How do atheists do life?

[ResoluteBaptist]

I find the church in my life indispensable.

I grew up in the same church..around  the same people, the same happy and joyful families.

The same families are there..and the boys and girls I grew up with now have a few little  boys and girls of their own.

Every sunday we congregate for fellowship, and faith. We have an identity. We are Christians.

We'll listen to Pastor Phillip get up on the altar and preach the word of God.

After service we will all go out and socialize. The men (that includes me and the fellas) will go to one corner and talk about sports, guns, whiskey, cigars politics (we all love the Trumpeter!). Obviously none of it fit talk for ladies.

The ladies..are a real show. Dressed in their sunday best, they go to another corner and talk about..oh  I don't know.... fashion, flowers, their children, their men...you know..typical girl talk

Then the boys and girls will be outside..the boys playing tag and touch football, and the girls skip a rope and ( he loves me.. he loves me not). Why just last Sunday I saw little Billy Turner get down one knee to Elizabeth Wilksley. He had a bouquet of dandelions, daffodils and wild honeysuckle as a gift to her. Two little charmers who don't know what trouble can come of love  .

See the thing is..there is a lot of life, love and growth in a faith community. How do you atheists have it?

Now I don't wanna tar all ungodly folk with the same brush but I've done a bit of online research and seen all the manner of trouble non believers can get into.

The male atheists Ive heard tend to drink up a storm and get in fights, acting like drunkards and fools. The young atheist women...well lets just say they aren't the kind of girl any man would want to take home to meet his mother.

I think the reason for atheist sadness/bummy behavior is that they can't cope with life without God. If life is sad..or life gets you down and you don't have God...seems the only solution for folks is to drink, smoke, despair or masturbate to pornography the whole live long day.

Please enlighten me.

Thanks y'all.

[Deesse23]

I find the friends in my life indispensable.

I grew up in the same hood as my childhood friends..around  the same people, the same happy and joyful families.

The same families are there..and the boys and girls I grew up with now have a few little  boys and girls of their own.

Every now and then i meet my friends for fellowship, and fun. We have an identity. We are humans, a social species.

We talk to each other, socialize, exchange stories of our lives and share news and information.

Sometimes we go out and have a drink, together of course. It would be stupid to leave your partner alone. We talk about all kinda stuff, and because we arent assholes its no big deal
for our partners to participate in the concersation.

Our partners, they just wear what they want to. I love to listen to my partner talk to other people, so i get to know her better and the people she socializes with.

When we visit each other at home, our children are playing together, mostly both, boys and girls mixed, doing just what they want to do.

See the thing is, there is a lot of life, love and growth in a humanist community. How do you believers have it?

Now I don't wanna tar all godly folk with the same brush but I've done a bit of online research and seen all the manner of trouble believers get into.

The male christians Ive heard tend to not respect their women, beat up their kids and try to proselytize on internet forums. The christian women.....well lets just say they aren't the kind of girl any man would want to take home.

I think the reason for christian bigotry and hate is that they can't cope with life without being told what to think and do and without telling others what to think and do.. If life is sad..or life gets you down and you don't think for yourselves...seems the only solution for folks is to hate, show your clothes off in church, talk down others to make feel you better, abuse your wife and kids while pretending to be a decent human being to the outside world.

Please stop stereotyping

Thankyouverymuch

[Belacqua]

I find the church in my life indispensable.

I grew up in the same church..around  the same people, the same happy and joyful families.

The same families are there..and the boys and girls I grew up with now have a few little  boys and girls of their own.

Every sunday we congregate for fellowship, and faith. We have an identity. We are Christians.

We'll listen to Pastor Phillip get up on the altar and preach the word of God.

After service we will all go out and socialize. The men (that includes me and the fellas) will go to one corner and talk about sports, guns, whiskey, cigars politics (we all love the Trumpeter!). Obviously none of it fit talk for ladies.

The ladies..are a real show. Dressed in their sunday best, they go to another corner and talk about..oh  I don't know.... fashion, flowers, their children, their men...you know..typical girl talk

Then the boys and girls will be outside..the boys playing tag and touch football, and the girls skip a rope and ( he loves me.. he loves me not). Why just last Sunday I saw little Billy Turner get down one knee to Elizabeth Wilksley. He had a bouquet of dandelions, daffodils and wild honeysuckle as a gift to her. Two little charmers who don't know what trouble can come of love  .

See the thing is..there is a lot of life, love and growth in a faith community. How do you atheists have it?

Now I don't wanna tar all ungodly folk with the same brush but I've done a bit of online research and seen all the manner of trouble non believers can get into.

The male atheists Ive heard tend to drink up a storm and get in fights, acting like drunkards and fools. The young atheist women...well lets just say they aren't the kind of girl any man would want to take home to meet his mother.

