One is only religious because one fears hell

[Alterum]

The OP fails to consider that the good, the true, and the beautiful are one; that by our constitution as rational creatures we are necessarily inclined to the good and the true; that we seek happiness; that happiness follows our conformity to the good as delight follows the vision of God; and that self-concern is not selfishness. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy; you are designed to be happy. Only when the moral life is reduced to abstract obligation (or concrete casuistry) do questions like the OP’s arise.

 

[sw85]

Where are people getting this idea that suicide is logical in an atheistic worldview? Even if there is ultimately no afterlife, what makes suicide a logical option? If you enjoy your life, wouldn’t you necessarily want it to continue for awhile

It is perfectly logical when life is not being enjoyed and when there is no prospect for improvement. Atheists admit this tacitly when they agitate for laws to allow people to “die with dignity,” i.e., commit suicide with the approval of society.

 

[ASimon]

It is perfectly logical when life is not being enjoyed and when there is no prospect for improvement. Atheists admit this tacitly when they agitate for laws to allow people to “die with dignity,” i.e., commit suicide with the approval of society.

Yes - when people are suffering needlessly in the throes of terminal illness, that’s when questions of assisted suicide need be addressed.

The fact of the matter is, if you would cease to find even the slightest happiness in life in a world conclusively proven to be without God, to the extent that killing yourself is the only choice you could make, then this says a great deal more about you than it says about atheism. To say nothing of the past-times you currently enjoy that you claim would no longer interest you - you’re saying there’s not a single person on Earth who would miss you, nor a single person that you would claim is worth sharing your time with.

This is simple masochism.

 

[kch86]

"sw85:

The contradiction was for me (and apparently for you) unsustainable, and I had to confront it.

That’s a very good observation.

I would be very careful of saying that atheists are not “intellectually honest.” I sincerely believed there was no God or afterlife and inconsistencies between my beliefs and actions were probably more the result of the fact that I wasn’t fully convinced by any particular philosophy and was somehow trying (and failing) to work out a theory for everything, and perhaps in the meantime, being “good” could have been some sort of a substitute until I worked it out.

I imagine some atheists can live with these inconsistencies for quite a while without literally lying to themselves quite simply because they don’t think about it much, or if they do, they accept that they haven’t got all the answers or perhaps subscribe to a particular philosophy.

It is perfectly logical when life is not being enjoyed and when there is no prospect for improvement. Atheists admit this tacitly when they agitate for laws to allow people to “die with dignity,” i.e., commit suicide with the approval of society.

Yes. I did support the right to die but had my doubts.

Where are people getting this idea that suicide is logical in an atheistic worldview? Even if there is ultimately no afterlife, what makes suicide a logical option? If you enjoy your life, wouldn’t you necessarily want it to continue for awhile?

Well, I’m not saying all atheists see it that way, but I as an atheist did think that to some extent. I didn’t want to commit suicide and wanted to keep living life, but ultimately I believed it would make no difference if I just ended it there and then instead of waiting x years for it to happen naturally.

The fact of the matter is, if you would cease to find even the slightest happiness in life in a world conclusively proven to be without God, to the extent that killing yourself is the only choice you could make, then this says a great deal more about you than it says about atheism.

What has happiness got to do with anything? You won’t exist to regret committing suicide. If you commit suicide when you are happy or die naturally 50 years later, what difference is there? Both situations end in the same way - it will be as though you had never existed. So what is the point in all our pleasant diversions in life? It will be as though they had never happened. Well, that’s more or less what I thought, but I still didn’t want to commit suicide.

 

[sw85]

Yes - when people are suffering needlessly in the throes of terminal illness, that’s when questions of assisted suicide need be addressed.

The fact of the matter is, if you would cease to find even the slightest happiness in life in a world conclusively proven to be without God, to the extent that killing yourself is the only choice you could make, then this says a great deal more about you than it says about atheism. To say nothing of the past-times you currently enjoy that you claim would no longer interest you - you’re saying there’s not a single person on Earth who would miss you, nor a single person that you would claim is worth sharing your time with.

This is simple masochism.

OK, so you believe life is intrinsically meaningless beyond the distraction and entertainment (what you regrettably call and no doubt actually believe constitute “happiness”) which certain baubles afford us, and that moreover once such baubles become unavailable or their entertaining power is overshadowed by misery, it’s perfectly reasonable to kill oneself.

