Easy Life of an Atheist

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PickyPicky said:
Say, The question arises how many Catholics believe in confession because it allows them to sin and get away with it? Say I posted something as ridiculous and unpleasant as that — you wouldn’t regard that as insulting to Catholics?
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As a Catholic, no that question is not insulting to me. I’m sure some Catholics do believe confession allows them to sin and get away with it. Humans are like that. Some questions have to be generic to provoke thought and discussion. PickyPicky, don’t be so picky picky…😀
 
MountCarmel said:
Hmmn, when it comes to atheists, the question arises, how many really/genuinely don’t believe there is any deity, and how many just don’t want to believe in one - mainly because to believe in one just might get in the way of their own [more convenient] ‘moral and ethical’ rules and considerations?
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I realise you are already being criticised for this post. I am also critical of it but from a rather different angle. I think it is not a rational proposition. First of all there are innumerable possibilities if someone decides to ‘believe there is any deity’ as you put it. One might believe in Moloch, to whom the Bible says children were sacrificed. Or Zeus. Or the entire host of Hindu Gods. Or Zeus, or Thor or… Among these Gods you will find Gods who endorse every possible form of behaviour. Atheism is not required as an excuse for behaviour. There also seems to be little evidence that belief protects against bad behaviour. For example, posters here and some Church officials argue that priests are no more or less likely than others to abuse children. If so,belief seems not to have altered behaviour.
 
Nap66 said:
As a Catholic, no that question is not insulting to me. I’m sure some Catholics do believe confession allows them to sin and get away with it. Humans are like that
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Fair enough, I take your word for it, and my apologies in that case to @MountCarmel.
 
PickyPicky - Ref: your Confession scenario - no, I would not feel insulted - I would feel that said poster was trying, perhaps, to entice me with bait of some sort and reel me in. Regarding those ‘hypothetical’ folks in said scenario, well, if they feel that they are not being genuinely contrite. Just because our fallen human nature does in reality leave us open to the occasions of sin, does not mean that when we are in the Confessional, we can play fast and loose with serious repentance , and a firm purpose of amendment - and to remember it is before God who cannot be fooled, and who knows that human mind, even better than that mind knows itself. God loves a genuine trier and a genuine repentant.
 
FiveLinden - I was focusing on atheism [said group of the OP] - I am also fully aware that the same sort of human feelings and perceptions can infiltrate the minds of non-atheists. I do believe however that those who stay close to the tenets of the Catholic church, as expressed through its Magisterium - which paedophile priests clearly do not - have a heightened protection given by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
 
MountCarmel said:
FiveLinden - I was focusing on atheism [said group of the OP] - I am also fully aware that the same sort of human feelings and perceptions can infiltrate the minds of non-atheists. I do believe however that those who stay close to the tenets of the Catholic church, as expressed through its Magisterium - which paedophile priests clearly do not - have a heightened protection given by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
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Well, at the outset you were talking about theist belief and non-belief. Now you are talking about those who stay close to the tenets of the Church. These are different categories. A paedophile can be a believer. I assume most of the priests involved in this were/are.
 
Nap66 said:
As a Christian when bad things happen to me I feel empathy when it happens to other people.
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What on earth makes you think that it’s your Christianity that makes you feel empathy?
Atheists feel only for themselves. Does make it easier to live and to disregard other things.
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I’m sick and tired of religious people asserting that atheists have no morals, no empathy, no goals, no reason for living. It’s contrary to all the evidence. Does evidence play any part at all in your world view?

It’s not your religion that gives you empathy, it’s your humanity. The humanity you share with atheists.
 
Obviously those unrepentant paedophile priests are not ‘believers’ - unless of course they also are looking forward to eternity in Hell. They know the rules regarding salvation - true repentance - no repentance, no salvation. Deliberately withholding repentance is like sticking up two fingers to God, His Grace, and His Love.
 
