What is being an Atheist like?

[Minimalist]

1.) Why are you an atheist?

Because there is no evidence for any of the absurd gods humanity has managed to invent.

2.) What is life like for an atheist?

I waste little time on bullshit.

3.) There is no God. How do you cope with that? How do you find purpose and meaning in your life?

There is no Zeus or Odin or Shiva or Quetzlcoatl.  How do you cope with that?

4.) What are your thoughts on death?

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.
 - Epicurus


5.) Has being an atheist changed your life in any way? If so, how?

I get to sleep in on Sundays.  No wasting time listening to some asshole tell me about made up shit.

[Whateverist]

1.) God provides no meaning in my life whatsoever. I haven't actively followed him in 5 years. I left the church for a year but soon returned. When I opened up about being transgender, well no one ridiculed me, but I feel like some of my Christian friends are brushing me off. Maybe their homophobic, I really don't know, and I actually don't care. I tried turning to God for help, but it hasn't helped me. I try to pray, but I feel awkward when doing so.

2.) I want to become an atheist. But I'm afraid to. There many reasons for this. Social stigma, lack of support, having to abandoned a way of life a grew up with, and change. I lack social skills, and am not good at making friends, so if I enter the Atheist community I feel making new friends will be a long way off, and there's already a social stigma attached to me being transgender, add atheist to the equation, well that only makes it worse. So, it's fear that holds me back. And the fact I'm unwilling to give up God totally.

3.) I have no evidence. I believe, but I don't believe. I struggle back and forth with this question all the time. Does God exist? I guess I will never truly know, since philosophy and science can never disprove or prove there is a God. It all comes down to faith, and I absolutely zero faith. I could become agnostic, but I feel like that is just sitting on the fence.

4.) I am fearful of death. Because I know if God really does exist, I will go to hell. Not only because I cross-dress, but because I have no faith in him. The fear of hell scares me the most.

ForsakenHeretic said: Death is supposed to be a very peaceful experince.

I wouldn't say that, there's some people who die very painfully before their actually dead:/

I'm probably gonna head to bed now. I'm very tired. I really want to get to know atheism better. I feel like it can really give me a new perspective on life. I've been brainwashed my whole  life and I really want to "heal" from it. I just find it really hard. Any advice you can give would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Connie

It sounds like you just have a social circle which will make giving up religion hard for you. If church is where your social life has taken place you shouldn't expect atheism to replace that. Atheism isn't really anything in itself. It is simply life devoid of any belief in God.

Since you seem to lean toward disbelief too, you probably do need to enlarge your social circle. It really is a horrible choice you have there. Good luck finding resolution any way you can.

[ignoramus]

Welcome Connie ...
Enjoy yourself here and have a bit of fun...

[Bob Kelso]

Hi, I'm Connie, I'm new to these forums and atheism in general. I actually am Christian, and have been raised that way my whole life (baptist denomination). Being in the church is hard for me since I'm transgender, but I'm not leaving yet, because I still believe in God. However, I am willing to get some insight on to what atheism is like, from atheist themselves. I'm, how should I put it...educating myself on atheism. So, wooo!

My questions:

1.) Why are you an atheist?

2.) What is life like for an atheist?

3.) There is no God. How do you cope with that? How do you find purpose and meaning in your life?

4.) What are your thoughts on death?

5.) Has being an atheist changed your life in any way? If so, how?

Those are all my questions for now. If I have anymore, I'll be sure to ask.

Connie

EDIT: I just realized I made a typo with the numbering of the questions. I fixed it now.

• After considering my indoctrinated faith for a time I found that I had been led to atheism via a lack of evidence for my faith and because I would no longer allow my morality to be constrained by it's ridiculousness. 
  
• Not so different from your own I would suspect, sans the religiousness of course. 
  
• You need a deity to find meaning? Rather sad if you'd think about it. 
  
• It's a natural part of things, I doubt I'll mind it any more than I did the time before I was born. 
  
• I lead a better life, morally speaking, and I have quite a bit more time on my hands without all the religious affairs that needed attending. 
  

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

1.) Why are you an atheist?

Why aren't you?

2.) What is life like for an atheist?

I get up, I do my work, I eat three meals, I take one good shit and I go to bed. Oh, and my Sundays are free.

3.) There is no God. How do you cope with that? How do you find purpose and meaning in your life?

I cope with no gods the same way I cope with no goblins, elves, faeries, dragons or unicorns. Lately, my purpose and meaning in life seems to be wasting time explaining purpose and meaning in my life to a never-ending parade of believers who seem to think I don't have purpose and meaning in my life.

4.) What are your thoughts on death?

I think it's a very good idea.

5.) Has being an atheist changed your life in any way? If so, how?

I've never not been an atheist, so my atheism hasn't changed anything. Atheism is sort of my default status.

Boru

[robvalue]

Hi, I'm Connie, I'm new to these forums and atheism in general. I actually am Christian, and have been raised that way my whole life (baptist denomination). Being in the church is hard for me since I'm transgender, but I'm not leaving yet, because I still believe in God. However, I am willing to get some insight on to what atheism is like, from atheist themselves. I'm, how should I put it...educating myself on atheism. So, wooo!

Heya Connie, welcome to the forums! Good for you on educating yourself about atheism. We get tired of people telling us what atheism is and what we believe, so this is refreshing.