So in what sense is the suicide of someone for whom the meaninglessness of atheistic existence is itself a source of pain (e.g., my brother) contrary to those principles? Is there any reason to believe that you sincerely hold as conviction anything you’re saying – that you aren’t just mouthing platitudes in order to convince yourself of something you don’t really believe? You say that my saying this says something about me (even though I have already said I don’t endorse it because it’s reasonable to hold to natural law principles without being a theist, even though I know of no atheist that does) – but why isn’t it the case that what it says about me is that I can recognize the logical conclusions of your beliefs, something you cannot permit yourself to do because such a recognition would destroy the elaborate network of rationalizations you’ve constructed (such that distraction/entertainment/“happiness” = meaning/value/goodness) which allow you to hobble along in a mostly functional mode of living?

If suicide is itself evidence of moral deficiency, is an atheist suicide victim like David Stove morally deficient? If so, why should you believe anything he’s attempted to defend, including his atheism?

 

[ASimon]

What has happiness got to do with anything? You won’t exist to regret committing suicide. If you commit suicide when you are happy or die naturally 50 years later, what difference is there? Both situations end in the same way - it will be as though you had never existed. So what is the point in all our pleasant diversions in life? It will be as though they had never happened. Well, that’s more or less what I thought, but I still didn’t want to commit suicide.

I honestly doubt I can make my point with any more clarity than you have for me just now. “What has happiness got to do with anything?” “So what is the point in all our pleasant diversions in life?”

I return to my thesis - this is what religion does to people. It convinces them to trade in all the real sources of pleasure and happiness and contentment in the only life we know we’ve got, for a Door #2 that Monty Hall promises to open for you, assuming you’re fortunate enough to die in the right circumstances.

 

[ASimon]

OK, so you believe life is intrinsically meaningless beyond the distraction and entertainment (what you regrettably call and no doubt actually believe constitute “happiness”) which certain baubles afford us, and that moreover once such baubles become unavailable or their entertaining power is overshadowed by misery, it’s perfectly reasonable to kill oneself.

I support controlled suicide in cases of terminal illness, and I don’t apologize for it. You want to trivialize that sort of pain and anguish, while simultaneously degrading the value of human relationships to the level of shiny objects and functionally useless bric-a-brack, cluttering your path to your One True God. Needless to say, I don’t regard my friends and family as obstructions to something greater in another life, but if you do, you should have the courage to say so (and not just ignore them from my earlier post).

So in what sense is the suicide of someone for whom the meaninglessness of atheistic existence is itself a source of pain (e.g., my brother) contrary to those principles? Is there any reason to believe that you sincerely hold as conviction anything you’re saying – that you aren’t just mouthing platitudes in order to convince yourself of something you don’t really believe? You say that my saying this says something about me (even though I have already said I don’t endorse it because it’s reasonable to hold to natural law principles without being a theist, even though I know of no atheist that does) – but why isn’t it the case that what it says about me is that I can recognize the logical conclusions of your beliefs, something you cannot permit yourself to do because such a recognition would destroy the elaborate network of rationalizations you’ve constructed (such that distraction/entertainment/“happiness” = meaning/value/goodness) which allow you to hobble along in a mostly functional mode of living?

You can believe that I mean what I say, or don’t. It stands to reason that if I really thought my life had no meaning or purpose, I wouldn’t bother making an efforts to advance it (which I do). So, there’s that.

The logical necessity of suicide for an atheist is faulty, as I said earlier. If life really is devoid of happiness in a world without God, you need to include a great deal of life under that umbrella. Not just the stuff we would both agree as superfluous, but the relationships too - the people you care about, and the people who care about you. If they really are ultimately worthless, then I repeat - have the nerve to say so.

If suicide is itself evidence of moral deficiency, is an atheist suicide victim like David Stove morally deficient? If so, why should you believe anything he’s attempted to defend, including his atheism?

No idea who that is.

 

[kch86]

I return to my thesis - this is what religion does to people. It convinces them to trade in all the real sources of pleasure and happiness and contentment in the only life we know we’ve got, for a Door #2 that Monty Hall promises to open for you, assuming you’re fortunate enough to die in the right circumstances.

But I was raised secular and was not religious when I thought that. So it’s not religion that did that to me. And what I thought was that whatever our experience of this existence is, good or bad, will be as though it never had been. So why not skip a few years and get to the logical conclusion straight away? You know it makes no difference.