I think the reason for atheist sadness/bummy behavior is that they can't cope with life without God. If life is sad..or life gets you down and you don't have God...seems the only solution for folks is to drink, smoke, despair or masturbate to pornography the whole live long day.

Please enlighten me.

Thanks y'all.

Speaking just for myself:

I'm a very different type of person from you. I live on the side of a mountain north of Hiroshima, and go into town once or twice a week to teach. Then I come home again. I don't have anything in my life like the social scene of your church. Nor do I miss it. It just isn't what I want. 

In the abstract I can appreciate that it appeals to you. My niece whom I follow closely on Facebook has a similar church community, and it's clear that she benefits from it. More power to her. It is more left-wing than your church, in that they don't insist on the traditional gender roles that your church has, nor do they agree with Trump's policies on most things. They actively work to welcome immigrants, for example. 

If I need a pep talk or a reminder of how to live morally, I have a bunch of books here for which I have a lot of respect. Though I am an atheist, these include theology books, including authors like Martin Buber.

Anyway, the things about your church you describe carry no appeal for me. I have a full life without that sort of thing.

And to tell you the truth, I have studied a great deal of church history and read the writings of the early church fathers, and I strongly suspect that the church community you describe is very far away from what they would want. To me, it sounds like an American social club, whereas the church was constructed to confront and overcome the customs of the world, including most importantly the sort of inward-looking socializing that doesn't devote itself first and foremost to helping the poor. 

I can't be a Christian, because Christ demanded that we give up all personal happiness in order to help others, and I am not strong enough to do that.

[Rahn127]

I find my family & close friends to be indispensable in my life.

I grew up in a couple small towns and one good sized city. Met and made friends wherever I lived, while still staying in touch with family and close friends.

I enjoy traveling, seeing and meeting people from other countries. I find that those who stay in the same place all the time, around the same people tend to be narrow minded assholes.

Every day that i work, I enjoy the company of other atheists. At least once a week, my friends and I and our families get together for drinks, a football game, dinner or a good old fashioned BBQ. We have an identity. We are Atheists.

See the thing is..there is a lot of life, love and growth in a community of people who aren't assholes. How do you christians handle it when so many assholes are in one place every Sunday. It must smell like bullshit everywhere you go.

Now I don't wanna tar all godly folk with the same brush but I've done a bit of online research and seen all the manner of trouble believers can get into.

The male christians I've heard tend to be alcoholics and drink up a storm, get in fights, acting like drunkards and fools, killing people, raping people. Prisons of so full of christians.

The young christian women...well lets just say they aren't the kind of girl any man would want to take home to meet his mother. So many are pregnant in their teen years with the christian men hardly ever present in their children's lives.

I think the reason for christain sadness/bummy behavior is that they can't cope with life. If life is sad..or life gets you down, it seems the only solution for christain folks is to drink, smoke, despair or masturbate to pornography the whole live long day.

Those christain priests are known to watch the most pornography and they can't seem to keep their hands off little boys.

Such immorality you christains surround yourselves with every Sunday.

It's no wonder you're so immoral.

[Athene]

Why, Reverend Phillip, Billy Turner, and Elizabeth Wilksley sure sound like gosh-darn tootin good dang folks.

Ayup.
From right off the oatmeal box, yessiree.

Barney, Floyd...Y'all come on in here a try some of Thelma Lou's all-butter pound cake, now.
Aunt Bea finally gave her the recipe.

Can't hardly believe it.

[onlinebiker]

I dunno about other atheists - but I just get out of bed in the morning and do stuff till I go to bed in the evening.


No imaginary friends telling me what to do needed.

[purplepurpose]

I will work for the rest of my life and die to find complete peace.

[vulcanlogician]

Speaking just for myself:

I hope this guy provides some context for many of my gripes, Belequa.

Not that he's a particularly unpleasant person or anything (I actually like the guy!)... just that... look at what his religion is to him. Hardly any Aquinas or Augustine in there, ya know?

But there's plenty of stereotyping of atheists. This dude thinks that because his life is pleasant for him, his beliefs are therefore correct. This mindset is fucking everywhere, Belequa. And I'm not a fan. THAT is what I'm railing against, man. Not Augustine.

I'm a very different type of person from you. I live on the side of a mountain north of Hiroshima...

And plenty of insulation from the nonsense that Christians enact here in the States. It reminds me of my University. More of the born-and-bred Americans were profoundly interested in Hinduism, while many of the students who came from India thought it was a foolish old religion. Insulation from a religion as it is practiced in a given culture works wonders in making that religion seem more palatable.

If I need a pep talk or a reminder of how to live morally, I have a bunch of books here for which I have a lot of respect. Though I am an atheist, these include theology books, including authors like Martin Buber.