FredBloggs said:
I’m sick and tired of religious people asserting that atheists have no morals, no empathy, no goals, no reason for living. It’s contrary to all the evidence. Does evidence play any part at all in your world view?
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I’m sure it’s not contrary to ALL the evidence in the world. I am sure there are atheists with no morals, no empathy, no goals and no reason for living (I know one), as well as believers with no morals, no empathy, no goals, no reason for living (I was on my way to being one).
FredBloggs said:
It’s not your religion that gives you empathy, it’s your humanity. The humanity you share with atheists.
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Of course. Where does humanity come from? What makes us different from animals, insects, plants? SOME atheists will say we are no different, but then bring up humanity, empathy and all that jazz that animals, insects and plants don’t have (at least to the extent humans do). God is in humanity, we are created in his image. We can chose not to believe it is so, but it still is so. My view.
 
Unfortunately, the latest cross I’ve been dealing with in my life has made me angry at God and further away from Him, not closer 😔
 
The easiest answer is that humans are tribal. If we decide someone is a member of our tribe, they effectively become kin. If we decide they aren’t, well, history is replete with examples of what happens to the Other.

Jered Diamond, in one of his books, recounted the story of two New Guinean men from different tribes who met each other on a path, and immediately began throwing out names of people, trying to find someone they both knew. If some level of kinship could be established, all was well, if not, then the potential of violence grew.

Invoking altruism as a sign of specialty has to deal with all the behaviors humans exhibit which are fundementally selfish. Talking about our better angels without reference to our nasty demons seems to leave out half the equation.
 
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Empathy is hardly unique to humans. Many primates, as well as elephants and cetaceans exhibit similar behaviors. It’s a crude measure, but it seems brain size has a lot to do with it.
 
Actually, that’s what Christians believe as well. We don’t just believe because we’re told. We believe those ancient men had wisdom and what they wrote was the best way to live this life as it did the least harm to the most people.

People balk at the teachings about sex but really those teachings are about protecting children that result naturally from sexual relations. They’re also about protecting each other from being used and abused and tossed aside. There are certain chemical things that happen in sex that can do a lot of damage.

I don’t think anyone here would argue that single parent homes are better for children. Or that situations where a woman has 5 children from 5 different men is good? Or situations where children are shipped back and forth between homes because their parents were ill suited to be together from the start are good?

The teachings about social responsibility and morality (don’t steal, don’t abuse others, etc) are all about doing what is best for the greater good and not indulging in the moment of pleasure.

You kind of dismiss it as ‘following what ancient man wrote’ but why do we presume we have more wisdom than ancient man? Technology does not make us superior. Despite birth control and the availability of abortion we STILL have all kinds of families and children being harmed in the long term because two adults couldn’t keep it together for the short term pleasure.
 
somecanadian said:
You kind of dismiss it as ‘following what ancient man wrote’ but why do we presume we have more wisdom than ancient man? Technology does not make us superior.
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No, not technology, but science most certainly makes us wiser. Jesus, or at least the writers of the gospel thought that epilepsy was caused by demonic possession. Now we know better.
 
We don’t know it was epilepsy either. And, in fact, if an exorcism ‘cured’ it, then we can be quite certain it wasn’t.
 
I will offer a perspective if I may. In the way of a much abridged background, I will say that while I do believe in a transpersonal consciousness or protoconsciousness that is shared by all things and perhaps guides us , I do not believe in the God of Abraham, nor do I believe an an omniscient or omnipotent being. By most standards I would be considered an atheist. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have a sense of spirituality and it doesn’t mean that I disagree with many of the tenets that Jesus of Nazareth taught. I find him to be a very good role model. I can tell you that there are a lot of people like me. We tend to shy away from the atheist/deist arguments because in most cases those arguments oversimplify a very complex and most important aspect of our being.