And I feel perfectly at ease indulging in happy, sometimes pointless diversions now as a Catholic. My enjoyable pastimes are much the same as they were before. I cycle, I travel, I sometimes drink and I smoke. I enjoy good food, good company, skiing, swimming, natural beauty. Seriously, where have I traded in my real sources of pleasure?

 

[sw85]

I support controlled suicide in cases of terminal illness, and I don’t apologize for it. You want to trivialize that sort of pain and anguish, while simultaneously degrading the value of human relationships to the level of shiny objects and functionally useless bric-a-brack, cluttering your path to your One True God. Needless to say, I don’t regard my friends and family as obstructions to something greater in another life, but if you do, you should have the courage to say so (and not just ignore them from my earlier post).

In what respect do I “degrade the value of human relationships to the level of shiny objects and functionally useless bric-a-brack”? I don’t believe that at all.

People are valuable in and of themselves. This is a simple truth revealed by natural law, and you don’t need to be a theist to believe in natural law (even though, as I said, nearly everyone who does is a theist, and nearly everyone who doesn’t is an atheist; I was one of the rare exceptions, even as an atheist). But you don’t believe in natural law, do you?

So on what grounds do you justify this claim? Sorry, but you do not get to reject my worldview and then smuggle away the bits of it that salvage your own.

You can believe that I mean what I say, or don’t. It stands to reason that if I really thought my life had no meaning or purpose, I wouldn’t bother making an efforts to advance it (which I do). So, there’s that.

I’m not necessarily saying you don’t believe what you say you believe. I’m saying you cannot explain why you do believe it if, in fact, you do. And moreover you cannot explain why my saying you ought to believe that life is meaningless if there is no God is evidence of moral deficiency on my part and not simply a deficiency of imagination, understanding, or perspective on yours.

The best evidence of this is the fact that I when I point it out, all you can do is huff as if I’ve insulted you.

The logical necessity of suicide for an atheist is faulty, as I said earlier. If life really is devoid of happiness in a world without God, you need to include a great deal of life under that umbrella. Not just the stuff we would both agree as superfluous, but the relationships too - the people you care about, and the people who care about you. If they really are ultimately worthless, then I repeat - have the nerve to say so.

I’m not saying it’s “logically necessary.” Nothing is logically necessary in a consistent atheistic worldview. There is no reason to choose to live, nor is there a reason to choose to die. There is no reason to make the choice between the two and no method for deciding how to make that choice even if you decided you ought to.

I’m certainly saying you have no basis to pretend that atheists killing themselves are somehow acting contrary to atheistic principles. Atheism isn’t a principle: it’s the denial of principles. It’s simple ontological reductionism. There’s nothing to deny.

No idea who that is.

He was a prominent atheist philosopher. His life began to suck so he killed himself. Why shouldn’t he have? He fell out of favor after his suicide because to acknowledge him would’ve required the embarrassing acknowledgment that it is not, in fact, unambiguously the case that you can reconcile atheism with the idea of a duty to preserve your own life.

His son (R.J. Stove), by the way, wised up to the utter irrationality of atheism and became a Roman Catholic some time later, a story he recounts here.

 

[ASimon]

But I was raised secular and was not religious when I thought that. So it’s not religion that did that to me. And what I thought was that whatever our experience of this existence is, good or bad, will be as though it never had been. So why not skip a few years and get to the logical conclusion straight away? You know it makes no difference.

It makes the difference of a few years. What can you do in that period of time? What can you accomplish? Who can you meet?

Religion tries to sell you on this idea that unless experience goes on forever, then there’s no point to it. The problem is, nobody thinks this way in any part of their decision-making process in their everyday life. Nobody chooses not to see a movie, or not read a book, or not eat a good meal, because of the simple fact that the experience will end at some point. You make the choice on the assumed value of the experience itself. You see the movie because you think it will be good. Or don’t because you don’t think it will be good. But Religion wants you to believe that in a world where experience will one day end, there’s no reason to bother using up the intervening time.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

When I think of death, yes, I fear hell. When I make choices day to day hell rarely enters my mind. When I was a child I indeed feared getting in trouble with my parents. However as I grew up I didn’t so much fear getting into trouble as I feared letting my parents down.

I think that’s much like our relationship to God. In the early stages perhaps we fear the angry and just God. As we mature in spirituality and understand the pure love that God is, we fear not his punishment but losing our connection and relationship to that love and source of life, joy, and peace.

