Is Atheism Depressing?

[Jimmy_Jam]

So take it up with 'those' atheists, asshat.

No one rational is buying the bullshit you're desperately trying to peddle.

Thunderbird believes that atheism is a well-defined set of beliefs. I realize that atheism is far more of an abstraction than that. That said, I've noticed that the loudest atheists tend to be the more intolerant ones. Not surprising that this is also true of Christians.

Yeah, pretty much. I hate to bring up old warhorses, but the adage about not collecting stamps being a hobby come to mind.

Some people pathologically need atheism to be a catch-all boogeyman for perceived ills that frighten them, so they give it characteristics, history and sway that it simply doesn't have.

I would go along with that. Keep in mind, however, that my point was that what people react to are the loudest members of a group, and when atheists point out religious instances of militarism, genocide, or brutality, that is essentially what they are doing, and so religion becomes their bogeyman. The perception to everybody else, and disastrously so for the cause of the tolerance that our founders so cherished, is that religion and atheism are distinct belief systems with much more commonality than they actually have. I would caution you against making that mistake.

 

[mjollnir]

It's quite true, as history clearly shows.

It's a laughably absurd pile of shit, as you fully know, and history shows.

No, it's not, as anyone with even the most cosmetic understanding of history knows.

Please pull your historically pig-ignorant head out of your ass and try again.

What we have called the communist states promulgated the religion of the state and cults of personality. Every bit as much a religion as, say, Christianity.

Quick, point out the one who was NOT a solid Atheist:

• Karl Marx
• Vlad Lenin
• Josef Stalin
• Mao Tse Tung
• Ho Chi Minh
• Pol Pot
• Kim Jung Il

All of which is relevant to what, child? Their regimes killed in the name of the religion of the state, esp. in Korea where their 'Juche' has essentially turned the Kims into gods.

But this has already been explained to you, and you run from it like a frightened toddler.

No, it doesn't look like that at all.

Actually it does.

Thanks for playing, though.

No, honey, pout all you'd like, but you saying that it's so doesn't magically make it so.

Let's have you try and be a little less stupid, hmmmm?

There's a good doggie.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

Thunderbird believes that atheism is a well-defined set of beliefs. I realize that atheism is far more of an abstraction than that. That said, I've noticed that the loudest atheists tend to be the more intolerant ones. Not surprising that this is also true of Christians.

I've yet to meet a "tolerant" Atheist. Atheists are a little bit more pushy than Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists, in my experience.

I find that relying on the personal experiences of a stranger on the Internet to help me form my opinions is problematic.

 

[Capstone]

[...] the early communist China government was vehemently anti-religious. [...]

Oh, don't get me wrong; the modern day Chinese government still opposes the organizational aspects of religion. It's not the deities the CCP fears; it's the potential power of any populist movement that doesn't necessarily have the government's interests at heart. However, as far as the religious beliefs that don't rely on such organizational aspects are concerned, the Chinese people are free to believe and practice privately as they wish.

 

[koshergrl]

Thunderbird believes that atheism is a well-defined set of beliefs. I realize that atheism is far more of an abstraction than that. That said, I've noticed that the loudest atheists tend to be the more intolerant ones. Not surprising that this is also true of Christians.

I've yet to meet a "tolerant" Atheist. Atheists are a little bit more pushy than Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists, in my experience.

I find that relying on the personal experiences of a stranger on the Internet to help me form my opinions is problematic.

Atheists aren't any more tolerant in person. I've been at work and had to listen to nasty (and completely un provoked) rants about Christians and Christianity, and been treated to random people in lines at the store making fun of Christians as well.

I have yet to unload in public about atheists.

 

[Capstone]

[...]as far as the religious beliefs that don't rely on such organizational aspects are concerned, the Chinese people are free to believe and practice privately as they wish.

I should add: and most of them do, thereby disproving the notion that communism and religious beliefs are mutually exclusive.

Q.E.D.

 

[mjollnir]

I've yet to meet a "tolerant" Atheist. Atheists are a little bit more pushy than Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists, in my experience.

I find that relying on the personal experiences of a stranger on the Internet to help me form my opinions is problematic.

Atheists aren't any more tolerant in person. I've been at work and had to listen to nasty (and completely un provoked) rants about Christians and Christianity, and been treated to random people in lines at the store making fun of Christians as well.

I have yet to unload in public about atheists.

And your personal anecdotes are relevant to atheists in general exactly how?