I've been thinking of dipping into Buber. Are there any good essays or books by him (preferably brief) that you would recommend as a good introduction to his thinking?

I can't be a Christian, because Christ demanded that we give up all personal happiness in order to help others, and I am not strong enough to do that.

As is the case with most "Christians"... probably even the OP.

COME for the inspiring sermons and fellowship, STAY for the self sacrifice and sincere moral reflection barbeque and bullshitting about whiskey and guns!

---

I think the reason for atheist sadness/bummy behavior is that they can't cope with life without God. If life is sad..or life gets you down and you don't have God...seems the only solution for folks is to drink, smoke, despair or masturbate to pornography the whole live long day.

Please enlighten me.

Thanks y'all.

How can I enlighten you? Seems like you hit the nail on the head, buddy! I'm surprised anything gets posted by atheists on these forums at all with all the fervant masterbation that goes on.

Look at it this way. Some beliefs are true, others are false. How happy a given belief makes you doesn't affect its truth or falsity. A flat earther might have a happy and fulfilling life, but that doesn't mean the Earth is flat. Just because you are a happy believer, doesn't mean that your god exists.

Have you ever heard of the Hitler Youth? It was basically like German boy scouts. A lot of kids would get together and go camping, play sports, etc. It was an intensely positive experience for many of them. The whole organization was about making these young people feel good about themselves. Even into their adult lives, after the fall of the Third Reich, many Hitler Youths continued to believe in Naziism because of these intensely positive experiences.

I hope you realize that I'm not equating Christianity with Naziism. I'm talking about the right reasons to justify beliefs.

Let me ask you this: What if a Nazi from the Hitler Youth used his positive experiences as justification for continuing to believe in Naziism? What if he pointed to Jews in concentration camps and took that as evidence that they had false beliefs? Would that be right? And how is that similar/dissimilar to what you are doing?

[pocaracas]

The male atheists Ive heard tend to drink up a storm and get in fights, acting like drunkards and fools. The young atheist women...well lets just say they aren't the kind of girl any man would want to take home to meet his mother.

As a male atheist, I do not drink alcohol - can't appreciate the taste of it.
The last fight I got into, I was thrust into it by the other guy and that was when I was a kid in school.
So I don't act like a drunkard, nor, I believe, a fool.
There, you've just heard of an atheist that's not like you described. I'm sure there are plenty that are not like you described, ladies included.

I think the reason for atheist sadness/bummy behavior is that they can't cope with life without God. If life is sad..or life gets you down and you don't have God...seems the only solution for folks is to drink, smoke, despair or masturbate to pornography the whole live long day.

I'm pretty sure there are many more activities available for when life gets someone down. Drowning in prayer is just one more that is available to believers.
But have you considered that, if there is no god, such praying is nothing more than meditation to a false belief?

Please enlighten me.

Thanks y'all.

What I don't do is talk about guns and smoke cigars... Both those things will kill you!
I talk about cars... Nowadays, I talk about how I'm getting convinced that my next car will probably be electric. What sort of cars do you talk about? Fast and loud and wasteful and expensive and environmentally unsound?

[downbeatplumb]

I find the church in my life indispensable.

I grew up in the same church..around  the same people, the same happy and joyful families.

The same families are there..and the boys and girls I grew up with now have a few little  boys and girls of their own.

Every sunday we congregate for fellowship, and faith. We have an identity. We are Christians.

We'll listen to Pastor Phillip get up on the altar and preach the word of God.

After service we will all go out and socialize. The men (that includes me and the fellas) will go to one corner and talk about sports, guns, whiskey, cigars politics (we all love the Trumpeter!). Obviously none of it fit talk for ladies.

The ladies..are a real show. Dressed in their sunday best, they go to another corner and talk about..oh  I don't know.... fashion, flowers, their children, their men...you know..typical girl talk

Then the boys and girls will be outside..the boys playing tag and touch football, and the girls skip a rope and ( he loves me.. he loves me not). Why just last Sunday I saw little Billy Turner get down one knee to Elizabeth Wilksley. He had a bouquet of dandelions, daffodils and wild honeysuckle as a gift to her. Two little charmers who don't know what trouble can come of love  .

See the thing is..there is a lot of life, love and growth in a faith community. How do you atheists have it?

Now I don't wanna tar all ungodly folk with the same brush but I've done a bit of online research and seen all the manner of trouble non believers can get into.

The male atheists Ive heard tend to drink up a storm and get in fights, acting like drunkards and fools. The young atheist women...well lets just say they aren't the kind of girl any man would want to take home to meet his mother.

I think the reason for atheist sadness/bummy behavior is that they can't cope with life without God. If life is sad..or life gets you down and you don't have God...seems the only solution for folks is to drink, smoke, despair or masturbate to pornography the whole live long day.

Please enlighten me.

Thanks y'all.