Why should one assume that there is a god, if everything will be the same as if you never existed? I dont follow your reasoning

You said this:
The implication here, to me at least, is very much that the possible exception to atheists having a depressing life with the world view you expanded on is that they have no thought deeply enough about it to actually understand the implications. You do make a switch from "atheists" to "you" that makes me think the you is a generic one. So I would say you have either very bad phrasing which gives the implication that non depressed atheists have not thought deeply enough about it to understand it, OR you are actually maintaining that distinction.

A lot of good points here.
Christians who think atheism is bleak are using Christianity as a baseline. Whereas atheists probably don't use Christianity as a baseline, therefore atheists don't think its bleak its just reality.

Similarly the transcendence of consciousness as taught in Christianity gives tremendous hope for the future (wrongly or rightly). Whereas the ending of a life at death seems sad in comparison. IMO emotions are irrelevant. What is more relevant is which is correct. If atheism and materialsm are correct then I don't think its bleak its just reality which is fine. However, from a Christian perspective they are bleak.

I can't speak for other Atheists but I certainly don't consider my life bleak. If anything, I'm all the more determined to enjoy it since from my perspective it's the only one I'll ever have. I wouldn't want to spend it worrying about what was going to happen in the next one, especially as no one can be sure it even exists.

I guess you felt the need... nice flame by the way, a PHD too huh. lol.

Precisely.


If being a christian means that you think everyone else has a bleak life, well, firstly I think that's sad, secondly I can see even more why being a believer would be so very tempting.

If you're wrong though, you'll have one eye on something that isn't real for your whole life.

Atheism can seem bleak and in some ways it is. Nothing happens for a special, cosmic reason, there is no 'purpose' to life (except what you make of it), not everyone gets what they deserve and there is no magical happy place where you get to meet all your loved ones once we die.

On the other hand, no hell, so there's that.

I started a thread called "Logical Theism". I laid out the reasoning there. If you want to see the argument that is where to look.

Lol well said.

The embodied realization that there is no god, no self and no purpose to life is actually extremely liberating and can be the source of tremendous joy. When these illusions collapse then it's like one wakes up, reality is experienced to be incredibly intimate and ordinary. Relative identity (self/ego) is finally realized to be but a temporary appearance, coming and going within reality (that which one actually is). Depression can still arise, but infinitely more likely because for example one's dog passed away than because of some philosophical conundrum.

great comment, thanks.
+1

ah right, pascals wager

I think you just mean to be agreeing with me here, but in case it wasn't clear, I also don't view materialistic atheism as bleak. However, I can see why a Christian would view it as bleak in comparison to Christianity.

More like a depressive death. Life is pretty cool and i want it to keep going. But what are you going to do fool yourself into thinking it doesn't end. How does that work anyway? It is what it is.



And ill point out again like i do in all these threads because some theists seem to forget or ignore this. Not all theists believe in an afterlife. Some theists are in the same depressive life ending boat. So the problem is not unique to atheists and theism is not necessarily the cure.

The most important point is that even if true, even if atheism leads to a depressive life... this is utterly irrelevant. If one falls of a tall cliff, you're almost certainly going to die when you hit the bottom. This is depressing, but it doesn't make it any less true.

Lol. Saw that someone wrote that and turned your brain off. And you wonder why I think that most atheists are shallow.

Oh yeah...If A God created this universe even with a finite life id say thanks, i mean it sucks im going to die, but thanks. Many theists would not. They would say to God a finite life is meaningless and depressive. So who is really depressed about life. The guy who wants it even if fleeting and a bit depressive or the guy who if fleeting sees it as a completely meaningless depressive wasteland.

It is kind of a, so what now?, thing.

Presumably if god made us with no afterlife, we still exist in some sense forever where we don't in an atheistic universe - he planned for us, we were part of his "bigger purpose", presumably he remembers us once we're dead.

I don't agree with RLK (I probably haven't though about it deeply enough ) but I don't think his view requires an afterlife to be consistent.

I read that thread and you don't really make a significantly different argument to pascal. Much like your odd posts earlier in this thread, you seem to think that just because you personally find something compelling/depressing etc someone who disagrees must be lacking in insight. Between this and aaron's weird run of homosexuality thread I think we need to nominate some new 'thinking man's theists'.

Edit: ganstaman and montecarlo get my vote

I think those are big presumablys.

Maybe Gods indifferent and or has no knowledge of us as individuals and will have no memories of us as individuals. Our individual lifes could be meaningless to God as much as meaningful.

And even if true it could just as easily be said there is a bigger picture in an atheistic universe. Maybe we (intelligent life) are the reproductive means by which other universes will be created (intelligent life creating them).

