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I have doubted the existence of God for quite some time now, but I sometimes wish I had some faith in something. The only reason why I sometimes wish I believed in God and heaven is that I would believe I would see my loved ones some day again. It makes me really uncomfortable thinking that the people I love will die some day and I will never see them again.
That's why I'm sometimes envious of people who have faith. When a loved one dies, they really believe they will be reunited with them again. Do any of you non believers ever worry about these things?
Have faith in YOURSELF!!! That's all you need, since everything else is fiction and here say!
The saddest moment in the life of an atheist is when they realize they are grateful for being blessed-----and have no one to thank.
Ego sum perfectus
Oh please...The only sad thing is watching a theist engage in a lifetime of mental gymnastics to rationalize their belief in an invisible god that can not/will not intervene in anything.
Just live your life and stop worrying about dying. It's coming no matter what you do and you wont know what it's going to be like (if anything because you'll be dead of course). LIVE THE LIFE YOU HAVE TO THE FULLEST!!
I have doubted the existence of God for quite some time now, but I sometimes wish I had some faith in something. The only reason why I sometimes wish I believed in God and heaven is that I would believe I would see my loved ones some day again. It makes me really uncomfortable thinking that the people I love will die some day and I will never see them again.
That's why I'm sometimes envious of people who have faith. When a loved one dies, they really believe they will be reunited with them again. Do any of you non believers ever worry about these things?
I'm kind of with you on this one. I suppose I would like there to be an afterlife partly to see bygone loved ones, but mostly it would be to keep busy after my time on earth ends. The idea of nothingness bothers me. I find it kind of creepy. So I too am a little envious of those who believe in the standard god/afterlife format. Unfortunately there is no evidence of those things. Every bit of evidence suggests that it's all just made-up.
I'm kind of with you on this one. I suppose I would like there to be an afterlife partly to see bygone loved ones, but mostly it would be to keep busy after my time on earth ends. The idea of nothingness bothers me. I find it kind of creepy. So I too am a little envious of those who believe in the standard god/afterlife format. Unfortunately there is no evidence of those things. Every bit of evidence suggests that it's all just made-up.
You didn't find your pre-life creepy; you didn't find it anything because your consciousness did not exist. It will be the same when you die.
You didn't find your pre-life creepy; you didn't find it anything because your consciousness did not exist. It will be the same when you die.
My whole statement was based on how I feel today as I ponder the prospect of death. The creepiness felt is felt today while pondering the prospect of death. I did not find my pre-life creepy before birth because I did not have the ability to think about it at the time. Now that I can think about it, I do not find my pre-life non-existence creepy, but I do find it rather perplexing. I would probably find it creepy, but I know it was temporarily suspended by life. I will probably get no such reprieve from death. The whole thing is just a little too metaphysical for me.
My whole statement was based on how I feel today as I ponder the prospect of death. The creepiness felt is felt today while pondering the prospect of death. I did not find my pre-life creepy before birth because I did not have the ability to think about it at the time. Now that I can think about it, I do not find my pre-life non-existence creepy, but I do find it rather perplexing. I would probably find it creepy, but I know it was temporarily suspended by life. I will probably get no such reprieve from death. The whole thing is just a little too metaphysical for me.
Well, I suppose that's the rub, we feel what we feel in the present moment, don't we? But feelings follow our thoughts and habits. If you tell yourself that it's scary or creepy or sad that this is all there is, that is what, inevitably, you'll feel. If you tell yourself that it's neither here nor there, eventually, that is what you will feel. Of course it varies by individual how long this takes, and you may have many layers of your own personal "onion" to peel back to get beneath the mere surface things you tell yourself. And it's not as if our mortality is all upside and no downside. It does suck in ways ... it's basically a matter of being able to see the upsides and paying at least as much attention to those.
I guess what I'm trying to do is just point out that the negative feelings that can accompany thoughts of mortality (for ourselves or for others) are as malleable as any others, if we want to invest the effort to alter them. Feelings seem to have a reality all their own, and seem anchored in reality and the events we experience, but they really rise or fall based on our thoughts, which are somewhat choosable. Also, confronting and honestly observing thoughts and feelings makes them lose a lot of their power over us.
Well, I suppose that's the rub, we feel what we feel in the present moment, don't we? But feelings follow our thoughts and habits. If you tell yourself that it's scary or creepy or sad that this is all there is, that is what, inevitably, you'll feel. If you tell yourself that it's neither here nor there, eventually, that is what you will feel. Of course it varies by individual how long this takes, and you may have many layers of your own personal "onion" to peel back to get beneath the mere surface things you tell yourself. And it's not as if our mortality is all upside and no downside. It does suck in ways ... it's basically a matter of being able to see the upsides and paying at least as much attention to those.
I guess what I'm trying to do is just point out that the negative feelings that can accompany thoughts of mortality (for ourselves or for others) are as malleable as any others, if we want to invest the effort to alter them. Feelings seem to have a reality all their own, and seem anchored in reality and the events we experience, but they really rise or fall based on our thoughts, which are somewhat choosable. Also, confronting and honestly observing thoughts and feelings makes them lose a lot of their power over us.
In an interview some years ago, Woody Allen said that he was simply unable to ponder death head-on. I think he said that the problem was that there is no answer to death either physically, or intellectually. I remember that I empathized with every word he said on the subject.
I have doubted the existence of God for quite some time now, but I sometimes wish I had some faith in something. The only reason why I sometimes wish I believed in God and heaven is that I would believe I would see my loved ones some day again. It makes me really uncomfortable thinking that the people I love will die some day and I will never see them again.
That's why I'm sometimes envious of people who have faith. When a loved one dies, they really believe they will be reunited with them again. Do any of you non believers ever worry about these things?
Don't stress about not having any faith it's the logical and sane thing to not believe in something you can't see or feel and there is absolutely no evidence for. I understand where you're coming from though as a former Christian I sometimes miss having that "blind faith" but I also know it's not rational.
And as far as an afterlife, well I still believe that this life is not all there is. I don't know what to expect but I feel sure that this life is just a stepping stone towards something else. I know that sounds weird since I'm an agnostic/atheist but I can believe whatever the hell I want to believe, ya know?
There's more to this picture, way more and I think if we were all honest with ourselves we would admit that we all have hope to that effect. Nothing wrong with hoping.
I don't believe for a second the bible version of a god, but I cannot deny that I can't prove that "something" out there exists, we just can't know what that is. Obviously since no person EVER has come back from the grave to say "hey! it's all good, no worries" then how can we even begin to speculate about an afterlife? I still have hope even if it comes in the form of reincarnation which at this point sorta makes better sense than "goddunnit" or some such nonsense. But if we get reincarnated do we know it? Being reincarnated would explain deja vu for instance, everyone has experienced that right?
I don't have any answers really but if you want to believe in an afterlife in spite of not believing in god I think that's perfectly fine.
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