# Is the atheist worldview depressing? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 4, 2019, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996 "2019-06-04T02:59:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/21 "2019-06-04T08:39:48Z")
Quite, what also often happens is that those with a belief in a specific god, and with morality that they ground in that specific god, think that an atheist must be unable to hold the same moral standards. Or worse, that they must hold to the \*opposite \* or none. Tell me you are a “theist” and I have no idea what sort of person you are without asking further questions. The same is true of atheists. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/22 "2019-06-04T09:25:04Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’m not sure it is possible to be a little bit atheist. > > The only way you stop being an atheist is by believing in a god. Anything other than that and you are an atheist. [Not exactly true.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/23 "2019-06-04T09:48:04Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > That “eternal life” thing would get pretty dull, especially since the vast majority of it would take place after the heat-death of the material universe. Who wants to sit around and watch a lone neutrino pass by once every trillion years? Not to worry as you’ll be too busy worshiping God to notice. What a thrilling afterlife. : old rolleyes : ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/24 "2019-06-04T09:57:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > [Not exactly true.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism) If you don’t positively have a belief in a god then you are an atheist. your link does nothing to argue otherwise. I actually do tend towards the opinion in that link. That the concepts of gods as typically defined (or more often not defined) are so incoherent as to be impossible to respond to coherently. Therefore I am unable to accept that incoherent proposition as true. Therefore I am clearly an atheist. ---
**Author:** ![Bibliothecarius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@Bibliothecarius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bibliothecarius)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/25 "2019-06-04T10:08:58Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > Atheist here. I find it depressing. Have a read of [this](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48422/aubade-56d229a6e2f07) when you get a minute. It puts it better than I could. Alternatively, read [this](https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/the-promise-of-humanism/). ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/26 "2019-06-04T10:41:00Z")
The wonders of the universe excite me more than the fantastically unlikely fairy tales of religion. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/27 "2019-06-04T11:03:11Z")
Some people may think so, but I don’t. It is far more depressing to think we’re here to serve a specific purpose. I can’t imagine that purpose is spending hours every day staring into various screens, and yet that is what I do with much of my time. So if I thought I was here for a Very Important Purpose, I would be in a constant state of angst and guilt. I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders once I allowed myself to appreciate how small and insignificant I am in the big scheme of things. Small insignificant things are allowed to be mediocre fuck-ups. Big important things must be fully operational and damn-near perfect. Also, it’s depressing to think that how we spend eternity is determined by a very tiny snapshot in time. It is nice not having to worry about the afterlife so I can just concentrate on how I’m going to get through the day in one piece. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/28 "2019-06-04T11:09:13Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Small insignificant things are allowed to be mediocre fuck-ups… yes! ladies and gentlemen we have the perfect atheist slogan! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/29 "2019-06-04T11:12:06Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > The wonders of the universe excite me more than the fantastically unlikely fairy tales of religion. Agreed, I’ve always liked Richard Feynman’s take on this. > [@](#): > > I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. > > At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/30 "2019-06-04T11:45:24Z")
Not depressing. I would find it more depressing to believe in a god who sits on his hands and watches people getting brutalized in ways I don’t really want to think about this morning. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/31 "2019-06-04T12:36:32Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > If you don’t positively have a belief in a god then you are an atheist. I hear there are people called agnostics. I would be an atheist, but the required activism sounds exhausting and I don’t have time to go to the meetings. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/32 "2019-06-04T12:41:52Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > If you don’t positively have a belief in a god then you are an atheist. your link does nothing to argue otherwise. Nothing? “It is asserted by Steven J. Conifer that to be a positive atheist, one who not only lacks a belief in gods but who furthermore denies that gods exist, is to give credence to the existence of a concept of something for God to refer to, because it assumes that there is something understandable to not believe in.” That’s not nothing. > [@](#): > > Therefore I am unable to accept that incoherent proposition as true No, you shouldn’t do that. That’s acknowledging the argument is coherent, but wrong. Incoherent arguments don’t _have_ truth values. Basically, if you say you’re an atheist, you’re buying into meaningless gibberish, is what we’re saying. I may not be a theist, but I’m not “an atheist”, any more than I’m an “aWnigooglllist”, and for the same reason. Arguing Religion is like [Nuclear War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames), the only winning move is not to play. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/33 "2019-06-04T12:51:21Z")
I’m a theist leaning towards christian. I don’t see what’s depression about the atheist view, that everything is over when we die? That doesn’t seem any worse then millions of people will be tortured for all eternity or that you will spend all eternity worshiping at the feet of a deity. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/34 "2019-06-04T13:07:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Basically, if you say you’re an atheist, you’re buying into meaningless gibberish, is what we’re saying. What if you do not say that your are an atheist yet still do not believe in the existence of deities? Into what are you buying? Because most atheists spend all day, every day not thinking about it. Most atheists do not even feel the need to call themselves any particular thing. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/35 "2019-06-04T13:30:18Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Nothing? > “It is asserted by Steven J. Conifer that to be a positive atheist, one who not only lacks a belief in gods but who furthermore denies that gods exist, is to give credence to the existence of a concept of something for God to refer to, because it assumes that there is something understandable to not believe in.” I don’t see what that has to do with my atheism. I don’t make a claim that god doesn’t exist. > [@](#): > > may not be a theist, but I’m not “an atheist” there is no need for the quotes. If you are not a theist, you are an atheist, that really is as simple as it gets. Remember, being an atheist is not the same as saying any given god \*doesn’t \*exist. It is only the position that you do not have that belief. For the former you indeed would need to be given a coherent enough explanation to be able to have an opinion. For the latter it is merely enough that a case hasn’t been made. That may be through incoherence or lack of evidence or some other reason. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/36 "2019-06-04T13:34:52Z")
I don’t think it’s inherently more depressing than a theistic one. Either depends on what you build around/on it. No one has a world view that is fully described by theistic vs. atheistic. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/37 "2019-06-04T13:42:42Z")
Let’s see: People who believe in a deity think certain people are doomed to hell, that you better be good cause someone is watching you and will send you to eternal damnation if you don’t do exactly what the deity says. Atheists and the others who don’t believe in a deity, don’t know if there even is a deity, and wouldn’t worship one if deity there be believe people are good and how good you are determines what happens if you die, if anything. They are willing to admit they don’t know how we got here or where we are going. Which view is more depressing??? ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/38 "2019-06-04T13:56:41Z")
I have always found it problematic that we are supposed to sit around and kiss god’s ass all day everyday, and if we kiss it good enough, we get to go to the special place where we are forced to kiss god’s ass for the rest of eternity. What kind of being wants and/or needs this kind of sycophancy and why should it be worshipped? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/39 "2019-06-04T13:58:51Z")
> [@BeagleJesus](#): > > I have always found it problematic that we are supposed to sit around and kiss god’s ass all day everyday, and if we kiss it good enough, we get to go to the special place where we are forced to kiss god’s ass for the rest of eternity. > > What kind of being wants and/or needs this kind of sycophancy and why should it be worshipped? Because of extortion. The threat is that is we don’t kiss his ass while we are here, then instead of gottig to kiss his ass for eternity, we get tortured for eternity. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996/40 "2019-06-04T14:03:01Z")
The theist position is far more depressing. They believe all this shit in the world is happening _on purpose_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-atheist-worldview-depressing/834996.md?page=3)