The JW's knocked on my door last week and gave the usual "Do you worry about the future?" fearmongering introduction that has been their thing ever since I can remember, but now that I'm older and entering senior citizenship it hit differently. They always seem to like playing about people's fears, but I guess what religion doesn't?

Of course I worry about the future, just like a lot of people, but it made me ponder more about how others deal with the issue of a bleak future. Only people with their head firmly buried seem to think there's no problems ahead. Even many religious folk aren't too hopeful, but at least they have the belief that the afterlife will be better than this.

So, it got me thinking "What do Atheists have?". As the world turns to shit and the future looks bleak everywhere you look with bad news and more bad news every day, what still moves you forward?

I actually think an afterlife would be a WORSE fate than just decomposing after death. The idea of heaven just never appealed to me, no matter how glorious it may sound to others.

Thoughts?

The thing about hope is that it has always seemed a useless feeling if not also accompanied by action. Having a high degree of hope might personally make you feel better, but it doesn't do a world of good when others are actively destroying society with their conservative tyranny. In order to enact the kind of change that is needed in an ever adaptive society, one must be willing to be as bold in action as the villains are. They are dirty players, and cleaning up their mess means nothing if we're not also willing to retaliate with the same level of shadiness.

That's just my perspective.

How do I actually cope? With cognitive dissonance, putting the entire mess in the back of my mind because action is frankly too much for me to undertake. Unless you consider my writing as action, but who wants to read that drivel.

Which is why I am grateful for people like the CEO Shooter who take real action.

World have and will have many problems but I can't do shit about them so I simply don't care much, or not enough to get depressed over it at any rate. I of course have mine own issues but life's shit and then you die so while I'm worried about couple of things I accept suffering as a part of human condition and just soldier on, cause I have miles to go before I sleep.

About afterlife - I guess some people need security blanket of "eternal life" but I have no trouble with idea of non-existence. I didn't existed for milliards of years and it didn't bothered me.

I make the most of the time I have - more years behind me than ahead of me. The purpose of life is to live a good one.

But I don’t consider it ‘coping’. It is what it is. I do, however, take a certain amount of comfort in knowing that the constituent atoms that make me up will, after my death, become one with the universe - worms and microbes will consume me, and their excretions will form parts of other organisms, and so one. And it’s possible - even likely - that bits of me will be outgassed from this planet and wind up somewhere else. In a very real sense, we’re immortal.

Beats the hell out of harps and halos.

Boru

There probably isn't an afterlife, I mean logically there wouldn't be one (or a series of them, or whatever), but when your life isn't very good, you can't help but think about some other world/dimension in which you might get everything you ever wanted. It isn't the most realistic fantasy, but I mean, come on. Someone lives some shitty life that they hated living, dies, then just...nothing? No afterlife? No compensation for their suffering? Jesus man, that's fucking bleak.

(December 7, 2024 at 3:50 pm)Ahriman Wrote: There probably isn't an afterlife, I mean logically there wouldn't be one (or a series of them, or whatever), but when your life isn't very good, you can't help but think about some other world/dimension in which you might get everything you ever wanted. It isn't the most realistic fantasy, but I mean, come on. Someone lives some shitty life that they hated living, dies, then just...nothing? No afterlife? No compensation for their suffering? Jesus man, that's fucking bleak.

Thankfully it isn't the case, Just be a Christian and rape and murder as long as you want, Just accept Jesus and all is forgiven.


RAmen

(December 7, 2024 at 3:02 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I make the most of the time I have - more years behind me than ahead of me. The purpose of life is to live a good one.

But I don’t consider it ‘coping’. It is what it is. I do, however, take a certain amount of comfort in knowing that the constituent atoms that make me up will, after my death, become one with the universe - worms and microbes will consume me, and their excretions will form parts of other organisms, and so one. And it’s possible - even likely - that bits of me will be outgassed from this planet and wind up somewhere else. In a very real sense, we’re immortal.

Beats the hell out of harps and halos.

Boru

Interesting perspective, but unless you are buried organically, most people get buried in a box, cremated, etc., so in a way the religious ones following a ritual burial will be the ones who actually cease, while the organic ones, like yourself, will continue on, as you say a in form of immortality.

I guess you get the last laugh

(December 7, 2024 at 2:26 pm)Silver Wrote: The thing about hope is that it has always seemed a useless feeling if not also accompanied by action. Having a high degree of hope might personally make you feel better, but it doesn't do a world of good when others are actively destroying society with their conservative tyranny. In order to enact the kind of change that is needed in an ever adaptive society, one must be willing to be as bold in action as the villains are. They are dirty players, and cleaning up their mess means nothing if we're not also willing to retaliate with the same level of shadiness.

That's just my perspective.

How do I actually cope? With cognitive dissonance, putting the entire mess in the back of my mind because action is frankly too much for me to undertake. Unless you consider my writing as action, but who wants to read that drivel.

Which is why I am grateful for people like the CEO Shooter who take real action.

You're actually pleased that a family man with a wife and 2 kids was shot in the back on a public street? That he was targeted and executed? Fucking pathetic, why haven't you been suspended or banned from the forum? 

Also, can you define what conservative tyranny consists of?

(December 7, 2024 at 4:19 pm)MR. Macabre 666 Wrote:

(December 7, 2024 at 2:26 pm)Silver Wrote: The thing about hope is that it has always seemed a useless feeling if not also accompanied by action. Having a high degree of hope might personally make you feel better, but it doesn't do a world of good when others are actively destroying society with their conservative tyranny. In order to enact the kind of change that is needed in an ever adaptive society, one must be willing to be as bold in action as the villains are. They are dirty players, and cleaning up their mess means nothing if we're not also willing to retaliate with the same level of shadiness.

That's just my perspective.

How do I actually cope? With cognitive dissonance, putting the entire mess in the back of my mind because action is frankly too much for me to undertake. Unless you consider my writing as action, but who wants to read that drivel.

Which is why I am grateful for people like the CEO Shooter who take real action.

You're actually pleased that a family man with a wife and 2 kids was shot in the back on a public street? That he was targeted and executed? Fucking pathetic, why haven't you been suspended or banned from the forum? 

Also, can you define what conservative tyranny consists of?

Oh, no...someone has an opinion about me. How ever will I unclutch these pearls?

(December 7, 2024 at 4:19 pm)MR. Macabre 666 Wrote:

(December 7, 2024 at 2:26 pm)Silver Wrote: The thing about hope is that it has always seemed a useless feeling if not also accompanied by action. Having a high degree of hope might personally make you feel better, but it doesn't do a world of good when others are actively destroying society with their conservative tyranny. In order to enact the kind of change that is needed in an ever adaptive society, one must be willing to be as bold in action as the villains are. They are dirty players, and cleaning up their mess means nothing if we're not also willing to retaliate with the same level of shadiness.

That's just my perspective.

How do I actually cope? With cognitive dissonance, putting the entire mess in the back of my mind because action is frankly too much for me to undertake. Unless you consider my writing as action, but who wants to read that drivel.

Which is why I am grateful for people like the CEO Shooter who take real action.

You're actually pleased that a family man with a wife and 2 kids was shot in the back on a public street? That he was targeted and executed? Fucking pathetic, why haven't you been suspended or banned from the forum? 

Also, can you define what conservative tyranny consists of?

He hasn’t been suspended or banned because we don’t suspend or ban members who haven’t broken any rules. Suck it up, snowflake.

Boru