Easy son, easy. You’re looking for a fight where one doesn’t exist.
I didn’t disagree with you.
I went on from what you said to list other possibilities.
Relax, please. I completely agree with you.
I’ve gotten that vibe from a few replies, and I never wanted this discussion to go in that direction.
We’re all just climbing the same mountain in the dark, doing the best we can (mostly).
Peace out.
Sorry if I got the wrong impression.
But I have seen too many atheists who, in my opinion, are atheists for the wrong reasons. From all appearances, they’re atheists because they hate God. Which is actually irrational - how can you hate something that you supposedly deny exists?
And most of these people are willing to hate religions and religious people as a proxy for God. They don’t just disbelieve in religion - they want to fight it and destroy it.
From my point of view, these people have just invented their own form of fanatic fundamentalism. They’re essentially no different than the religious people they imagine in their mind.
That’s not my kind of atheism. I don’t believe in God (or any other religion). But I’m not making a crusade out of it. I’m pretty much indifferent on the subject (other than having an academic interest in religion). If somebody else wants to believe in some religion, I have no problem with that. I’m not going to try to convert people to my views.
I guess the best way to express my opinion is to ask people to think about how they feel about Shinto. I’m assuming most people here are not believers in the Shinto faith. But while most people don’t believe in Shinto, they probably don’t spend a lot of time actively disbelieving in Shinto either. If you’re not watching a Studio Ghibli film, you probably don’t even think about Shinto very much.
And if you happened to encounter a Japanese person who did believe in Shinto, you almost certainly wouldn’t argue with him about it or ridicule his faith. You’d probably be polite and respectful and ask him about his beliefs. You’d be interested in the subject without feeling any need to participate. You wouldn’t have any sense that the two of you are on opposing sides of a conflict and you have to defeat him.
Well, that’s the way I feel about all religions including Christianity.
For my part, I apologize for unclarity.
It could be worse… I know one guy, a lapsed Catholic, who is furious at God for not existing!
Many atheists are so because they feel that organized religion is abusive. (This was how I got my start…having had the shit kicked out of me by some young playground evangelists in grade school.)
It isn’t a valid logical reason to believe that God doesn’t exist…but it is a valid logical reason to believe that religion is seriously flawed.
A shaky chain of deduction might go: because religion is flawed, and God’s existence is only predicated upon the claims of religion, God’s existence is questionable.
This is true of many, but I think it is a pretty small minority. There are some religious believers who want to compel others to believe the way they do: they, also, are a comfortingly small minority.
It is not wise to judge an ideology by its most extreme varieties. But, most certainly, there are extreme atheists.
I take slight exception to your clause “they imagine in their mind.” Extremist religionists really do exist, and are not all imaginary. Otherwise, I can agree with what you say here.
I used to be an extremist myself, but, over the years, have moderated my views. I am now pretty much in agreement with what you say. I do want to limit the political power of the churches – I think that separation of church and state is a very good idea. But as far as individual belief, I hold it to be about as irrelevant as individual choices in music, cuisine, sports, etc.
A perfectly sensible viewpoint. I know very little about the Shinto faith.
But, then, too, no Shintoists have ever come up to me and kicked the shit out of me. Had that happened, my awareness would be somewhat elevated. If Shintoists came to my door as often as Christians do, I would be aware of them and a tad irked.
Benign neglect does have to work both ways.
Sure, we need that stuff too. Right now, I’m dealing with a lot of end of life issues with my dad. It’s awful. I hate that some time pretty soon, I won’t ever see him again. I take solace, however, in the fact that he’s lived a long and happy life, and that when he dies, it will be at home, surrounded by loved ones. I find meaning in his life in my own life, in the way he shaped me to be the person I am, and the way I influence other people in my life in (what I hope) are positive ways. Nobody goes through this world without leaving foot prints. The effects of our passage through life are infinite and unknowable, but still very real.
For myself, I have a real problem understanding how God can be a source of solace. I can accept that bad things sometimes happen, for no reason, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I can be at peace with that, at least in the long run. But if there were a God? If there were someone who could have prevented every terrible thing that’s ever happened in your life, or the lives of people you love? If there was someone who actually caused things like childhood leukemia, or earthquakes, or floods? Who designed them and put them into the universe on purpose?
How could you ever stop hating that guy?
As for the concept of an afterlife in general… Human are defined, in every way, by our existence in a physical universe. Increasingly, we’re finding that things that used to be considered the province of the soul are, in fact, housed in the physiology of the human brain. Memories, personality traits, mental defects - while we don’t always know how these things work, we know that they respond to physical stimula. Cause enough brain trauma, and you can destroy memories. Drink enough wine, and your personality alters. Take Thorazine, and you can control your schizophrenia. If the soul is that part of us which is not physical, there’s increasingly less of us to put in it, to the extent that, if there’s a part of me that’s going to survive my death, I can’t imagine it’s going to resemble me very much at all. In short, the transformation from physical to spiritual being must, it seems to me, be so wholly transformative that what ever is left could not bear very much resemblance to the original at all.
And in that, it’s not really very different from my physical body. We all have the immortality of the conservation of mass. Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed, only changed from one to the other. I don’t know if there’s a spiritual part of me that will continue to exist after my death, but I know that all the physical parts of me will persist until the end of the universe, in one form or another. I came from the heart of a star. One day, I’ll go back. That’s not a bad eternity to look forward to.
Miller, thanks for the reply. I am sorry that you and your dad are suffering right now. You have found a way to find meaning in his life and imminent death and that really answers my question. My best to you as you walk this path with him.
The conception of “God” that you describe, though popular, is useless IMHO, and I don’t know how people can give credence, let alone love, to a god like that.
In asking about existentialism, I’ve been looking at what I see as the difference between the position that there is inherent meaning in events that is theoretically, if not actually at this moment, discoverable, versus the position that there is no intrinsic meaning, all is absurdity, and any meaning you find is meaning that you bring on your own.
Is that what existentialism is? I really never grokked it. Anyway, I guess I’m an existentialist – I think that there’s no intrinsic meaning in life (although I guess I don’t see how it follows that all is absurdity). However, I find meaning in my own life and in my relationships with friends, loved ones, and the community.
Would there be meaning in life if there were no people? Do (theoretical) sentient beings on other planets have intrinsic meaning in their lives, or is that just an Earth thing? Is there meaning in a dolphin’s life? In a bacterium’s?
“Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving, and revolving at 900 miles an hour…”
The dude abides.
But why is this directed only to existentialists? Doesn’t it apply to all job-believers?
I think Job was a weird story, but I don’t believe it happened. Why would it apply to Job-believers? 
(I think a Jobian religion would be especially screwed up – God exists only to mess with people.)
Because (again) I was reading a book by an existentialist when I started this thread.
ThelmaLou, it’s cool that Yalom has stoked your interest so much. Psychotherapy more than anything else has helped me to let go of the “shoulding” often associated with a rigid moral system. Much of the guilt and shame people feel stems from their beliefs about what their life purpose is supposed to be and their divergence from said purpose. My therapist (who actually had me read “Love’s Executioner”) helped me to see how burdensome it is to constantly evaluate oneself against someone’s else definition of “good” or “bad” or “useful”. When I’m feeling down about myself, I now ask myself is it because I’m falling short of my own goals and expectations, or if I’m comparing myself against an arbitrary and capricious metric that serves no utility to me and what I want to do in life.
So I guess I see existentialism as (potentially) more comforting than the opposing view–that we are here to fulfill a higher purpose–one that we will never understand or know if we’re meeting.
Thank you so much, monstro. Very helpful. 
Could you be a Geewok? Sithrak’s hate for us knows no bounds.