How do you deal with life now that you are an atheist? (With a little of my life)

[The Grand Nudger]

Got ourselves a run of the mill ret-conner, it would seem.  If you like these narratives (and I can understand that) then perhaps you should address them on their own terms rather than stretching them to fit your wholly unrelated, and modern (regardless of their factual accuracy), narratives?

Ancient people believed in their narratives for their reasons...not yours. They weren't referring to what you believe (or what you know), in those stories, they were referring to what they believed. That you can make a model fit is an artifact of your ability and desire, but not of the meaning of the stories...or any knowledge they possessed.

[Arkilogue]

Got ourselves a run of the mill ret-conner, it would seem.  If you like these narratives (and I can understand that) then perhaps you should address them on their own terms rather than stretching them to fit your wholly unrelated, and modern (regardless of their factual accuracy), narratives?

Ancient people believed in  their narratives for their reasons...not yours.  They weren't referring to what you believe (or what you know), in those stories, they were referring to what they believed.  That you can make a model fit is an artifact of your ability and desire, but not of the meaning of the stories...or any knowledge they possessed.

They were referring to what they were told and the stories they have were given to them in whole by the "Gods".

Barring actually revelation from a deity is there any other possible way these subjective stories would be so similar and represent real scientific, recreated processes of universal order? Depends on if you think this is the first technological age of Man on this planet. There is much legendary data on some kind of world wide catastrophe or world war.

So say you are a refugee from the destruction of this previous world wide high tech age, now immersed in tribal/primitive societies. How might you preserve the technical knowledge you posses? Say you wanted to describe an electric eel to them? Would you tell them it has stacked electrocyte cells and when it flexes them all at once it can discharge a lethal amount of electricity? No, you'll tell them it shoots lightening bolts and stay the fuck away.

If you wanted to pass down stream through time technical knowledge of universal processes to a primitive culture, you encode it in the subjective stories of God/the Gods and it will pass itself down. They are the most viral stories around, with staying power long after they are no longer believed in.

[The Grand Nudger]

They were referring to what they were told and the stories they have were given to them in whole by the "Gods".

uh-huh.....

Barring actually revelation from a deity is there any other possible way these subjective stories would be so similar and represent real scientific, recreated processes of universal order? Depends on if you think this is the first technological age of Man on this planet. There is much legendary data on some kind of world wide catastrophe or world war.

OFC there is, but I fail to see why I would waste the time explaining it on someone who pulled an argument from ignorance as though it -could be- informative.  

So say you are a refugee from the destruction of this previous world wide high tech age, now immersed in tribal/primitive societies.  How might you preserve the technical knowledge you posses? Say you wanted to describe an electric eel to them? Would you tell them it has stacked electrocyte cells and when it flexes them all at once it can discharge a lethal amount of electricity? No, you'll tell them it shoots lightening bolts and stay the fuck away.

World wide high tech age...lol.  Like, crystal powered microwaves and paleolithic aeronautical engineering, right?  

If you wanted to pass down stream through time technical knowledge of universal processes to a primitive culture, you encode it in the subjective stories of God/the Gods and it will pass itself down. They are the most viral stories around, with staying power long after they are no longer believed in.

No they're not....we don't remember them today, they were completely eradicated by successive waves of religious bullshittery - just as you're doing now, in this thread, in a more subtle but no less destructive manner

[downbeatplumb]

So, the question is: How do you face the unavoidable reality of life, with no God by your side?

I'm afraid  I don't see what possible difference a god makes in this.

[GrandizerII]

I don't see it as such a big deal. I just keep living as much and as best as I can, and continue to pursue doing the things that I enjoy and cherishing the moments I spend with the people I care about. There's no active effort on my part to try to "deal" with life as it is. It just is.

[Aegon]

That's the elephant in the room, isn't it?  When people describe the moral/ethical/philosophical destitution of the atheist position they are doing one of two things.