Maybe the atoms im made of are the finial atoms required to squirt through a black hole to create a new universe.

I mean in the end i agree with you a theist (not RLK because he says a finite life is meaningless and depressive) can get out of it. God has a purpose for my finite life. But then they should not say an atheists life is meaningless because it is finite. They should say its meaningless and depressive without a God regardless of the finite.

I got this from your initial post in that thread, not from what anyone else said. Maybe Im missing the point, so can you explain how it differs from pascals wager?

Not written on parchment?

It's not pascal's wager because it doesnt relate to some specific religion. He's not suggesting "Jesus is our saviour or he isnt, therefore let's look at the options if we worship Jesus or if we dont". The classes he sets out are disjoint and exhaustive (although I personally see no point in separating deism from theism as he did - may as well distinguish between them in the subsequent "search for truth" phase).

I dont know what RLK thinks one should do if, whilst searching, one comes to the view that no human conception of God is correct. That was my position, even as a theist. I just muddled along as best I could, but it seems like I'd be stymied somewhat under the aegis of his argument (granted I only read his OP - maybe he fleshed out the idea later in the thread).

My atheistic critique would be that proceeding through life without reference to a God is less "costly" than a sincere, honest quest to find which conception of God is most correct. "It's not hard to be a theist" is true enough, but "It's not hard to embark an honest, sincere and deep quest for spiritual enlightenment" is less plausible - at least to me. Without that latter step, I dont think RLK's OP results in much more than lipservice to some nebulous concept.

(Note I'm not suggesting RLK hasnt actually undertaken a deep and considered evaluation of what qualities God seems to have. I wouldnt know.)

I dont recall reading this thread before. I think it's superior to another Pascal-wager-y kind of argument RLK put forth (based on "if there's a malicious God, you're screwed anyway". That argument I considered much weaker).

Where theists deny the reality of godlessness, atheists tend to deny the reality of nihilism.

I seek RLK plaudits for being an un-shallow atheist, heh...though by doing so I compromise the trait for which I seek acknowledgement. I share his assessment on the collective depth of the atheist population...only difference being I am part of that population. Secular humanism is hilariously (tragi-hilariously) shallow and rife with double standards...and yet arguments are put forth to pretend it's a philosophically justifiable position. I "respect" most actions consistent with that "platform", but don't try to pretend that such respect is anything more than arbitrary from a philosophical perspective, idiot (the rhetorical "idiot" I derisively address here being the average philosophically pretentious secular humanist, unaware that the is-ought fallacy renders his entire justification-seeking enterprise moot)

and yeah, germane to the OP, I am depressed...although I began experiencing depression years before I became an atheist. Brain function-wise, probably a case of physiological variable X contributing to the rise of both Y and Z (depression AND atheism...it's interesting to think back on my tenure at Catholic high school about how once I developed "depression" in say sophomore year, to what degree the oddsmakers should've adjusted accordingly in the futures market regarding "likelihood that Matt Marcinkiewicz deconverts from the religion of his upbringing". Obviously it is not as simple as Y-depression correlating with Z-atheism, but rather a whole complex of correlating variables...but if Y emerges during adolescence, you'd have to think the likelihood of Z automatically increases, if we're looking at this purely epidemiologically. Of course if we account for enough other life factors then we should theoretically be able to build a model where likelihood of Z approaches then attains 100% just before the moment when conscious "I am an atheist" realization occurs (or is merely felt to have occurred, if we're striving for greater accuracy in regards to the phenomenon of consciousness), given determinacy, heh.)

Now Y need not necessarily correlate with Z...but I think in cases where there is Z but not Y, if we introduce variable W, "depth of thought in the estimation of the estimable RLK" (Merriam-Webster tells me that my usage of "estimable" is archaic, btw, heh), then I think Z-but-not-Y cases are going tend to reveal lower levels of W. I think variable V for "religious indoctrination when young" probably has an influence on W (V would lead to increased levels of W, if decreased levels of U, which I'll assign to "realism"...increased U obviously correlates with Y and Z), because exposure to theology on a day-to-day basis tends to foster the habit of continuing to think about thoughts of "deep meaning"...but the cruel twist to the tale is obviously when Z (atheism) is introduced, and we're left with high levels of W and Z...that's where Y (depression) is all-but-guaranteed in this rambling-and-unscientific-but-perhaps-testable-in-some-form hypothesis of mine

So nice to think of fully deconstructing oneself in an entirely mechanistic way...the good news is that we can't yet do it. When that singularity of sanity is eventually accessible, goodbye, not-cruel-or-uncruel world...but for now it's time to drown sorrows.