On a day to day basis of moral choices I make my choices based on wanting a strong relationship to God and the fullness of life walking in His path brings. I do not contemplate my immediate choice possibly sending me to hell.

For example, I forgive not because I fear not doing so will send me to hell but rather I forgive because I truly believe its the path of happiness, joy and peace both in this life and the next. Does someone not cheat on their spouse because of fear of being caught? Or do they refrain from cheating out of love and wanting to hold onto that special relationship? Obviously both motivations lead to the same result but one is much richer and more fulfilling than the other…

 

[kch86]

It makes the difference of a few years. What can you do in that period of time? What can you accomplish? Who can you meet?

Religion tries to sell you on this idea that unless experience goes on forever, then there’s no point to it. The problem is, nobody thinks this way in any part of their decision-making process in their everyday life. Nobody chooses not to see a movie, or not read a book, or not eat a good meal, because of the simple fact that the experience will end at some point. You make the choice on the assumed value of the experience itself. You see the movie because you think it will be good. Or don’t because you don’t think it will be good. But Religion wants you to believe that in a world where experience will one day end, there’s no reason to bother using up the intervening time.

Religion doesn’t really care about what the case would be if there were no afterlife, so it makes no suggestions on how one is to live life or what one should think if that were the case.

But I see where you’re coming from. I accepted your view too, concurrently with the doubts I expressed. But those doubts did not come from religion, which I did not accept, with which I was not familiar, and with which I was not raised. They were simple, genuine, and very obvious questions that needed answers. And back then, I answered them in a similar way to you.

 

[meltzerboy]

Let’s all be honest with ourselves. Would you really go to church every Sunday, go to confession, not commit adultery, etc. If there were no heaven or hell? No reward or punishment?

Keep everything about Catholicism the same just take out heaven and hell. Even though you know God exists and he has laid down rules for mankind to follow, would you really follow them? We have to admit that religious people, their main motivation is to enter heaven, but most importantly, to avoid hell. I’m not saying its bad that thats how religious people are. I’m just saying that one should recognize that deep down its all about self interest. If God tells me to not drink alcohol, he only tells me not to do it, he doesnt mention any punishments that will occur if i do drink. Would i really abstain from alcohol?We only do things that benefir us. Even if it is helping poor children. We either do it because of religious purposes or because it makes us feel good. If thats how God created us that so be it. But doesnt it sound a little disturbing that thats how we are.

I started a similar thread a little while back. Speaking for Judaism, I would say one strives for the ideal to love and follow the teachings of G-d without concern for the consequences. IOW, the very notion that G-d requires us to live out His commandments and thus lead a moral life is reason enough. The hope of salvation does not figure as a central focus of Judaism. I’m not saying Jews, including Orthodox Jews, do not speak of rewards from G-d, in this life and the World to Come. They do. However, they also state that focus on the self is not the ultimate goal of the faith; rather, focus on the suffering of others and alleviating that suffering. I believe it is similar according to Catholicism, but equally difficult to achieve, if not more so, because of the greater emphasis on personal salvation in Christianity. And despite this, Christianity has many saints.

 

[ASimon]

In what respect do I “degrade the value of human relationships to the level of shiny objects and functionally useless bric-a-brack”? I don’t believe that at all.

People are valuable in and of themselves. This is a simple truth revealed by natural law, and you don’t need to be a theist to believe in natural law (even though, as I said, nearly everyone who does is a theist, and nearly everyone who doesn’t is an atheist; I was one of the rare exceptions, even as an atheist). But you don’t believe in natural law, do you?

So on what grounds do you justify this claim? Sorry, but you do not get to reject my worldview and then smuggle away the bits of it that salvage your own.

I justify it on the grounds that I’m the one who first brought up the value of friends and family, along with other pleasures and sources of happiness. You, in turn, ignored the friends and family, and tried to condense all my examples into “distraction,” “entertainment,” and “baubles.” So what should I take from this? Either you believe human beings are on that level of pleasant, but ultimately useless distraction, or you don’t know how actual human beings with actual feelings fit into your worldview - and so you left them out, hoping I wouldn’t notice.

You say that people have value in and of themselves. I say that life has value, in and of itself. It doesn’t need the promise of an afterlife to make it worthwhile.

 

[Neithan]

Let’s all be honest with ourselves. Would you really go to church every Sunday, go to confession, not commit adultery, etc. If there were no heaven or hell? No reward or punishment?

