit his belief?

 

[forkup]

God may want what’s best for individuals and mankind as a whole.

What God are you referring too? If the Christian one.

I've read the bible. Looking at that book I'm sorry to tell you but I think a lot of it can be shown to be demonstrably bad for mankind.

Slavery, incest,rape. All condoned in some circumstances. Not to mention that the Almighty and benevolent God sure seems to be indifferent to a lot of needless suffering.

Wouldn’t an atheist have to constantly ignore things he can test because they don't fit his belief

Not at all. If I can test something conclusively and that test doesn't fit my belief the belief must change. That's part of the scientific method. Not to mention common sense.

Atheism doesn't mean the exclusion of a God hypothesis. It simply states that God has to be proven before I accept it as real. Real, testable, repeatable, verifiable proof.

 

[Mr Natural]

Either you believe or you don’t.

You can’t force yourself to believe.

 

[Thunderbird]

What God are you referring too? If the Christian one.

I've read the bible. Looking at that book I'm sorry to tell you but I think a lot of it can be shown to be demonstrably bad for mankind.

Slavery, incest,rape. All condoned in some circumstances. Not to mention that the Almighty and benevolent God sure seems to be indifferent to a lot of needless suffering.

Not at all. If I can test something conclusively and that test doesn't fit my belief the belief must change. That's part of the scientific method. Not to mention common sense.

Atheism doesn't mean the exclusion of a God hypothesis. It simply states that God has to be proven before I accept it as real. Real, testable, repeatable, verifiable proof.

The OT contains some primitive ideas about God, but the NT, which is primary for Christians, charges us to be kind to our neighbor.

This is informative:



To define atheism as “lack of belief in God” is absurd. By that definition those who THINK God is real is an atheist - which is silly.

Do you think God is real, yes or no?

What can you accept as real?

The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It

Elegant experiments with entangled light have laid bare a profound mystery at the heart of reality

www.scientificamerican.com

A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality

Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.

www.technologyreview.com

 

[forkup]

The OT contains some primitive ideas about God, but the NT, which is primary for Christians, charges us to be kind to our neighbor.

To define atheism as “lack of belief in God” is absurd. By that definition those who THINK God is real is an atheist - which is silly.

What can you accept as real?

The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It

Elegant experiments with entangled light have laid bare a profound mystery at the heart of reality

www.scientificamerican.com

The NT also says slavery is OK as long as you don't beat your slaves excessively. That's the problem with believing in "God", you end up tossing the bits you don't like and keep those you do like, backfilling your own (humanistic) morals to fit your concept of God.
atheist

I lack the belief in a God. Because I haven't seen anything to conclude god exists I think all concepts of God in organized religion are highly unlikely to be right because it's specific enough to be tested.

 

[Thunderbird]

The NT also says slavery is OK as long as you don't beat your slaves excessively. That's the problem with believing in "God", you end up tossing the bits you don't like and keep those you do like, backfilling your own (humanistic) morals to fit your concept of God.
atheist

I lack the belief in a God. Because I haven't seen anything to conclude god exists I think all concepts of God in organized religion are highly unlikely to be right because it's specific enough to be tested.

Jesus never said slavery is okay.

Does the New Testament Support Slavery?

For many people, Christian or not, the failure of the New Testament to directly condemn slavery is deeply troubling. So what does it actually say?

africa.thegospelcoalition.org

Secular philosophies are not entirely uplifting.

The Black Book of Communism — Harvard University Press

Already famous throughout Europe, this international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the actual, practical accomplishments of Communism around the world: terror, torture, famine, mass deportations, and massacres. Astonishing in the sheer detail it...

www.hup.harvard.edu

So you don’t know whether God exists. If objective reality does not exist (see links above) can anything be tested?

 

[Meriweather]

I don't think trying to live your best life for your own sake is depressing at all. For one thing I don't have to worry about pleasing some deity, for what are often arbitrary reasons.

You are on the right track...while missing the point. Life is a gift for us to use to our enjoyment and well-being. We are given simple guidance. Love God and love one another. (If God is beyond anyone's ken, then love goodness.) The Ten Commandments are directions and guidance on how to making one's way through life easier. Atheists are as religious as everyone else--and no different from anyone else.

 

[Meriweather]

Slavery, incest,rape. All condoned in some circumstances. Not to mention that the Almighty and benevolent God sure seems to be indifferent to a lot of needless suffering.

God is indifferent? Let's take a look at ourselves. How many people do we pass by each day, totally indifferent to the lives they are living? Start with driving to work. On the way home, how often is a stop made at a hospital, a nursing home, or to clean up a local park? Actually, when walking along a street, how often do we pause to pick up litter? It's been said that often when we look at another person and see something we don't like, it's the same trait we don't like about ourselves. Perhaps it is our own indifference that is bugging us.

 

[Meriweather]

Either you believe or you don’t.

You can’t force yourself to believe.

How would you respond if someone said, "Either you understand math or you don't. You can't force yourself to understand math...."