 

[Koios]

Atheism = despair

1) If you believe the universe is a random mess, and humans are just a collection of chemicals, and your loved ones' lives may be extinguished forever at any moment obviously you will be depressed.

Here's Bertrand Russell, one of history's most prominent atheists: That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.

Wow, lighten up - lol!

2) Christianity offers a noble purpose and a supportive community.

Religion 'linked to happy life'

quote: Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers.

Look at the substitutes chosen by atheists to replace Jesus' message of forgiveness, kindness, and human dignity: Marxism, Fascism, Randian Objectivism, Utilitarianism, superstition - none possess any merit.

3) Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt

quote: Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation.

The high suicide nations are also the atheist-prone nations. Meanwhile the low suicide nations are religious.

4) Report from the Mayo Clinic on December 11, 2001: In an article also published in this issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo Clinic researchers reviewed published studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews and subject reviews that examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life and other health outcomes.

The authors report a majority of the nearly 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health that have used religious and spiritual variables have found that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes.

Check out this article: Are religious people healthier than nonreligious people?

Even skeptics must acknowledge the facts: Evidence that Religious People are Healthier and Happier

5) Worldwide the atheist faith, never very successful, is in sharp decline. Atheist-prone nations in the West are precisely those with sagging birthrates. The majority of the world's atheists are in China and China is experiencing a religious boom despite the brutality of the CCP elite. I think the realization that their faith is dying will push some atheists toward despair.

quote regarding the global atheist population: Atheists will drop precipitously from 3.7% to 2.8%

LINK

Atheism naturally leads to emptiness, over-compensation, desperation, boredom, isolation, Narcissism, even suicide. Misery loves company and many atheists seem to derive a cheap thrill from trying to take away other people's happiness. Spite is the foundation of the atheist movement built by the media bosses.

Yes; it can be. Once we realize were are mere prisoners of the life cycle that evolved on this planet, and thus any meaning we assign to it is merely delusional, it can be depressing ...

... or reassuring, depending on your outlook. We stop fearing death, the down-side of being born. In fact, we might even welcome it when life becomes tedious and overwhelming, secure in the knowledge that life everlasting (Hell) is a merely myth we needn't worry about. And indeed all eternal life would be Hell. Imagine getting in a rut at year 3 trillion, with no way out. Nothing in our evolution prepares us for that. We'd be loony as a Mad Hatter on angeldust. Insanity, from which we could never escape, and where 10 trillion years is but a blink of the eye.

Be careful what you wish for. None of it is Heaven.

 

[koshergrl]

I find that relying on the personal experiences of a stranger on the Internet to help me form my opinions is problematic.

Atheists aren't any more tolerant in person. I've been at work and had to listen to nasty (and completely un provoked) rants about Christians and Christianity, and been treated to random people in lines at the store making fun of Christians as well.

I have yet to unload in public about atheists.

And your personal anecdotes are relevant to atheists in general exactly how?

You made it relevant when you made your statement.

So thank you. You gave me an in.

 

[koshergrl]

Atheism = despair

1) If you believe the universe is a random mess, and humans are just a collection of chemicals, and your loved ones' lives may be extinguished forever at any moment obviously you will be depressed.

Here's Bertrand Russell, one of history's most prominent atheists: That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.

Wow, lighten up - lol!

2) Christianity offers a noble purpose and a supportive community.

Religion 'linked to happy life'

quote: Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers.

Look at the substitutes chosen by atheists to replace Jesus' message of forgiveness, kindness, and human dignity: Marxism, Fascism, Randian Objectivism, Utilitarianism, superstition - none possess any merit.

3) Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt

quote: Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation.

The high suicide nations are also the atheist-prone nations. Meanwhile the low suicide nations are religious.

4) Report from the Mayo Clinic on December 11, 2001: In an article also published in this issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo Clinic researchers reviewed published studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews and subject reviews that examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life and other health outcomes.

The authors report a majority of the nearly 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health that have used religious and spiritual variables have found that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes.

Check out this article: Are religious people healthier than nonreligious people?

