I recently gave some atheist advice.

I have a friend that is going through a rough patch and the other day she was telling about her problems. Without getting into too much detail, a lot of her family and friends are sick right now with various ailments and she is afraid of losing them. She has been taking it pretty hard and I decided to check in on her. Now, I have been intimately familiar with depression my entire life, but I was not able to find anything helpful to tell her how to cope with it, as I am currently in the middle of a downward spiral myself.

However, she asked me what is the point of life, if we just meet people, love them, get hurt, heal, and get hurt again, in an endless Sisyphean rollercoaster ride until the moment of our inexorable death. Finally, something I can answer! I can speak intelligently on the existential nightmare that plagues us all. So I told her, "If there's one thing I've learned by being an atheist, it's 'Don't ever ask 'Why?'' There is no 'why.' They tell you that god has a plan, that everything happens for a reason, and that all you have to do is have faith and everything will make sense in the end. I'm gonna be straight with you: that's a lie. There is no plan, and it will never make sense. There is nobody up there making these bad things happen to you. These things just happen. Don't wait around for all this to make sense, because you will be waiting for something that isn't ever going to get there. It was a huge relief for me when I stopped asking why."

She seemed to take it pretty well. It was an interesting experience, doing the opposite of what the Jesus-freaks tell you. Has anybody else had any experience with this sort of reverse proselytizing?

I think you did well. The idea that there is some probably inscrutable 'truth' or 'reason' or 'plan' is a source of angst in my opinion. It's very liberating to learn there is no such thing. I would add that in addition to the liberating fact that there is no hidden plan there is the fact that this absence gives each of us a bit of control in that we can make our own "Whys" our own reasons for living and enjoying life.

(Well, maybe there is, but you can't be sure they aren't omni-anything.)

SHIT HAPPENS.

It was a relief for me, too. For some folks, however, facing the idea of reality without a reason is too much. They need their binky. I'm glad your friend doesn't appear to be one of those.

When people ask why bad things happen to good people, I always say it's not a matter of bad things happening to good people but things happening to people. We assign these handles of good and bad without any empirical basis. And there isn't any why. It just happens without any rhyme or reason.

I don't know what she really believes. I remember a year or so ago she gave me a funny look when I said I was an atheist, but I was giving her and her friends a funny look already. I don't understand why people believe, but they all seemed to. but she seemed to0 take my advice pretty well, so I don't know if she's lapsed since then or what. We were never actually close, but we've been corresponding lately, telling each other our troubles. I do have a friend, however, who has become an atheist as a result of a personal tragedy. He kept saying that if there was a god he would get him out of this, but yet again our boy JC didn't deliver. So now he's one of us. But what I don't understand is that it takes a tragedy for people to see it. I figured it out just by thinking about it. There clearly isn't any evidence. But these people need a rude awakening.

because that would mean giving up on a community, on a fantasy, on the notion of invulnerability.

I came to terms with one death after another by realizing how much poorer my life would have been had I never known any of them. The pain of their passing is one thing that keeps them in my memory, and I don't want to forget any of them.

True believers are a relatively small portion of any congregation, in my experience, and nothing much works on them. They do develop an anger at their god, though, after enough pain has occurred in their lives, something that makes them even more unpleasant to outsiders and insiders alike.

We had some of these discussions as the kids were about 12-14. When the subject of God and an afterlife came up, I did some prosyletizing. Kids were not too happy to think about no afterlife, but that is understandable. I don't think anyone is really comfortable with death.

My prosyletizing worked very well, but they're way beyond that stage now and have read as much or more than I have of atheist literature, and philosophy in general. But I planted the evil seeds of atheism. :)

Regarding the why question, I clearly remember asking that during a solitary, hallucinogenic trip when I was 18. It was toward the end of a long night, outdoors, just as the sun was starting to come up, when this question obsessed me. It was intense and a bit sad when I concluded that there was no purpose, but relaxing and satisfying afterwards.

On edit: What it felt like was that last brilliant moment in the (atheist) movie "Sunshine" as he approaches the sun, for me as the sun came up over the horizon. I became one with the singularity, but there was no meaning to be found there. Intense and beautiful, but devoid of any meaning.

