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(March 4, 2011 at 9:41 pm)Cynical8 Wrote: I've been dealing with an issue that I believe only atheists could really help me with, and so I came across these forums. I just joined, and after a quick browse didn't see my issue anywhere, so I apologize if this is a repeat topic.
Anyway. I'll do my best to explain my issue:
I'm an atheist and I also have a few problems with depression and anxiety. My problem, however, is that I've recently developed a MAJOR "fear" of death.
Specifically, I am convinced, beyond a doubt, that there is no existence after death. I am 100% convinced that when I die, there will be nothingness... no afterlife, no me, no thoughts, no blackness, no sleep, nor any ability to think. I won't even know I died, and I won't even be able to acknowledge that I don't know I died. At this moment, I feel like I really understand what that means, and I am deeply deeply disturbed by it. I'm not sure how to cope with it. I can keep it out of my mind for short periods of time, but ultimately I'll read an article about someone dying, see a news report, and so on and start thinking about it again.
If anyone has any advice or thoughts or hopefully some sort of solution to my problem, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
You can use one of two strategies to give you comfort:
i) If you remain Atheist, then use this wisdom from Epicurus "When death is here, I am not and when I am here, he is not!!!"
ii) The proposition that God does not exist cannot be held with absolute certainty, since humankind's knowlege is not complete. The Atheist proposition may well be highly probable, but it is definitely not 100% safe. Atheists, therefore, require belief to ascert that God doe not exist. The definition of Atheism is someone who believes that God does not exist.
So here is the second strategy due to the philosopher Pascal.
Since our knowlege is incomplete, there must be a miniscule probability that a God may exist. Therefore, since this life is so short and eternity so vast, it is rational to choose a God to believe in. The rationale is, that if God exists, then you spend the rest of eternity in Heaven, if God does not, then it is a minor inconvenience in an otherwise fleeting existence.
Which do you choose?
diffidus, I ask you again, because you dodged answering on the other thread about atheism being intellectual cowardice, do you WANT/NEED to believe in God?
I appologise - I thought I had replied. In anycase, I do not want to believe or even need to believe. But I should like to be able to ascert that God does not exist. The problem is that I cannot, and I don't think anyone else can either due to an incomplete knowledege base. Even worse, I sometimes find myself thinking that the probability of God's existence must be incredibly small due to a lack of direct evidence. However, this is based upon a belief that Humankind has an almost complete understanding of the universe. Unfortunately, we are not really in that position - our knowledge could be just a drop in the ocean. Its not just that we do not know, but we do not know how much we don't know.
Anyhow, this is all very perplexing for someone who just seeks truth and is not prepared to simply jump either side of the fence on the basis of belief only.