Even skeptics must acknowledge the facts: Evidence that Religious People are Healthier and Happier

5) Worldwide the atheist faith, never very successful, is in sharp decline. Atheist-prone nations in the West are precisely those with sagging birthrates. The majority of the world's atheists are in China and China is experiencing a religious boom despite the brutality of the CCP elite. I think the realization that their faith is dying will push some atheists toward despair.

quote regarding the global atheist population: Atheists will drop precipitously from 3.7% to 2.8%

LINK

Atheism naturally leads to emptiness, over-compensation, desperation, boredom, isolation, Narcissism, even suicide. Misery loves company and many atheists seem to derive a cheap thrill from trying to take away other people's happiness. Spite is the foundation of the atheist movement built by the media bosses.

Yes; it can be. Once we realize were are mere prisoners of the life cycle that evolved on this planet, and thus any meaning we assign to it is merely delusional, it can be depressing ...

... or reassuring, depending on your outlook. We stop fearing death, the down-side of being born. In fact, we might even welcome it when life becomes tedious and overwhelming, secure in the knowledge that life everlasting (Hell) is a merely myth we needn't worry about. And indeed all eternal life would be Hell. Imagine getting in a rut at year 3 trillion, with no way out. Nothing in our evolution prepares us for that. We'd be loony as a Mad Hatter on angeldust. Insanity, from which we could never escape, and where 10 trillion years is but a blink of the eye.

Be careful what you wish for. None of it is Heaven.

You are loony as mad hatters on angel dust already.

 

[Koios]

Atheism = despair

1) If you believe the universe is a random mess, and humans are just a collection of chemicals, and your loved ones' lives may be extinguished forever at any moment obviously you will be depressed.

Here's Bertrand Russell, one of history's most prominent atheists: That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.

Wow, lighten up - lol!

2) Christianity offers a noble purpose and a supportive community.

Religion 'linked to happy life'

quote: Data from thousands of Europeans revealed higher levels of "life satisfaction" in believers.

Look at the substitutes chosen by atheists to replace Jesus' message of forgiveness, kindness, and human dignity: Marxism, Fascism, Randian Objectivism, Utilitarianism, superstition - none possess any merit.

3) Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt

quote: Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation.

The high suicide nations are also the atheist-prone nations. Meanwhile the low suicide nations are religious.

4) Report from the Mayo Clinic on December 11, 2001: In an article also published in this issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo Clinic researchers reviewed published studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews and subject reviews that examined the association between religious involvement and spirituality and physical health, mental health, health-related quality of life and other health outcomes.

The authors report a majority of the nearly 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health that have used religious and spiritual variables have found that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes.

Check out this article: Are religious people healthier than nonreligious people?

Even skeptics must acknowledge the facts: Evidence that Religious People are Healthier and Happier

5) Worldwide the atheist faith, never very successful, is in sharp decline. Atheist-prone nations in the West are precisely those with sagging birthrates. The majority of the world's atheists are in China and China is experiencing a religious boom despite the brutality of the CCP elite. I think the realization that their faith is dying will push some atheists toward despair.

quote regarding the global atheist population: Atheists will drop precipitously from 3.7% to 2.8%

LINK

Atheism naturally leads to emptiness, over-compensation, desperation, boredom, isolation, Narcissism, even suicide. Misery loves company and many atheists seem to derive a cheap thrill from trying to take away other people's happiness. Spite is the foundation of the atheist movement built by the media bosses.

Yes; it can be. Once we realize were are mere prisoners of the life cycle that evolved on this planet, and thus any meaning we assign to it is merely delusional, it can be depressing ...

... or reassuring, depending on your outlook. We stop fearing death, the down-side of being born. In fact, we might even welcome it when life becomes tedious and overwhelming, secure in the knowledge that life everlasting (Hell) is a merely myth we needn't worry about. And indeed all eternal life would be Hell. Imagine getting in a rut at year 3 trillion, with no way out. Nothing in our evolution prepares us for that. We'd be loony as a Mad Hatter on angeldust. Insanity, from which we could never escape, and where 10 trillion years is but a blink of the eye.

Be careful what you wish for. None of it is Heaven.

You are loony as mad hatters on angel dust already.

Perhaps, and the upside is I have an escape, in what most likely will be under the age of 100 years.

 

[mjollnir]

Atheists aren't any more tolerant in person. I've been at work and had to listen to nasty (and completely un provoked) rants about Christians and Christianity, and been treated to random people in lines at the store making fun of Christians as well.

I have yet to unload in public about atheists.

And your personal anecdotes are relevant to atheists in general exactly how?

You made it relevant when you made your statement.

So thank you. You gave me an in.

No, I didn't.

Please stop dodging the question.