Edit: I just saw you gave some answers yourself. For what it's worth, considering what you've said, I would say you already are an atheist. It's merely a descriptive term for a state of mind. If you're unsure about god's existence, you are an atheist. There is no initiation ceremony. And if you did become convinced again of the existence of God, you'd be a theist once more. That doesn't mean you are required to join a religion though or worship the God at all. That's your choice. Don't worry, we will support you here Maybe my website will help, it's geared towards new or potential atheists, starting with explaining more about the word itself. Click here

The people who taught you about Christianity are just basically passing on what has been shoved down their throats, most likely. They are probably not deliberately lying, just saying what they believe. It doesn't mean they are correct, though. For someone who has always been outside of religion, it is blatantly obvious to me that the whole thing is made up. Prayer doesn't work, it's been scientifically tested. It can produce the placebo effect, but otherwise it has no impact. Probably because no one is listening.

My questions:

1.) Why are you an atheist?

Because I find claims about God have no credible evidence to back them up. I don't even consider "God" to be a well-defined term. There is no possible way to test anything said about it, including it's very existence, so I reserve judgement until such time as there is a reason to believe any of it. It's part of being a sceptic: not believing until there is a rational reason to do so. Not all atheists are sceptics. Some believe all sorts of weird things based on what I would consider no evidence.

I don't claim to know there is no God, but one thing I can be as certain about as humanly possible is that any real God is nothing like the ridiculous comic book villains portrayed in religious texts. They are simply reflections on the state of mind of people at that time, their struggles to understand the world around them and their attempts to control each other through stories.

2.) What is life like for an atheist?

I've never been anything but an atheist. Life is just how it is for a theist, except I don't arbitrarily attribute external agency to things that happen. I learn about things that are possible to learn about, and I accept that some things are beyond our knowledge, perhaps forever. We live in the same world, and any theist who manages to survive day to day is basically living like an atheist. They look both ways before crossing the street, they fasten their seat belt, they don't pick fights with huge gangs of people for no reason, they don't jump off cliffs.

3.) There is no God. How do you cope with that? How do you find purpose and meaning in your life?

No one has ever been able to tell me what meaning God does give to life. In religions such as Christianity, this life was created by him on a whim, in order to test us to see who is worthy of being his eternal buddy and who gets discarded and possibly tortured. That's a weird, sick twisted game he is playing and devoids this life of any meaning for me. I cope with there probably being no God in the same way I cope with growing up and not continuing to look to my parents for answers anymore. I think for myself.

It seems I'm conscious, and other humans and animals appear to be conscious. So I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they feel things fairly similarly to how I do. I know what things help them feel good, and I know what makes them sad or hurts them, because they are fairly similar to what works for me. So my purpose is to enjoy this life while it lasts, and to look after other humans and animals as best I can so we can all enjoy what is probably the only life we will ever have.

4.) What are your thoughts on death?

Death is sad for the people and animals who are left behind. They miss the person/animal that has died. But there's nothing that can be done, and frankly living forever would be the worst form of torture I could imagine, no matter what I was doing. So death is probably the end. For the person/animal who has died, there is nothing to worry about. They exist only in our memory, and in the new ways their atoms are distributed through nature to become parts of other things. In this way, they are metaphorically reborn, or perhaps simply return home.

5.) Has being an atheist changed your life in any way? If so, how?

Since I've never been anything else, I can't answer that. I can't make myself believe something for which there is no evidence. Crucially though, I have no interest in joining any religion even if there is a god. If I found out there was one, it would make no difference to me. I'd be happy to talk it in a sensible manner. It's welcome to talk to me anytime. So I don't care if there is a god, I just happen to see no evidence that there is. People that claim to know something about it can't demonstrate any of what they say to be true, nor can they agree on the most basic details. So I conclude they are probably talking about figments of their imagination, with the placebo effect and confirmation bias taking care of the rest.

I hope those answers were OK! Enjoy the forum, and feel free to ask any follow up questions

[Fidel_Castronaut]

It's like an amazing feeling, where everyday is filled with rainbows and cuddly friendly bears where they tell you all their bear secrets and we all live like the best of friends with the elves in the magical forest.

[ignoramus]

Panda, no bullshitting on an intro thread allowed!

[robvalue]

I think he had the wrong mushrooms for breakfast

[I_am_not_mafia]

1.) Why are you an atheist?

Why don't you believe in Zeus? Why don't you believe in Santa Claus?

The former because no one told you to. The latter because you learnt something that made you realise that the probability of Santa Claus existing is negligible.

2.) What is life like for an atheist?

I live in the UK. It's not an issue here.  I did used to believe in new agey spiritual stuff many years ago and to be honest it just got in the way. It wasted my time. It wasted my money and I had trouble understanding how the world worked as a result. My first two schools were Christian schools but it never really stuck.

3.) There is no God. How do you cope with that? How do you find purpose and meaning in your life?

We all apply our own purpose and meaning to life, but knowing that there isn't a god means that I get to choose how and why my life should have meaning. I choose to devote my life to science and increasing the knowledge of man-kind and making a some kind of contribution to human society. That's what I choose to do and I know I am doing it because I want to do it.

4.) What are your thoughts on death?

None. Making the most use of my life is the most important thing to me.

5.) Has being an atheist changed your life in any way? If so, how?

It focused my mind on making the most use of my life.