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Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 20, 2025 at 8:48 pm
I am always flabbergasted by the amount of people going as adults from secular world views to religious ones, but of course there are people of all walks of life and all predilections. Anything is within the realm of possibility.
But one of the biggest trends I feel, and this is evidenced to me by some of the top posts on the exatheist subreddit (Yes it is exists) is that atheism is too "depressing".
Let's actually address this-- If you are in the worldview that there is an afterlife, and this existence is a mere fragment of the infinity that is to come, then trying to swallow the cold reality that this one shot is all we got is a gut punch that is too much for some.
This leads me to believe, that if you want to help somebody leave religion, then we have to do more work on embracing the process of grief and being comfortable with this existential nightmare that is our existence.
Somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, theists or whatever variety of believer cannot bear the thought of such a simple existence and choose to cope with the thought of a heave, afterlife, and god.
People believe all things for all sorts of reasons-- whether they believe it is rationality, or emotional, or simply a societal upbringing-- and people change beliefs for all sorts of reasons to.
I do think that trying to approach deconversion from a mere logic and historical deconstruction of the major world religions, not everybody will be moved. How would you address the cope that religion provides, and locks believers in place?
-Forever Sophist
Ex-believer. Secular philosopher. Forever Sophist
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“ Maybe, this lack of purpose, lack of innate meaning, and lack of cosmological grandeur is perhaps the most liberating thing we can enjoy as humans.”
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 20, 2025 at 9:23 pm
(July 20, 2025 at 8:48 pm)Forever Sophist Wrote: This leads me to believe, that if you want to help somebody leave religion, then we have to do more work on embracing the process of grief and being comfortable with this existential nightmare that is our existence.
I think you are missing three points:
1) Atheists aren't necessarily trying to convert anyone. In my opinion, we are just trying to be honest.
2) Our lives don't become "existential nightmares," whatever that is supposed to mean. They aren't anything different than what they already were.
3) People often prefer to live in their imaginations, but that is what entertainments are for.
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 20, 2025 at 9:30 pm
People are not very bright. Religion tells people what they want to hear and it's hard to say no to that. When you really dissect religion it doesn't make a lot of sense but most people don't get that far. In two hundred years atheists will be the dominate (non)religious denomination but for now the reality is we're a culture of anti-intellectualism.
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 20, 2025 at 9:38 pm
After writing one of the 20th century's most influential books on ethics, Alasdair MacIntyre converted to Christianity.
Here is an essay by him. You can decide if this is "cope."
https://letter.otherlife.co/p/catholic-i...-macintyre
Also, I'm curious about your screen name. You know that sophistry and sophists have kind of a bad reputation, right?
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 20, 2025 at 11:18 pm
(This post was last modified: July 20, 2025 at 11:24 pm by Fake Messiah.)
Forever Sophist Wrote:But one of the biggest trends I feel, and this is evidenced to me by some of the top posts on the exatheist subreddit (Yes it is exists) is that atheism is too "depressing".
Let's actually address this-- If you are in the worldview that there is an afterlife, and this existence is a mere fragment of the infinity that is to come, then trying to swallow the cold reality that this one shot is all we got is a gut punch that is too much for some.
I don't see how believing in a place of eternal punishment is not depressing. And there are many theists who constantly fear that they will be forever tortured every hour of their lives. It is even more depressing than thinking there is no afterlife.
So it seems that saying how atheism is depressing is just another religious sound bite.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 21, 2025 at 12:23 am
3.5% doesn't seem like an astounding number to me, nor do I think that life is an existential nightmare. Like you say logic isn't uniformly compelling but if the problem is that life -is- an existential nightmare...and, hypothetically, there was a god....that doesn't change anything about life being an existential nightmare. Now a or the true statement is life is an existential nightmare and there is a god.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 21, 2025 at 2:54 am
I have been an atheist for about 60 years and I have not felt depressed for most of it.
The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will fly to the stars.
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 21, 2025 at 5:18 am
(July 20, 2025 at 11:18 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Forever Sophist Wrote:But one of the biggest trends I feel, and this is evidenced to me by some of the top posts on the exatheist subreddit (Yes it is exists) is that atheism is too "depressing".
Let's actually address this-- If you are in the worldview that there is an afterlife, and this existence is a mere fragment of the infinity that is to come, then trying to swallow the cold reality that this one shot is all we got is a gut punch that is too much for some.
I don't see how believing in a place of eternal punishment is not depressing. And there are many theists who constantly fear that they will be forever tortured every hour of their lives. It is even more depressing than thinking there is no afterlife.
So it seems that saying how atheism is depressing is just another religious sound bite.
(Bold mine)
It's not depressing because very few believers in eternal damnation believe that they themselves will be one of the eternally damned.
Sartre said, 'Hell is other people.' The devout tend to think 'Hell is for other people.'
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 21, 2025 at 7:14 am
(July 21, 2025 at 5:18 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: It's not depressing because very few believers in eternal damnation believe that they themselves will be one of the eternally damned.
Sartre said, 'Hell is other people.' The devout tend to think 'Hell is for other people.'
Boru
They do fear hell; I mean, just look at the lengths they'll go to endure those boring masses. And they also fear hell for others.
Watch this Catholic priest comfort believers that it is OK that their child burns in hell while they're in heaven and that it'll all make sense once they meet god. That their parents and/or children will be so grotesquely deformed by their sins they'll look like monsters, and that is why they won't feel pity for them and will be happy to see them burn.
I mean, how comforting is this? Obviously not very much.
When it comes to Sartre, he literally thought that hell was other people. And you could easily argue that being alone in a room for long periods of time is much better than being with someone irritating. Anyway, he explored this idea more in his play/movie "No Exit" (1962). I would warmly recommend that movie; it is one of my favorites. I remember when I first watched it as a kid and was blown away by how someone can use something like hell as a metaphor.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: Coping: A Big Tool for Religions
July 21, 2025 at 11:20 am
Here is my thinking on the "afterlife".
What about the "BEFORE LIFE"?
A living being "emerges" from a non living state....or an "egg".
What comes before the egg.
We are all going back to the state of affairs we "emerged " from..what ever that is....
If the religious are so confident of an afterlife why is there no discussion of a "before life".
To me, this validates the phoniness of religion...
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