EX Catholic recent Atheist....hard time coping with reality.

[Raeven]

Welcome to the forum, CTR8008. I think you'll enjoy spending time among others who think in a similar way to you.

I never believed, so I was never saddled with coming to grips with the promise of an afterlife. I realized my mortality when I was very young -- and it scared the shit out of me. The idea of a world without ME in it?? Preposterous!! But there it was. Just like before I was born. Nada.

But you know, as time went on, that didn't seem so bad. I began to realize what a precious thing it was to have consciousness of self, even if it included the down side of self-awareness of mortality, too. It makes every moment sweeter. If I'm particularly enjoying something I'm doing, I often stop to marvel at it, because that moment, really, is all I have.

We all get to the end of the road sooner or later. Most people do come to terms with it, many of them atheists. They seem ready when the time is right if they have time to prepare. So enjoy this wisp of an instant in time in which you get to simply be. Love, lust, smile, dance, cope, smell, watch, wonder, laugh, hurt, argue, jump, hike... you get the idea. Do everything, grab it up and gobble it down, no utensils. Savor every second you can, and think about the incredible happenstance that occurred just for you to get the opportunity over all the others who Might Have Been But Will Never Be. You are lucky beyond expression!

Hope there are some words here that are of use to you.

Again, welcome to the forum.

[Brian37]

Growing up a Roman Catholic you are taught the bible is the literal "truth" of life. Very recently from years of a state of delusion not questioning my "faith" I sat in a boring lecture class wondering if there was an alternative way humans came to roam the planet. My innate biased justification was "God" created humans.....but a sense of ostensibly started to jab at my conscious. For days this primary question of "is there another way?" bothered me to a psychotic degree. I finally gave in and hit the internet...a simple video of the great Richard Dawkins helped me understand evolution by natural selection. (sadly I was not taught the facts of evolution due to my education in a catholic school that barley taught any biology.) As I gazed upon the evidence Dr. Dawkins mentioned, my "faith" in creation began to fade....The more scientific evidence I began to learn and research the more interested I became in many fields such as cosmology, neurology, geography, ect. My ignorance in science was filled with the sensation of bronze aged mythology...As I become aware of the fabrication of an afterlife a thought of the meaningless stockpile of particles we temporary hold affects my grasp on caring about anything that matters....Ive come to the conclusion when our neurons stop firing our state of self awareness ceases into a void of nothingness....im barely happy anymore due to this realization. This may be a symptom of withdrawal from my previous ideologies of mythical thinking. Did anyone else have a similar experience within their first time rejecting religion?
How do you cope?

Realize like a rape victim it is not your fault. Someone fed that superstition to you when your brain was too pliable.

Secondly, science doesn't have to take away the "awe" of life just because you have the facts now. Nor should it depress you that there is no afterlife. Did you get depressed at plants dying or seasons changing before? Why should it scare you that nature is nature and you are merely part of it?

It is an insidious meme and a flaw in human thinking that causes this needlessly self inflicted depression. Evolution produces babies and those babies evolved to be the center of attention otherwise if they didn't cry the mother wouldn't suckle them or feed them. Our feeling of "specialness" also leads us to look both ways before we cross the street. If we didn't evolve to care about ourselves we wouldn't have survived as a species.

However, the downside to this is the creation of the delusion of religion. It takes our natural behavior and gap answers it to comic book form. God claims are merely our infantile desires and refusal to accept our finite nature.

What you are psychologically going through is normal, others go through less or more withdraw, some are lucky to have never had that problem and some never believed at all.

Cope by keeping after your science interest. I think it is amazing, for example that it takes a ray of light 100,000 years to cross our galaxy. I think it is amazing that the biggest stars we know of would have surfaces that would extend out past Saturn if put in the sun's place.

I find it much more amazing that life started by evolution than some stupid ignorant unimaginative human concocted fantasy. I still find awe in nature and love in my family and friends. And you can always cope by talking to online atheists here and all over the web such as facebook and twitter.

AND READ READ READ, Dawkins is a great start. Victor Stinger "The New Atheism", Sam Harris "The End of Faith", "God is not great" Christopher Hitchens, "Infidel" Ayaan Hersi Ali.

Mostly just know you are not alone. Many here go through similar things with feeling alone. But you are not alone.

[CTR8008]

I'm often asked "If there's no God, then why are we here?"

I always respond with, "Biologically, we're here to make little people and continue humanity. Individually, as far as I'm concerned, we're here to make this world a little better for those who follow us (I know, generally we're not doing a good job of it right now). As to a higher general purpose, we don't have one".

I agree that religion, in general, is a control mechanism. I hold that it was first a way to explain what we did not understand (thunder and lightning being signs of an angry god) and evolved (take that, creationists!) into the control mechanism it has been for the past several millennia.

What about those who have no desire to reproduce at all? Why are they here?

What if you exist simply because your existence is possible?

As a retort to your first question those who wish not to reproduce simply don't pass their genes to the next lineage discontinuing their progression. The absence of individuals replicating ceases in contrast to those who do will continue.

[KichigaiNeko]

CTR