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Hey SDMB, I’m new here. I’m an atheist. How’re you?
Anyways: the three reasons I can’t be happy are
1.) The Suffering of the Good (SOTG)
2.) the Prospering of the Bad (POTB)
3.) In the end, we all die forever
Pardon my acronyms, it’s a quirk of mine.
I don’t like how millions of ‘good’ people suffer every day, or how millions of ‘bad’ people prosper each day. And I don’t like that I’m going to die forever someday, as will all other ‘good’ people.
I can’t be truly happy until a good god (obviously that doesn’t refer to Yahweh or Allah) flies down to earth, destroys the ‘bad’ people and makes the world into a paradise where all the ‘good’ people live forever with no pain and death. Is that too much to ask?
I feel the suffering of all the ‘good’ people in the world b/c my own unfair suffering in the past has now made me hypersensitive to all good people’s suffering. I feel the pain of them all; I am unable, as most of you are, to brush off their pain by saying ‘shit happens’.
Feedback?
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I’ll tackle your three concerns, but not in order.
You complain about the prospering of the bad. In other words, you are unhappy when other certain other people prosper. That should be your first clue that something is wrong with your philosophy. Now consider this. Would you truly like it if yourself, and everyone you like, and everyone you know, were appropriately punished for everything you’ve all done wrong in your entire lives? If not, then you agree that a certain amount of prosperity for the bad is a good thing. Since no person is without sin, ending the prospering of the bad would mean ending all prospering. Would you want that?
Now on to the suffering of the good. You see good people and you see them as suffering. But do they see themselves as suffering? Many people take what you call suffering and don’t insist on experiencing it as suffering; some even see it as evidence of grace. People who insist on finding suffering can usually find it wherever they want, and people who insist on not finding it generally don’t find it. If you believe that good people are constantly suffering, it’s because you want to believe that.
As for endless death, I personally believe in life after death. Obviously I’m not likely to convince you of that in this thread. But let me offer a closing thought.
You are an atheist. You probably believe that it’s impossible for you to be Christian. But if you’re like most atheits on this board, you barely have any idea what Christianity is, what it teaches, and what it means. If you devoted yourself to exploring Christianity you would find many interesting things. For instance, you’d find that all the objections that you’ve raised to religion in this thread were already answered by theologians centuries ago. You’d find that all the other objections you have which you didn’t put in this thread have also been addressed centuries ago. You find that Christianity can speak to you in ways that you can’t currently imagine. That would cure your unhappiness. It would take a few years, perhaps even a few decades, but eventually you’d achieve happiness in this life. And you’d get everlasting life too, of course. The only question you need to ask yourself is whether you really want happiness, or whether you’d prefer stewing in your atheist misery.
“Bitch” means it’s hard, and you may recall the term didn’t originally refer to women.