Ask a Catholic

[nihilistcat]

I just really don't get it. I don't get why someone would go to all these lengths in life to defend and protect their belief in an afterlife   I don't get what's so scary about non-existence... It's not existing in a black, terrifying void for all eternity. It's not existing full stop. No joy, no pain, no loss, no gain.

Although I'm an atheist, I do understand the fear and apprehension of our mortality. Just look at our society, look at all the resources we spend to make our society a safer place. We don't do this because we relish the thought of death, we do this because we don't want to die. 

Even lower animals will recoil (or attack) in the face of danger, it's a survival mechanism. You might say that we're hard wired to fight for our survival (as most species are). 

So I think religion will always have that draw. The problem for me wasn't that I was angry with religion (honestly, religion never did anything wrong to me personally), or that I started liking the idea of death (I hate the fact that we die), it's just that it became clear to me that religion is bullshit. It's not as easy as some may imply to reach this conclusion. There's all sorts of things that make us want to believe in some sort of afterlife, and so we have a very powerful bias that clouds our reasoning. But once you really really come to understand that religion is bullshit, there's really no going back. Fortunately, for whatever reason, I have a pretty good disposition. I've been through all sorts of crazy shit in life. I served in the Iraq war, I witnessed dozens of soldiers get shot (and in some cases killed) when I was stationed at Ft. Hood in 2009 (try being an atheist in that situation, it wasn't easy), which is enough to make many people go nuts (and many of my fellow soldiers who witnessed the same things, did go crazy). But somehow I didn't, and I think that disposition makes it much easier for me to accept reality, as bleak as it may be. But everyone is different, and this is easier for some than it is for others. 

Honestly, I have no idea what would spur a devout theist to debate this topic with seasoned atheists? Most atheists on boards like this have a decent education, they've been atheists for many years, and they tend to know more about religion than most people who practice religion (and we're generally pretty well tuned into science). So what will a theist get out of this exercise besides maybe making themselves depressed and angry? But really, I do know why they're here. For the religionist, it's not enough that they have the right to practice their religion, they want to impose their views on everyone else. For whatever reason, religion induces authoritarianism. And it's true in pretty much every case (Abrahamic traditions, eastern traditions, and so on). It bothers the religionist that there's people on earth who disagree with them. It's an almost colonialist attitude.