There is no purpose to life, other than to live it, and hopefully enjoy it. Not to imply that one's life shouldn't be full and meaningful. But there is no divine purpose. We're just a product of evolution like the rest of life on Earth, except with larger brains making us more dangerous to the planet. That's about it. A worthy purpose in life as I see it is to learn how to use our brains, so we don't destroy the rest of life on the planet. An ethical decision.

She thinks I'm leading people astray. What are you afraid of? That I'll be tormented for eternity by your boogey man? I'll pass.

What's wrong with introducing them to new ideas? Showing them different ways to think about things? My gosh, you could just end up giving them the outlook they need to cope. For me, life's a lot easier to deal with as an atheist than it ever was as a believer.

There's a fine line between sharing opinions and proselytizing. There should be some indication that opinions are welcome or that it's appropriate to share them. The truth about God may not be seen as truth by others, in fact won't be seen that way by believers, so there's always the risk of causing bad feelings.

I think the best time to provide some guidance is when there is an indication that it may find fertile ground, sort of throwing out a life line of reason and free thinking. This is really the best and safest way to go. Teach the child (or adult) to think in a rational way, to be a free thinker. The rest will fall into place. A little help at the critical times is key too.

I remember reading Richard Dawkins' letter to his 10 year old daughter about free thinking. In God Delusion I think, or was it Devil's Chaplain?

I think with kids, we shelter them and tell them fairy tales and they watch Disney movies, so that by the time they're 12-13 or so, there is an abrupt confrontation with reality. That there is no sky God to hold our hand when we die is difficult to accept at first. That we die all alone is scary. But having others who understand this and are available to talk to them rationally is comforting.

but I find it unconscionable that I am expected to sit back and let her suffer under her delusions. The realization that the question of why doesn't really warrant my attention was a great relief to me, and as somebody with a history of depression I thought it was my obligation to help her in any way that I can.

I spoke to a friend today that said she had already decided that she is going to tell her children that Santa Claus is real (I guess she's like twenty.) She said it's a nice little myth for children to believe in. I asked her what benefit she thought that it could possibly bestow to her children, but she didn't say anything. I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was a kid I was pretty pissed when I found out all that shit they told me wasn't real. I'm still pissed about that "your vote counts" bullshit.

that a little counter proselytizing is in order. Especially when you can identify someone struggling with this crazy system of beliefs that religion tries to indoctrinate us with.

Santa Claus is a bit different than God, only by degrees though. It's a children's fairy tale that participating parents don't inform their children until they are too old to believe anymore. I don't see much lasting harm, but each to his/her own when it comes to Santa or the Tooth Fairy.

God though is serious business. Even grown ups are taught to believe in that nonsense (Santa Claus for grown ups), so you have to take the gloves off to deal with that.

We never took our kids to church because we never went ourselves, except for weddings and funerals. The kids became curious with churches and religion, since it was something that they had no exposure too. So they requested to go to Catholic Mass, for the ritual aspect, and had a few friends who invited them to their Bar Mitzvahs, which they attended. That was enough to satisfy their curiosity.

A year or so later, the discussions of God and afterlife came up. That's when I decided to express my opinion and rational arguments. It was the right time. But we had some interesting and heated discussions. :)

An inhuman creature who sneaks into your bedroom while you are sleeping and makes off with something which was part of your body the day before? What sick, horrifying scheme does she need all these teeth for? And what if she decides that just one isn't enough, and brings a pair of pliers? Ok, she pays you some laughable pittance (sixpence, when I was a kid), but what do you do with that money? Buy tooth-rotting sweets, that's what! Monstrous!

That makes sense to me.
-Cindy

We come from oblivion and go back to it.

The only immortality we have is in the memories of those we leave behind. Which, for me, is enough an of answer to why atheists might occasionally do good things, when everyone knows we have a perfect license to do nothing but :evilgrin:

Someone started a 'do you believe in the afterlife thread'

I started a 'do you believe in the Beforelife thread' :evilgrin:

Got I think 3 responses and then sunk like a stone...I don't think most people can even process that idea.

But I'm surprised the reincarnationists didn't jump all over it.

Well, not so much with the proselytizing but the experience of stop asking why. It wasn't a bolt of lightning moment but more a gradual awareness that this is life, lets just live it. And when it's done it's done.