-Lying about having ever been an atheist to grind a common theist's axe......
or
-Mis-attributing their own depressive personalities effect as a consequence of atheism, somehow, in direct opposition to there being, well -none of that- in my lifelong atheists experience.

Perhaps they should at least entertain the notion that something is "wrong" with -them-...before they babble endlessly about there being something wrong with atheism?  That's probably too much introspection and critical assessment to ask from a person who believes that the entire universe was created for them...and only has meaning in the context of their own personal comfort-seeking fantasies, though..isn't it?

I've been depressed for quite some time, but ever since I dropped Catholicism I haven't had a serious suicidal thought. Somehow the idea of death is much more frightening to me knowing how final it actually is.

[robvalue]

Many people have killed themselves in order to skip past this shitty life and onto the "proper" one. How truly dangerous such ideas are.

[Cyberman]

Case in point: http://www.raptureready.com/

[robvalue]

That gives me an idea for an AF meme

[bennyboy]

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I've got $10 and a phone number that says a couple hits of LSD can achieve results much like yours.  But tell us about this in-depth research you've done, this "data" you've collected and applied to "such a vast question and depth of process."  You know, I've been riding you pretty hard these days, but if you can support your gobbledygook with anything other than more gobbledygook, I will be the first to eat my words and give you the credit you deserve.

I'm guessing most of your knowledge involves misapplications of physics and philosophy, combined with neat geometrical patterns.  Amirite or amirite?

Here's the thing, if you're not interested in anything ancient religions or sciences have to say, you'll have no past data or context to compare with a modern description of God and the process by which God pro-creates a universe.

Starting state before creation:

The Nu of the Egyptian mythos is an infinite primordial watery abyss
The Chaos of Greece is an undifferentiated watery abyss.
Tiamat of Mesopotamia was a primordial ocean goddess who was split in two to make heaven and earth
The Brahman of Hinduism is compared to an infinite ocean without beginning or end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_materia
The concept of prima materia is sometimes attributed to Aristotle.[2] The earliest roots of the idea can be found in the philosophy of Anaxagoras,....They have compared the "prima materia" to everything, to male and female, to the hermaphroditic monster, to heaven and earth, to body and spirit, chaos, microcosm, and the confused mass; it contains in itself all colors and potentially all metals; there is nothing more wonderful in the world, for it begets itself, conceives itself, and gives birth to itself.[6]

Comparisons have been made to Hyle, the primal fire, Proteus, Light, and Mercury.[7] Martin Ruland the Younger lists more than fifty synonyms for the prima materia in his 1612 alchemical dictionary. His text includes justifications for the names and comparisons. He repeats that, the philosophers have so greatly admired the Creature of God which is called the Primal Matter, especially concerning its efficacy and mystery, that they have given to it many names, and almost every possible description, for they have not known how to sufficiently praise it.[8] Waite lists an additional eighty four names.


Of course in reality the primordial substance would be quark matter, trillions of times denser and hotter than atomic matter, an all consuming fire. The unified state of all elements and forces.  It is also a Fermi Liquid and excludes magnetic fields. Obviously light cannot pass through it and no image can be made of it (try drawing absolute solidity with no external border/membrane...it's impossible). Only when you open this substance can light appear or travel.

But since we cannot work directly with quark matter, can regular water be used to model the opening of a vacuum state universe? Anything to "the spirit of god hovered over the waters" and "let there be light"? This theme is also prevalent in ancient religions prior to Christianity.

Let's go to the lab!










Acoustic cavitation of water creates a void/vacuum bubble and light.

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Everything understandable so far?

You are making what is called an "intentional fallacy." This is a fallacy in which you assume the intent of ideas whose intent you cannot know. What you are doing is taking neat science stuff, and drawing lines to neat mythology stuff with some similar words or ideas, and then projecting modern knowledge onto those early story tellers. This is not a good basis for building a sensible world view.

May I ask you if you use drugs, or if you are schizophrenic? The way you associate ideas seems creative, intelligent, and a little irrational in the same way that that of LSD/mushroom users and schizophrenic people I've met in the past is.