How do you deal with life now that you are an atheist? (With a little of my life)

[bennyboy]

Some people say "Goddidit" and stop there on the surface.

Others (like myself) want to know exactly how God did it and pour through the sciences and religions both ancient and modern to collect the proper amount of data to apply to such a vast question and depth of process.

I've got $10 and a phone number that says a couple hits of LSD can achieve results much like yours. But tell us about this in-depth research you've done, this "data" you've collected and applied to "such a vast question and depth of process." You know, I've been riding you pretty hard these days, but if you can support your gobbledygook with anything other than more gobbledygook, I will be the first to eat my words and give you the credit you deserve.

I'm guessing most of your knowledge involves misapplications of physics and philosophy, combined with neat geometrical patterns. Amirite or amirite?

[Cyberman]

Far from traumatizing, oh triggered one and regardless, I will smile at death....will you?

Personally speaking, I am going to laugh at it. And there are a select few whose deaths I will cheer.

[Edwardo Piet]

I've always been an atheist so I deal with my life exactly the same as always: By having fun, chilling out and enjoying people who enjoy me back.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Personally I think people can only support that seductive sense of the human condition in a godless universe for so long. Eventually the reductive view of Man prevails leaving atheists with the bleak conviction that human beings are electro-chemical reactions advanced by chance and necessity. We are only physical and purely physical things aren’t about anything; they just are. That perspective is literally dehumanizing because it dismisses as illusions the very things that make us human, such as rationality, signification, choice, and personal identity.

I certainly don't feel that way. My atheism has managed thirty-five years without lurching towards this projective description.

I could just as easily say that those faithful who feel the need to discuss their faith publicly are desperately trying to shore up their sagging faith, which is collapsing under the weight of secret doubts.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's the elephant in the room, isn't it?  When people describe the moral/ethical/philosophical destitution of the atheist position they are doing one of two things.

-Lying about having ever been an atheist to grind a common theist's axe......
or
-Mis-attributing their own depressive personalities effect as a consequence of atheism, somehow, in direct opposition to there being, well -none of that- in my lifelong atheists experience.

Perhaps they should at least entertain the notion that something is "wrong" with -them-...before they babble endlessly about there being something wrong with atheism?  That's probably too much introspection and critical assessment to ask from a person who believes that the entire universe was created for them...and only has meaning in the context of their own personal comfort-seeking fantasies, though..isn't it?

[LostLocke]

That perspective is literally dehumanizing because it dismisses as illusions the very things that make us human, such as rationality, signification, choice, and personal identity.

I don't know what 'signification' is, but rationality, choice, and personal identity are not unique to humans. So we're already "dehumanized" by that standard.

[RozKek]

Personally I think people can only support that seductive sense of the human condition in a godless universe for so long. Eventually the reductive view of Man prevails leaving atheists with the bleak conviction that human beings are electro-chemical reactions advanced by chance and necessity. We are only physical and purely physical things aren’t about anything; they just are. That perspective is literally dehumanizing because it dismisses as illusions the very things that make us human, such as rationality, signification, choice, and personal identity.

As I see it, hope is not about clinging to comforting illusions; but the choice to leave open the possibility that human beings are more than we think they are. It is about taking the existential stance that our capacity for reason reflects something fundamental about the universe (not a convenient instinct) and that experience can access facts about reality (a relation versus alienation). These are two ideas that lead me away from atheism although I did not realize so at first.

I cry myself to sleep with my atomic tears every night because I am merely electro-chemical reactions, such depress, much wow :'(

[Chad32]

Life is the same as it always was. Except now I have more money to spend, and more free time on Sundays, because I don't go to church. Any time I tried reaching out to Jesus, I never seemed to be anything in return, and I was never much into interpreting events as coming from god. Not much of a personal relationship going on, when I have to rely on a book or other people to find out what Jesus wants me to do with my life.

[The Grand Nudger]

You mean your significant others don't limit themselves exclusively to passing you notes in novel form by means of a narrative structure belonging to a dead culture ?  Well then how are you supposed to form a deep and meaningful relationship with them?  

[Arkilogue]

Some people say "Goddidit" and stop there on the surface.

Others (like myself) want to know exactly how God did it and pour through the sciences and religions both ancient and modern to collect the proper amount of data to apply to such a vast question and depth of process.

I've got $10 and a phone number that says a couple hits of LSD can achieve results much like yours.  But tell us about this in-depth research you've done, this "data" you've collected and applied to "such a vast question and depth of process."  You know, I've been riding you pretty hard these days, but if you can support your gobbledygook with anything other than more gobbledygook, I will be the first to eat my words and give you the credit you deserve.

I'm guessing most of your knowledge involves misapplications of physics and philosophy, combined with neat geometrical patterns.  Amirite or amirite?

Here's the thing, if you're not interested in anything ancient religions or sciences have to say, you'll have no past data or context to compare with a modern description of God and the process by which God pro-creates a universe.

Starting state before creation:

The Nu of the Egyptian mythos is an infinite primordial watery abyss
The Chaos of Greece is an undifferentiated watery abyss.
Tiamat of Mesopotamia was a primordial ocean goddess who was split in two to make heaven and earth
The Brahman of Hinduism is compared to an infinite ocean without beginning or end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_materia
The concept of prima materia is sometimes attributed to Aristotle.[2] The earliest roots of the idea can be found in the philosophy of Anaxagoras,....They have compared the "prima materia" to everything, to male and female, to the hermaphroditic monster, to heaven and earth, to body and spirit, chaos, microcosm, and the confused mass; it contains in itself all colors and potentially all metals; there is nothing more wonderful in the world, for it begets itself, conceives itself, and gives birth to itself.[6]

Comparisons have been made to Hyle, the primal fire, Proteus, Light, and Mercury.[7] Martin Ruland the Younger lists more than fifty synonyms for the prima materia in his 1612 alchemical dictionary. His text includes justifications for the names and comparisons. He repeats that, the philosophers have so greatly admired the Creature of God which is called the Primal Matter, especially concerning its efficacy and mystery, that they have given to it many names, and almost every possible description, for they have not known how to sufficiently praise it.[8] Waite lists an additional eighty four names.


Of course in reality the primordial substance would be quark matter, trillions of times denser and hotter than atomic matter, an all consuming fire. The unified state of all elements and forces. It is also a Fermi Liquid and excludes magnetic fields. Obviously light cannot pass through it and no image can be made of it (try drawing absolute solidity with no external border/membrane...it's impossible). Only when you open this substance can light appear or travel.

But since we cannot work directly with quark matter, can regular water be used to model the opening of a vacuum state universe? Anything to "the spirit of god hovered over the waters" and "let there be light"? This theme is also prevalent in ancient religions prior to Christianity.

Let's go to the lab!










Acoustic cavitation of water creates a void/vacuum bubble and light.


Everything understandable so far?