Even if you are, so what?
When we kill a fly, isn’t that likewise a permanent solution to a temporary problem?
What makes it wrong to use a permanent solution on any given temporary problem?
There is no God. I want to die. Why should i not commit suicide?
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When we kill a fly, isn’t that likewise a permanent solution to a temporary problem?
What makes it wrong to use a permanent solution on any given temporary problem?
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BOSS10L
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I find it interesting (if not telling) that as education levels rose, so did the percentages of those who claimed no belief in God.
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
I am heavily biased against suicide, but I can’t say with absolute certainty that there is always another way. Just as continuing to live can be motivated by considerations for loved ones deciding to die can also be from the same consideration; (take a DNR discussion that a parent might have with a child as an example).
This thread seems to be for highlighting a supposed difference in how some one that doesn’t hold beliefs in any gods would deal with the situation when compared to some one that holds a belief of Yahweh. I don’t think there are going to be many (if any) significant points of differences. This is influenced by my personal experiences and experiences that others have shared with me (including a social worker that worked in a hospice). So I find my thoughts to to range from being compatible to in agreement with your expressed thoughts on the issue.
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fred_conty
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Atheism is a belief not an absolute. That means there is wiggle room to think about maybe, just maybe I’m wrong.
So that is the opening. Work on the maybe. Here is one approach.
The unbeliever will ask me this question, “suppose christian you are wrong and there is no afterlife, then look at all you have been missing out on all your life.” I would say, “ok, I missed it, but when we are dead, nobody misses anything and you and I equal in that forever.” However I would say, “But just supposing you are wrong. Then you will have misery to suffer for the rest of eternity while I am enomously happy because there is a God who does reward and punish. With those odds, Las Vegas wouldn’t take your bet. The risk/reward ratio are just too high. Eternity for 80 years.”
Just a thought.
So that is the opening. Work on the maybe. Here is one approach.
The unbeliever will ask me this question, “suppose christian you are wrong and there is no afterlife, then look at all you have been missing out on all your life.” I would say, “ok, I missed it, but when we are dead, nobody misses anything and you and I equal in that forever.” However I would say, “But just supposing you are wrong. Then you will have misery to suffer for the rest of eternity while I am enomously happy because there is a God who does reward and punish. With those odds, Las Vegas wouldn’t take your bet. The risk/reward ratio are just too high. Eternity for 80 years.”
Just a thought.
One would think so.
But we see examples every day of people taking this bet.
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Arizona_Mike
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Except that the best educated group of professionals in America show an extremely high rate of religious belief and religiosity (regular church or temple attendance).
chronicle.uchicago.edu/050714/doctorsfaith.shtml
It may be because medical doctors have more involvement in the day-to-day human condition in extremis than, say an astrophysicist.
In terms of actual scientific knowledge, atheists and Christians are about the same. This study looked at Evangelical Protestants, not Catholics, but I suspect the results would be similar:
articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/10/opinion/la-oe-evans-protestants-20111010
In the United Kingdom, atheist and Christian children are the least likely to go to college, BTW. Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus show higher rates. There are probably other factors at play there:
telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8655201/Christian-and-atheist-children-least-likely-to-go-to-university.html
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Relinquish
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I do not believe anyone has the right to keep another from suicide, if the person truly wants it. It’s not a nice line to cross, and I would always want to advise the person to live on, but if I honestly believed they wanted to die in their most mature and sober and thoughtful moment then who am I to tell them it’s wrong?
Things I would say to you is that the world is not meaningless and if you fear death, then I seriously doubt you’re mature enough to make such a choice. Those who truly want to die do not fear death, or cling to life even as they’re trying to kill themselves.
I see nothing innately morally wrong with one taking their life. It does often cause suffering on those one leaves behind, but surely the family and friends could suck it up.
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Arizona_Mike
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- I apologize if I did not understand you are Catholic. I get used to the handy religious identification tag next to a person’s screen name, but understand that not all Catholics choose to identify themselves using that feature.
- It does, in that you referred to a large and varied community (I assumed you were referring to atheists). It is not large, as the Gallup organization has shown. 7% is small, and many of those are likely undecided about the issue, so the actual number of atheists is probably quite smaller.
- Why is it inconsequential? Agreed, I should act better than them, and shouldn’t use the poor manners and behavior of many atheists as an excuse for my own. If I did so, I apologize.
