Driving force of an Atheist

[libraryowl]

Alright, I'm sure all of us have pondered this question at least once, which is why i'm here. I've been an Agnostic for around 6 years now after I left an oppressive fundamentalist church, since then I was pretty content about the existence of no God, until last night.

I started a discussion within my head that lasted until the early morning about my life, and what the point was. If you work so hard in life, how does it pay off when you die? I understand I'll have no idea when I die.. because I'll be dead, but still what is the point in making strides in life when in the end you can't take a step back and say "Yep, I accomplished this"?

I'd like to make a point that I normally don't carry such depressive thoughts, actually I'm a pretty happy guy naturally, but this question is really pressing into me. The only answer I could really fathom is to make strides in life in hopes of making a difference in further generations.. but of course that clashes with the thought of "Well my life meter is going to reach 0 someday, so why not just do what I want?" Within federal laws of course.

So I ask you, how did you get over this hump?

I know exactly what you're talking about.

On the one hand, the discoveries of science are true- we can't deny that. All the things in life that cause us wonder- God, sex, love, beauty- are really just chemical experiences that can be replicated in a labratory. All of our personality and differences can be explained on the cellular and genetic level, and we will eventually be able to alter people in the labratory. We die, and probably become dust. There is no soul.

On the other hand is religion, beckoning us back to blifful ignorance.

There's a line I love in Homer. He says that "rosy fingered dawn brought up the sun for all to see." And doesn't that sound wonderful? But then, now we understand that it isn't "rosy fingered dawn" but the impersonal and absolute forces of gravity inter-reacting between several celestial bodies that cause the earth to move about in a such a way so as to bring the sun into view.

And that's true, but it kills the wonder, right? The mystery and wonder of things like that, which is really the essence of religion, is always retreating against the bland, hard, fatalistic discoveries of science.

That's one of the reasons Darwin said he feared the results of his studies. He worried that most people- the masses as he said it- would be unable to cope with life without religion. Without mystery and wonder, their joy would disappear. Without the numinous fear of divine judgment, their morality would disappear. ANd wasn't he right? Aren't most of the people you know bland and basically immoral? And when I think of the religious people I know- although their minds are closed to reason and its diffucult to have a rational discussion with them- they're much more moral and "fun" then the rest of the people I meet.

So with two such facts before us- the discoveries of science, and the religious nature of mankind, what are we to do?

There is no easy answer. But I do often come back to this quote by Micheal Pollan, and it gives me some comfort. I can't find his book (the Botany of Desire) right now, but I remember how he compares us to flowers. He says that flowers spend all this time and energy trying to bloom, and then when they do, they quickly abandon their beauty and die. And humans are like that. They spend all this time approaching the prime of their life, and after a few years death starts to claim them. I see it in old people, every day becoming more dead and less alive, forgetting things and becoming uglier and more dead. And I see them do it gracefully.

I think, although I understand it's an inadequate answer, that gracefully living human life is the best answer to the dilemma posed. Understand that love and sex are just chemical things- but embrace them anyways. Understand that death is terrible and probably without consolation, but bear it anyways. Life is wonderful enough that we should not regret truly living it.

My driving force is to escape mediocrity at all costs.

[Frank]

Maybe we'll figure out how to download our minds on a computer (so we can live on as a cyber entity, trolling through the internet, able to watch internet porn but not satiate our desire to rub one out). We can be cloned, they can download the contents of our minds into the infant (well, at least once its brain is adequately developed), and we really can do it all over again. Once I get back to high school, I'm screwing all the girls (there won't be any of those would-a-could-a-should-a's).

[fr0d0]

That'd be great. I'm worried about you tho' Frank

[TruthWorthy]

It's a little bit against my faith, but I think autonomy is a God given right.

[tackattack]

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I dont see the problem...

You have life. You have wants and intrests. So pick the thing you most want and work towards it.

If you look at your own life from the third person like that, if you look at your like as a single unit, then it is pointless, because you are thinking in terms of 'how did my life change the world', and you look insignificant.

Your life is all about you, it is not about anyone else, so you should look at your life in the first person. "How has my life changed me?" is the question.

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Nothing meaningful to say, just had to say this is atruism at it's finest

[littlegrimlin1]

Live life for today and tomarrow... I don't really look back on things very much... but then again, I'm only 17... not much to look back on.

I'll work my hardest to become successful, even though I can't look back on it when I die.