*groans*
*facepalms*
*stares at his keyboard for a good minute before he gets the energy to finally type*
Ok. Ok. Lots of "former atheists" tend to be people who were not ready to endure the crisis of realizing their own mortality. They often spent no time considering death, or dismissing death, and when suddenly faced with it, and very, VERY narrowly dodging it, they basically endure a traumatic experience, one that is terrifying beyond comprehension. It is at that point that you are at your weakest, along with enduring the death of a family member or loved one or very close friend, and is it PRECISELY at that point that the idea of god and an afterlife and a self-satisfying answer to the extremely grim question of "why am I here? (Answer: BECAUSE THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR OF ALL WILLS IT SO! HALLELUJAH! I SAID PRAISE THE LORD!!)" suddenly has a GREAT deal of appeal. Nobody expects to be shot in the friggin' head by a meth-crazed junkie or hit by a drunk driver while they're walking on the sidewalk, or suddenly getting cancer the fuck out of nowhere far earlier than you thought you would. And suddenly when faced with these dilemmas, the human mind needs to grasp at something to comfort it, to settle it down.
You know how children, when terrified of the boogie man hiding in their closet, will run to their parents' bedroom and cuddle up to them in fear? Of something that is not there? Kind of the same principle. We're suddenly afraid of the unknown, and the possible threats it brings, and we need something to cuddle up to. Mommy and daddy are a bit too old for that. Or they're just plain gone, having succumbed to precisely that which we are terrified of; mortality. So, then, what do we turn to? The superstitious tales that talk of things not unlike the boogieman; fictitious beings, supernatural entities, torment, anguish, eternal suffering, or bland, vague gestures to something that, well, at best is described as "not suffering and anguish for an eternity."
The boogieman is something that is naturally feared to children. Mortality is something that is naturally feared to adults.
So, long and short: These guys are concocting bullshit to delude themselves with to try to basically convince themselves of this lie, the better to keep themselves from having to really consider that which they truly fear. And in their mindless, deranged terror they feel the need to spread this fear to everyone else in some misguided attempt at bringing peace to those who they THINK thought like how they used to...though, as they said, they were "99% sure" before. Yeah. In other words they were always slightly credulous. All they needed was that moment of terror, of facing the absolutely most terrifying thing the human conscious mind can face, to balloon that 1% credulity to 100%.
But for the people like me, people who have evaded death over and over, and in several cases tried to willingly embrace it, and who never had these bullshit stories happen to them in the remotest fashion...this tripe is met with a cold, stony glare of contempt. My lip curls and the conviction, and contempt, rings unwaveringly in my voice as I spit a single word at them: "Bullshit."
So yeah. I'm not just a firm atheist after this...I'm even more convinced of my atheism.
HEAVEN. IS NOT REAL. HELL. IS NOT REAL. There are NO fucking ghosts, spirits, souls, demons, devils, angels, imps, celestial beings, immortal creatures, sphinxes, gryphons, there sure as fuck is NO SUCH THING as the fucking boogieman, there are NO dragons, elves (no matter how much I may want to bone a really hot elf chick it is never going to happen and I do not delude myself with such hopes), centaurs, pegasi, unicorns, Santa Claus, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Tony Stark, Superman, Batman, Harry Potter, Edward Cullen, Bella Swan, God-Emperor, Space Marines, Aragorn, Samwise Gamjee, Frodo Baggins, Gandalf the White/Grey, Boromir, Sauron, Sarumann...
And finally; There IS. NO. FUCKING. GOD.
Dammit, people, I'm a fucking schizophrenic, and even I'M calling these idiots out on their delusions! PRETTY FUCKING PATHETIC.
*facepalms*
*stares at his keyboard for a good minute before he gets the energy to finally type*
Ok. Ok. Lots of "former atheists" tend to be people who were not ready to endure the crisis of realizing their own mortality. They often spent no time considering death, or dismissing death, and when suddenly faced with it, and very, VERY narrowly dodging it, they basically endure a traumatic experience, one that is terrifying beyond comprehension. It is at that point that you are at your weakest, along with enduring the death of a family member or loved one or very close friend, and is it PRECISELY at that point that the idea of god and an afterlife and a self-satisfying answer to the extremely grim question of "why am I here? (Answer: BECAUSE THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR OF ALL WILLS IT SO! HALLELUJAH! I SAID PRAISE THE LORD!!)" suddenly has a GREAT deal of appeal. Nobody expects to be shot in the friggin' head by a meth-crazed junkie or hit by a drunk driver while they're walking on the sidewalk, or suddenly getting cancer the fuck out of nowhere far earlier than you thought you would. And suddenly when faced with these dilemmas, the human mind needs to grasp at something to comfort it, to settle it down.
You know how children, when terrified of the boogie man hiding in their closet, will run to their parents' bedroom and cuddle up to them in fear? Of something that is not there? Kind of the same principle. We're suddenly afraid of the unknown, and the possible threats it brings, and we need something to cuddle up to. Mommy and daddy are a bit too old for that. Or they're just plain gone, having succumbed to precisely that which we are terrified of; mortality. So, then, what do we turn to? The superstitious tales that talk of things not unlike the boogieman; fictitious beings, supernatural entities, torment, anguish, eternal suffering, or bland, vague gestures to something that, well, at best is described as "not suffering and anguish for an eternity."
The boogieman is something that is naturally feared to children. Mortality is something that is naturally feared to adults.
So, long and short: These guys are concocting bullshit to delude themselves with to try to basically convince themselves of this lie, the better to keep themselves from having to really consider that which they truly fear. And in their mindless, deranged terror they feel the need to spread this fear to everyone else in some misguided attempt at bringing peace to those who they THINK thought like how they used to...though, as they said, they were "99% sure" before. Yeah. In other words they were always slightly credulous. All they needed was that moment of terror, of facing the absolutely most terrifying thing the human conscious mind can face, to balloon that 1% credulity to 100%.
But for the people like me, people who have evaded death over and over, and in several cases tried to willingly embrace it, and who never had these bullshit stories happen to them in the remotest fashion...this tripe is met with a cold, stony glare of contempt. My lip curls and the conviction, and contempt, rings unwaveringly in my voice as I spit a single word at them: "Bullshit."
So yeah. I'm not just a firm atheist after this...I'm even more convinced of my atheism.
HEAVEN. IS NOT REAL. HELL. IS NOT REAL. There are NO fucking ghosts, spirits, souls, demons, devils, angels, imps, celestial beings, immortal creatures, sphinxes, gryphons, there sure as fuck is NO SUCH THING as the fucking boogieman, there are NO dragons, elves (no matter how much I may want to bone a really hot elf chick it is never going to happen and I do not delude myself with such hopes), centaurs, pegasi, unicorns, Santa Claus, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Tony Stark, Superman, Batman, Harry Potter, Edward Cullen, Bella Swan, God-Emperor, Space Marines, Aragorn, Samwise Gamjee, Frodo Baggins, Gandalf the White/Grey, Boromir, Sauron, Sarumann...
And finally; There IS. NO. FUCKING. GOD.
Dammit, people, I'm a fucking schizophrenic, and even I'M calling these idiots out on their delusions! PRETTY FUCKING PATHETIC.