- You are certainly welcome to disagree with me, and this is a forum for discussion and debate. And I stand by my statement that the majority of atheists - at least the evangelical, self-identified members of the atheist subculture - are angry people. If you’d like, I can post links to numerous posts on this forum (and many others) that address Catholics, and Catholic beliefs, in a rude, preemptory, dismissive, and angry manner. I can also provide you with references to academic journals that show a greater probability of psychological traits such as anger, depression, and substance abuse in those who are atheists. This is not to play “gotcha, we believers are better than you godless heathens,” as Christians can be angry and depressed people as well. But again, the atheist view of the universe does lead to a higher incidence of undesirable and unhealthy behavioral conditions.
theaustralian.com.au/news/world/richard-dawkins-and-the-faith-wars/story-fnb64oi6-1226275124126
My argument is not that atheists are all rude and angry (clearly not all are), but that a logical consequence of a materialist worldview is a certain sense of anger at the futility of life. It is appropriate to comment on that in light of the thread topic, which discusses whether suicide is a logical consequence of the atheist mindset.
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ThinkingSapien
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There was another thread discussing that observation a few weeks ago.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=641806
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wanstronian
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Agree with all the above - but in the end, your life is yours, not anybody else’s. Only you can decide whether you want to continue to live it.
For god’s sake, are you lot still trotting out that same old ad hominem nonsense? Would it kill you to learn something before you cast judgement on it?
Then you haven’t been paying a blind bit of attention. For the umpteenth time - It’s just that we don’t need a book to tell us what’s right or wrong. Why can’t you get that idea into your head? Why do you find it so difficult to understand?
Huh…?
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lemondiesel
Guest
Well what seems to be the problem, Mr. Matter.
Hm… Interesting… So how does this make you feel?
I will start by prescribing some videos to watch, which are relatively short so they wouldn’t waste too much of your time.
youtube.com/watch?v=i2xJ1CnVfsk (1:55)
youtube.com/watch?v=NB-HZG1Zh7s (3:15)
youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E (5:11)
youtube.com/watch?v=m6ugFcwsgpE (3:06)
I will then tell you that you are not the only one. There are plenty of people (including myself) who feel the same way and have had similar thoughts. Yet this is life! Our one and only existence! We have been made to think that this is the way life is and the only way it should be operated, but its not! Use your depression and emotions to strive and help others.
That severe depression is what makes us human! Your struggles on a daily basis might not be entirely your fault. After all, you have the same amount of right to live your life however you wish, just as everyone else. Are you going to let already established institutions and social norms halt your passions and strengths?
No! Don’t let them! It is good to be individual and unique!
Don’t give into the curiosity of what comes next.
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lemondiesel
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I will have to strongly disagree with this post. Atheism is unique because it doesn’t involve belief/disbelief. You can’t be right or wrong when you don’t believe in such supernatural aspects.
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MindOverMatter2
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…to rubbish posed as a real rebuttal? Of course not.
That’s such a tired mistreatment of my argument. Have you got anything new to add?
Because its a straw-man and a red-herring; and both tend to give me severe allergic reactions.
You still don’t have a true objective standard by which you can say that something is truly wrong regardless of what other people think. Given metaphysical naturalism; what you admit as right or wrong is either relative to what you want from life and the risks you are willing to take, or they are based on delusional emotions such as guilt. Your actions are based on subjective desires and the weighing of options; not an awareness of objective moral truth.
Given metaphysical naturalism, the mere fact that humans try to survive is delusional if you ask me.
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domandcarols
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MindOverMatter2
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I will take a look at your links. In the meanwhile, i liked your take on the patient/doctor role play, it was fun to watch.Well what seems to be the problem, Mr. Matter.
Hm… Interesting… So how does this make you feel?
I will start by prescribing some videos to watch, which are relatively short so they wouldn’t waste too much of your time.
youtube.com/watch?v=i2xJ1CnVfsk (1:55)
youtube.com/watch?v=NB-HZG1Zh7s (3:15)
youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E (5:11)
youtube.com/watch?v=m6ugFcwsgpE (3:06)
I will then tell you that you are not the only one. There are plenty of people (including myself) who feel the same way and have had similar thoughts. Yet this is life! Our one and only existence! We have been made to think that this is the way life is and the only way it should be operated, but its not! Use your depression and emotions to strive and help others.
That severe depression is what makes us human! Your struggles on a daily basis might not be entirely your fault. After all, you have the same amount of right to live your life however you wish, just as everyone else. Are you going to let already established institutions and social norms halt your passions and strengths?
No! Don’t let them! It is good to be individual and unique!
Don’t give into the curiosity of what comes next.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
So you don’t believe that human existence has an intrinsic value that we ought respect?
What do you mean by this? Can you demonstrate to me that life has an objective meaning and is not just a fantasy delusion we all participate in?
