I don’t know why I find it depressing, I just do. Here’s what occurred to me - a Christian will never know that he was wrong, an atheist will never know that he was right.
Assuming, of course, that the atheist is right and the Christian is wrong.
Also, Christians are not unique in their belief in an afterlife.
But yes, death sucks.
Well, any atheist who’s given it some thought should just accept that he can never know he’s right, because it should be no great trick for anything resembling a god to hide himself from humans.
But a Christian could easily know he’s wrong. For example, it may turn out that the Muslims are right, and so the Christian will presumably become aware of that, after he dies. Or he might have a sudden attack of rationality, and see how silly the Bible is while he’s alive.
How did you got confirmed? Is there like an institution of some sort which has to provide you with a test, like if you were taking a test to become a MS Certified Professional? What is the pass rate? Did you get a pretty certification paper to put in a frame and put on your wall?
Does it though? I mean sure traumatic or early death sucks, but would eternal life really be good?
I imagine at some point you’d have accumulated so much trauma, and be so tired of the usual bullshit society and humanity has to offer, that death wouldn’t seem so bad.
Hell most people can’t even seem to make it to their 70s without just being tired of it all and waiting for death.
Ok. Life also sucks.
I don’t know about you, but I can think of a whole slew of things I’d like to be getting on with if the whole making-a-living business didn’t get in the way, and I find it quite easy to imagine that the more I was able to broaden my horizons, the more I would find I wanted to get on with.
What the atheist should really be depressed about is not the impossibility of finding out that he was right. Plenty of atheists, I seem to see, are perfectly happy to carry on as though the point was proved anyway, and it would take something really exceptional to convince them differently. They had better just carry on for all I care about it.
But the grounds for depression would be the objective fact that you are a statistically insignificant blob of molecules in the arse-end of the universe, existing for an infinitesimal time, ending soon for all eternity, and none of it matters in any objective, provable sense whatever. Feel free to tell yourself whatever comforting lies you like, but those are the cold facts. You are some bits of left-over supernova ash wandering around in an anomalous manner, and the universe doesn’t care two hoots.
The OP is just a rewording of Pascal’s Wager.
Well no Alessan. Pascal’s Wager involves (a) deciding Christian theism may be correct and (b) making a decision to become Christian based on that.
As I’m understanding the OP, **aldiboronti **disagrees with the first proposition (hence his depression) and doesn’t make the decision involved in the second proposition.
***This ***bit of leftover supernova ash has organised itself into self-awareness and some understanding of what the universe is, all by itself, with no deity involved.
That’s not in the least depressing!
It’s crap like this that makes people think we’re assholes.
I’d be more upset about never finding out what happened to Mork and Mindy.
“No gods” doesn’t necessarily mean “no afterlife”. If life is a simulation of some sort, run by other beings that are not gods, then there may well be some sort of afterlife. Or perhaps there’s something else – some other fantastical scenario – that doesn’t involve gods, and that no one’s thought of.
Not that any of this is particularly likely. But this atheist (me) is less certain of the non-existence of an after life than I am of the non-existence of gods (not that I’m absolutely certain in either case).
Exactly.
I don’t find that depressing, I find it liberating: quit focusing on an answer you can never know and focus on living the life happening right now the best you can.
Same thing with the question of Free Will: who cares when you still have to deal with your life every day?
Sure. And it will still all be for nothing - indeed, it’s only yourself that’s trying to make out it means anything in the first place. Your molecules organised themselves with no conscious effort on your part or anyone else’s, and the only reason you prize self-awareness is that you have it (or at any rate enough of it to kid yourself that you have a meaningful amount of it) and some random asteroid doesn’t. It’s still just whistling to keep the dark away.
There may be an afterlife that’s a natural extension of this life; no god involved. And wouldn’t it be a hoot if heaven exists . . . and only atheists are allowed in.
Of course I know I’m right* - what do you think I am, some kind of agnostic?
- I am not, in fact, an atheist. I’m a theological noncognitivist. But I’m still right.
Only those who believe in an afterlife have a chance of finding out they’re right. My own belief is that there is no heaven but there is a hell and I’ll be the only one there. So it is kind of depressing.
It’s all for nothing? What *should *it be for? My life is my life, it’s all that I have, it’s all I will ever have. My kids will remember me after I’m gone, my grandchildren may have some vague memories that I existed, and that will be it.
Point is, I won’t have made a lasting impression on all the generations to come after me. Why should that bother me?
My life isn’t perfect: most of the time I dislike my job, I’m pretty anti-social and have few friends. Through my work, I see a lot of misery.
Those friends I do have, I am very close to, and I have a loving family. I treasure my wife and children. I read, and try to do things with my family that we enjoy, and that will give us all some happy memories.
Some day I’ll die. That doesn’t suck. It’s the human condition.