To the point, and as a voice from a different side of the forum, I would like to offer my assurances that everyone suffers. Some people handle it better than others, but we all have our suffering. Like everyone else, I am saddened by the lack of many a thing I sought and I feel sorrow for any creature that suffers, which means I have empathy. There are ways in which I have less comfort than a person of religious faith, because I really don’t know what happens when we die. I have languished at many a Catholic funeral that I am unable to find any credibility in the idea of a resurrection. I am happy for those who can. Conversely, there are ways in which I am happier than people of faith, because I don’t feel guilty for being human. Specifically, I am free of the idea that I was born with anything that needs to be washed away, and feel free to live, learn, love, grow and explore based on my own direct experience, while sharing the same moral compass with regard to my conduct as most people of faith. As people like myself like to say, we are good for goodness’ sake. Because it makes sense to be kind to others and to care about others.

To vector this in on the original question, I have every reason based on experience to believe that everyone suffers. No one gets off easy. But we do have a choice on how we deal with adversity, and that is something I am trying to learn to do better. I think most of us would like that.

All the best!
 
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Nap66 said:
Does God lay off from atheists because he knows if he sends trials and tribulations to atheists it will not bring them closer to him since atheists do not believe in God? On the contrary with believers, trials and tribulations will most likely bring the believer closer to God and so believers have harder lives than atheists. From my limited perspective atheists do in indeed seem to have easier lives.
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Most atheists do not realize it, but they are spiritual beings just like the rest of us. It is not the Strictly quantifiable relationships that drives us (the scientifically observable), it is the strictly qualitative aspects of our experiences that makes life worth living. It is that sense of honor, or justice, or value, or meaning, or purpose, or love, or legacy, our emotional experiences, that allows us to make sense of being alive. Without those experiences we merely have a world of objects, and nobody really wants that and neither do they act like they live in that kind of world regardless of whether they are atheist or not. We all worship the spiritual.

An atheist may not think he needs God, but he does need that which cannot be quantified as physical in any meaningful sense and he or she cannot live without it. Man cannot live by bread alone. Strict unconditional materialism does not practically exist if we are brutally honest, and i have never met a true atheist. At best, what people call atheism includes the spiritual but rejects God as the cause. Strict materialism is not consistent with our experiences. If materialism survives at all, it is more like a mystical or mysterious materialism rather than metaphysical naturalism.

As for the easy life. People vary in their ability to obtain what most people in the modern world think of as happiness, and it rarely has anything to do with their relationship with God. A person can obtain a real degree of happiness without God, but that does not mean that they have obtained spiritual fulfillment in the Christian sense of the word and neither does anyone obtain perfect happiness. People obtain happiness to varying degrees. And neither can anyone atheist or not, obtain any happiness without first having qualitative experiences and learning how to make the best of those experiences.

Everyone has trials in life.
 
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There were lots of answers after my post. All actually miss the point, which Jesus Christ at several times asked: DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?

Now - if we REALLY believe what Christ said, then we won’t twist and turn and hair-split Christ’s manifest, which is brought into just a few words in John 3,18: He that believeth in him is not judged.
it goes on then: he that doth not believe, is already judged; because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Now, the latter does not apply to us! It doesn’t touch us, because we are believers!
Are we really?

Now - let’s be honest for a change: Do we look forward to see Jesus Christ after we died - which of course means not to fear death at all. Are we in joyful anticipation for getting there? Same as we in the past looked forward in great joy to another happy event?

Are we really looking forward to seeing Jesus Christ, who has all the power in heaven and on earth? Earlier in the city I was very dizzy. I almost fell over. But as so often in such cases, I looked heavenward and said to God; - yes, I am looking forward to seeing each other and being with you.

Can we all say this out of conviction and rejoice with an inner exult while praying?

Do we then have to have crosstalk as to how to see-understand-translate-appreciate-comprehend Christ’s word, which by the way is very authentically understood and performed by Pope Francis -

Yours
Bruno
 
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There is the well known military saying, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” I know from facing possible imminent death in the military, I think that is true. Also, just looking at the wonders of the world and believing this is all an accident is crazy to my mind. As a military aviator, I have seen things at high altitudes and in strange weather that make the non-existence of God impossible to my mind. St. Elmo’s Fire is one example.

Religion is something different, of course, but belief in God is just obvious.
 
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