The Word Maturity is of great interest to me, because when we say it we always imply that we have discerned this objectively rather than according to a cultural or social construction. In terms of objective truth, what is “maturity” that you would see the fear of death as lacking it?
Perhaps for Psychopaths. But I am not sure that is always true for everyone else. Rather, what is more probable is that their fear of life, or their desire to end suffering, is greater than their fear of death.
The OP has not got that far yet. Of course; the OP is asking for help instead. Perhaps he is holding out in the hope that somebody has a rational answer that isn’t based on delusional emotions or emotional blackmail. In the context of metaphysical naturalism, he is trying to discern a good non-religious reason to exist given all of the problems he is dealing with.
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Arizona_Mike
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- Quod erat demonstrandum…
- “For god’s sake…” Assuming this isn’t a typo (something to which I am also prone), I’m aware that it is trendy for atheists to refuse to capitalize “God” to demonstrate their disdain (and perhaps, anger), but you should also be aware that God is one of those interesting words that is both a noun and a proper name; it is appropriate, under the rules of grammar, to capitalize the latter and not the former, thus:
It is always appropriate to capitalize a proper name (unless you are Don Marquis or e.e. cummings, I suppose), whether you respect (or even believe in) that represented by the proper name, or not. So, it is appropriate to capitalize “Thor,” or “Sherlock Holmes,” despite neither existing.
If you misuse the English language in the pursuit of your personal goals, you run the risk of being mistaken for a boob.
Perhaps you meant simply to invoke a “god” in a generic sense. Out of a sense of fair play and to demonstrate your disdain for all religions, perhaps you could consider invoking the gods of non-Christian traditions, and say something like “By Thor’s Hammer, are you still trotting out that same old ad hominem nonsense?” Or you could go all U.K. old-school and say “By Jove! Are you still trotting out that same old ad hominem nonsense!” which at least would give equal time to offending the pagans.
- An “Ad hominem” argument is a logical fallacy that seeks to show that an argument is untrue by pointing out a personal failing of the one who advanced the argument. In this case, I clearly did not say that the belief system of an atheist is false because he is angry (which would be ad hominem). I pointed out instead that the anger that is often displayed in atheist postings (such as yours) seems to be the result of the worldview espoused by atheism. Simply saying something that you find personally offensive (such as “Atheists often come across as angry people”) is not ad hominem. Big boys’ games, big boys’ rules.
- No, I don’t think it will kill me to learn something before I pass judgement upon it. I’ve read the works of more than a few atheists. Is there an author you think I’ve missed?
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wanstronian
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You have consistently demonstrated that you fail to understand that ethical standards don’t have to come from a book. You have consistently failed to admit that it’s at least possible (and in my view, eminently plausible) that this “objective” morality you promote is nothing more than a snapshot of the societal morality of the time. Hence its liberal peppering with rape, pillage, slavery and misogyny.…to rubbish posed as a real rebuttal? Of course not.
That’s such a tired mistreatment of my argument. Have you got anything new to add?
If your dogma won’t even let you consider other points of view, then there’s no rational discussion to be had with you.
Neither do you.
As are yours. You haven’t realised this?
Then you’re still missing the point.
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wanstronian
Guest
Don’t be ridiculous. Learn the difference between intrinsic anger, and the frustration that stems from narrow-minded refusal to accept the existence of any worldview that disagrees with your own.
Anger at what…?
I’m not being trendy, I’m using the word in its proper sense - if I were to capitalise I would be acknowledging the existence of your god; whereas my colloquialism is just that - a turn of phrase.
Hopefully I’ve clarified. Maybe I should have said, “For gods’ sakes…!”
Boy, you’ve really got hold of this one, haven’t you!!
Well, you didn’t just say that, did you? You said that “there’s a reason so many atheists seem angry and nasty…” and you prefixed it (and therefore inextricably linked it) with a sentence that repeats the old theistic guff that atheists must have desperately hollow existences without a deity to worship.
So, my friend, the accusation stands. Quod erat demonstrandum, you might say.
And in your reading experience of atheistic tomes, do you come away with the idea that they’re all depressed, introverted types just waiting for death to release them from their miserable existences? If so, then perhaps you could furnish me with the names of these books, for I’ve yet to read one that gives that impression in the slightest.
Maybe you’re reflecting: because the realisation that your God doesn’t exist would fill you with sadness, you assume that atheists must also feel the same? Just a thought. All I know is that no atheist books that I’ve read have had any kind of negative emotional effect on me. Quite the contrary, in fact.
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lemondiesel
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I enjoy your threads.I will take a look at your links. In the meanwhile, i liked your take on the patient/doctor role play, it was fun to watch.
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