 

[Dajjal]

Koios, Yes I agree that eternal life as we are now would be terrible. But it is my philosophy that we are still evolving, and we are on a long journey that will take thousands of incarnations in physical form, on many different planets. Eventually we reach a state of enlightenment and complete our karmic debts, and after that we continue to evolve spiritually as immortal beings. We are not yet what we will become, and we cannot even imagine what eternity will make of us.

 

[Koios]

Koios, Yes I agree that eternal life as we are now would be terrible. But it is my philosophy that we are still evolving, and we are on a long journey that will take thousands of incarnations in physical form, on many different planets. Eventually we reach a state of enlightenment and complete our karmic debts, and after that we continue to evolve spiritually as immortal beings. We are not yet what we will become, and we cannot even imagine what eternity will make of us.

Keep hope alive. Maybe you can dodge the downside of life: death.

Good luck.

 

[Dajjal]

Keep hope alive. Maybe you can dodge the downside of life: death.

Good luck.

In spiritualist philosophy death is just the discarding of the physical body, and it is no more important than changing your clothes. We inhabit a spirit body between incarnations, and get a taste of freedom from the heavy atoms of the flesh. But the spirit teachers I have studied under say that sooner or later we realize we cannot progress as immortal beings, because we are as yet imperfect and bound by karma, so we choose to reincarnate.

 

[Koios]

Keep hope alive. Maybe you can dodge the downside of life: death.

Good luck.

In spiritualist philosophy death is just the discarding of the physical body, and it is no more important than changing your clothes. We inhabit a spirit body between incarnations, and get a taste of freedom from the heavy atoms of the flesh. But the spirit teachers I have studied under say that sooner or later we realize we cannot progress as immortal beings, because we are as yet imperfect and bound by karma, so we choose to reincarnate.

In mine (spiritualist philosophy) there's a god, but she doesn't take human form. Also, on Easter, a goldfish leaves Lincoln Logs in our sock-drawers, according to the prophet, William the Hicks.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

I've yet to meet a "tolerant" Atheist. Atheists are a little bit more pushy than Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists, in my experience.

I find that relying on the personal experiences of a stranger on the Internet to help me form my opinions is problematic.

Atheists aren't any more tolerant in person. I've been at work and had to listen to nasty (and completely un provoked) rants about Christians and Christianity, and been treated to random people in lines at the store making fun of Christians as well.

I have yet to unload in public about atheists.

Maybe that's your personal experience. However, I see a wealth of just that on USMB. What's more it's not a matter of personal experience. We can all see it with our own eyes.

 

[Uncensored2008]

No, it's not, as anyone with even the most cosmetic understanding of history knows.

Ah, so you've expunged the USSR, Cambodia, China, Vietnam and Korea from the record?

Not very successfully.

Please pull your historically pig-ignorant head out of your ass and try again.

Fanatics love to blithely rewrite history to promote their faith.

You're claim is the epitome of stupidity driven by religious fervor. Atheists are such fanatics...

All of which is relevant to what, child? Their regimes killed in the name of the religion of the state, esp. in Korea where their 'Juche' has essentially turned the Kims into gods.

So Atheism tends to place the state as the supreme authority. Not too healthy for humans.

But this has already been explained to you, and you run from it like a frightened toddler.

Fanatics feverishly attempting to alter history to cover for their religion would be funny to watch - if not for all the gulags, and genocide...

No, honey, pout all you'd like, but you saying that it's so doesn't magically make it so.

Facts exist, regardless of your fanatical devotion to your religion.

Let's have you try and be a little less stupid, hmmmm?

ROFL

Irony..

 

[koshergrl]

I find that relying on the personal experiences of a stranger on the Internet to help me form my opinions is problematic.

Atheists aren't any more tolerant in person. I've been at work and had to listen to nasty (and completely un provoked) rants about Christians and Christianity, and been treated to random people in lines at the store making fun of Christians as well.

I have yet to unload in public about atheists.

Maybe that's your personal experience. However, I see a wealth of just that on USMB. What's more it's not a matter of personal experience. We can all see it with our own eyes.

You just said that internet rantings are irrelevant.

So what you see on usmb, by your own standard, is irrelevant.

 

[Uncensored2008]

And your personal anecdotes are relevant to atheists in general exactly how?

So the historical record is irrelevant, and personal anecdotes meaningless.

Hmmm, almost like Atheists have something (400 million murdered) to hide....