I wouldn’t go to church (no Christ = no Church) but I would still try to live according to the “natural law.” Natural law morality is thoroughly convincing to me. So I would always avoid things like adultery or theft or murder.

Virtues ethics doesn’t require a heaven or hell. It’s about living justly, because the more just we are, the more peace we have, and that’s good.

Love and peace don’t exactly coincide, though. So there is some tension. Which one takes precedence?

Also, even though I am thoroughly convinced of justice and natural law, I still fail to live up to it. Why is that?

Despite it all, without the resurrection, there is only despair. Peaceful despair, perhaps, but still despair. Life is just a “sigh of sadness between two silences.”

Like Tolkien said, rejecting the Gospel leads “to sadness or to wrath.” There is a deep melancholy or rancour in the human spirit. Perhaps that is why we create religions.

 

[LilyM]

I did have a period of about twelve years where I was really not religious. I found that following my own sense of what was right and wrong, while I did little that was terrible even by Christian standards, ended up making me deeply unhappy.

There is a lot to be said even on a practical common-sense level for most of the practical rules of Christianity. Look at what we have had over the past 40 years - abortion on demand, freely available contraception, no-fault divorces, religious discourse pretty much an irrelevant sidenote in public life, even among those who profess to be devoutly religious and therefore, logically, should bring at least some of those convictions into their public role. Legalized gay marriage in some places, liberalized drug laws in some, legal euthanasia in a few.

Most everything any atheist or agnostic could want. And what has been the outcome? Are we better or happier? I don’t think so.

 

[meltzerboy]

When I think of death, yes, I fear hell. When I make choices day to day hell rarely enters my mind. When I was a child I indeed feared getting in trouble with my parents. However as I grew up I didn’t so much fear getting into trouble as I feared letting my parents down.

I think that’s much like our relationship to God. In the early stages perhaps we fear the angry and just God. As we mature in spirituality and understand the pure love that God is, we fear not his punishment but losing our connection and relationship to that love and source of life, joy, and peace.

On a day to day basis of moral choices I make my choices based on wanting a strong relationship to God and the fullness of life walking in His path brings. I do not contemplate my immediate choice possibly sending me to hell.

For example, I forgive not because I fear not doing so will send me to hell but rather I forgive because I truly believe its the path of happiness, joy and peace both in this life and the next. Does someone not cheat on their spouse because of fear of being caught? Or do they refrain from cheating out of love and wanting to hold onto that special relationship? Obviously both motivations lead to the same result but one is much richer and more fulfilling than the other…

Great answer! And, I think, one doesn’t have to be a priest, a Catholic, or a Christian to feel this way.

 

[vsedriver]

Let’s all be honest with ourselves. Would you really go to church every Sunday, go to confession, not commit adultery, etc. If there were no heaven or hell? No reward or punishment?

I don’t understand the question. For me as a Christian the choice is a loving relationship with God and no relationship with God.

If you love someone do you try to please them? Isn’t that how you build your relationship? If you don’t love someone don’t you walk away? ignore them?

I want a loving relationship with God. I want to be with Him for eternity. I want to be with Him because He loves me and He made me. All God is asking of me is to choose Him. To trust Him to take care of me. It sounds easy but is really very hard which is why I work on it so much.

No one is forced to choose to love God and God loves us so much he lets us decide whether or not to love Him. When you die and are judged, God still honors your choice. Eternity with Him or without Him. I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than to finally be in the presence of God and then being turned away.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

And I don’t know why atheists sometimes strive to be moral. I did, and I must have had a million reasons trying to justify it rationally, even though in reality it made no difference.

Because He has made us that way. Human beings know the natural law, it is a part of us. So even people who deny the existence of God strive to be good. We can’t go against our human nature. But since it is a fallen nature people do so imperfectly, which includes atheism and its versions of morality.

 

[ivebeenshown]

I return to my thesis - this is what religion does to people. It convinces them to trade in all the real sources of pleasure and happiness and contentment in the only life we know we’ve got, for a Door #2 that Monty Hall promises to open for you, assuming you’re fortunate enough to die in the right circumstances.

Really? “All the real sources”?

The real source of happiness is love, not Hollywood pop culture B.S. love, but real love of God and neighbor. Not sex, not food or drink, not material accumulations.

Even if our hope for resurrection in Christ is vain, at least we take plenty of pleasure in the love we have in this life. So you might rethink that thesis, guy…