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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 5, 2018 at 9:44 pm
I'm unable to work, so I volunteer to do what I can. I help at an animal rehoming centre, talking to the public and spending time with the animals. I find that helping others is extremely rewarding and takes me out of my own head-space.
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 5, 2018 at 10:06 pm
Everything you liked and found comfort in before, is still available to you now.
You don't have to give up anything.
Eventually you will come to see that it wasn't the religious element that you liked ...
If you liked the music, that is still there. Art, literature, communities, meditation, .... everything.
It's still there and available ... just a different way of looking at it, and some of it in a different place. Some not. .
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell 
Militant Atheist Commie Evolutionist
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 5, 2018 at 10:34 pm
Also knowing that when I die I won't have to spend eternity worshipping the egotistical being from the bible or be barbequed for not doing it.
Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:
"You did WHAT? With WHO? WHERE???"
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 5, 2018 at 11:45 pm
(This post was last modified: November 6, 2018 at 12:01 am by Dragonfly.)
(November 5, 2018 at 10:06 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote: Everything you liked and found comfort in before, is still available to you now.
You don't have to give up anything.
Eventually you will come to see that it wasn't the religious element that you liked ...
If you liked the music, that is still there. Art, literature, communities, meditation, .... everything.
It's still there and available ... just a different way of looking at it, and some of it in a different place. Some not. .
I don't know about not having to give up anything. Having a 24/7 intervening Sky Daddy that I could call up (and did) throughout the day is pretty hard to beat. He's been my go-to for 50 years. It's the comforting parental figure I'm missing, knowing he's always there for no matter what I need. When I think of worst case scenarios--serious accident, serious diagnosis, loved ones dying--I'm wanting to know there's something I'll be able to lean on and cling to. I keep finding myself praying before remembering there's nothing to pray to, and then I just feel very empty and like I don't have enough resources. Even if he was never there, it was a coping mechanism I heavily relied on.
I said to the sun, tell me about the Big Bang.
The sun said, 'It hurts to become.'
~Andrea Gibson
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 5, 2018 at 11:58 pm
(This post was last modified: November 5, 2018 at 11:58 pm by Peebothuhlu.)
At work.
 Dragonfly
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 6, 2018 at 12:03 am
(November 5, 2018 at 7:52 pm)Macoleco Wrote: (November 5, 2018 at 6:22 pm)Dragonfly Wrote: So what are the techniques? This is what I don't have. Tools and techniques. I am very ungrounded.
What is your work? I do not have a life's work and definitely need a passion like that.
Do you have some sort of thing you want to create and share with people? It can be scientific or art related.
No burning desires, no.
I said to the sun, tell me about the Big Bang.
The sun said, 'It hurts to become.'
~Andrea Gibson
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 7, 2018 at 8:44 am
(November 5, 2018 at 11:18 am)purplepurpose Wrote: (November 5, 2018 at 10:10 am)Gwaithmir Wrote: Coffee. 
More than 2-3 cup is unhealthy. Two cups is usually my daily limit, but at my age I don't really give a hoot.
"The world is my country; all of humanity are my brethren; and to do good deeds is my religion." (Thomas Paine)
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 7, 2018 at 8:57 am
(This post was last modified: November 7, 2018 at 9:02 am by The Grand Nudger.)
@OP Q
The same things that comfort the religious. Let's be honest with ourselves....even when you were a believer, when some shitty thing happened in your life, your mind didn't immediately reel to "well, at least I've got god!".
When your tire blew out on the freeway, and you ran off the road...missed your appt, and the wrecker cost an arm and a leg, you probably consoled yourself in the fact that, at least..you didn't die in a fiery crash. Not in the belief that you'd been saved from the consequences of sin by jesus christ.
Right?
There is no comfort offered by the abrahamic faiths that amounts to anything other than some currently intangible post mortem benefit...but we aren't exactly running off to our deaths, no one is lamenting the fact that they -didn't- get into the fiery crash so that they could exchange their christ token for admittance to the funhouse in the sky. The faithful and the faithless are simply glad to be alive - and while they may later attribute their survival to some ghost - it isn't the ghost that gave either of them comfort (even if the ghost exists).
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 7, 2018 at 9:24 am
Thinking about a car crash though.. I suppose if a loved one is killed, there is some comfort in the belief that they've gone to a better place, and if they survive there's comfort in thinking 'someone' was watching over them. God wins again...
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RE: If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?
November 7, 2018 at 9:41 am
Given Khem's statement, I suspect it may be the case that you're seeking comfort for the distress inflicted by the beliefs of Christianity and your doubts about them. So the question is what is the comfort you seek aimed at addressing? The continued doubts and such associated with lingering belief, thoughts about your limited nature and mortality, or something else?
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