RE: How do you deal with life now that you are an atheist? (With a little of my life)
August 27, 2016 at 6:46 pm
@Whaterverist – believers should “settle in a secular society”? Secularism, properly understood, means willfully ignoring doctrinal differences between various religious and philosophical approaches to life to find the lowest common denominator. It is a tool to identify commonalities for the peaceful interaction of various perspectives for the purpose of politically unifying a nation.
Hopefully, I am not reading too much into a single phrase, but I got the sense that you meant something more. Hopefully you did not mean that a secular society is one that requires its citizens to justify their ethical systems without reference to the Divine or avoid groundings their theories of human rights in any transcendent values. It seems a bit authoritarian to privilege a materialist worldview and expect others to submit to its presuppositions. That would be like me suggesting that materialists will be tolerated so long as they do not question Christian doctrines. Again, hopefully, I am taking an innocent phrase wrongly.
@Those Who Kudo Rythym – Personally, I find it very closed-minded to think that the only two options that explain someone rejecting atheism are dishonesty or mental illness. Again this goes back to the pretense that atheists have a monopoly on logic and reason. I find it hard to believe that some of the AF members I respect would applaud this kind of intolerance.
@Thump – Perhaps I was not clear and if so that is my fault. When I write about my belief that atheism leads to nihilism, I am writing about the philosophical implications, like an absurd reality, and not the emotions associated with being an atheist. I did not mean to imply that despair is the only valid emotional response to a world without God. I hoped that relating my personal experience of atheism as often pleasantly romantic suggested as much. I meant that equating the human condition with the playing out of a complex electro-chemical reaction is a bleak intellectual position. Personally, I find such belief depressing. Apparently you find it a hopeful and empowering one. Even though that is an attitude I cannot conceive, I had no intention of invalidating your feelings or those of anyone else.
Hopefully, I am not reading too much into a single phrase, but I got the sense that you meant something more. Hopefully you did not mean that a secular society is one that requires its citizens to justify their ethical systems without reference to the Divine or avoid groundings their theories of human rights in any transcendent values. It seems a bit authoritarian to privilege a materialist worldview and expect others to submit to its presuppositions. That would be like me suggesting that materialists will be tolerated so long as they do not question Christian doctrines. Again, hopefully, I am taking an innocent phrase wrongly.
@Those Who Kudo Rythym – Personally, I find it very closed-minded to think that the only two options that explain someone rejecting atheism are dishonesty or mental illness. Again this goes back to the pretense that atheists have a monopoly on logic and reason. I find it hard to believe that some of the AF members I respect would applaud this kind of intolerance.
@Thump – Perhaps I was not clear and if so that is my fault. When I write about my belief that atheism leads to nihilism, I am writing about the philosophical implications, like an absurd reality, and not the emotions associated with being an atheist. I did not mean to imply that despair is the only valid emotional response to a world without God. I hoped that relating my personal experience of atheism as often pleasantly romantic suggested as much. I meant that equating the human condition with the playing out of a complex electro-chemical reaction is a bleak intellectual position. Personally, I find such belief depressing. Apparently you find it a hopeful and empowering one. Even though that is an attitude I cannot conceive, I had no intention of invalidating your feelings or those of anyone else.
