Just became atheist, now what?

[RJT]

After having been enlightened (here on the forum) that it is extremely unlikely that God exists, I have decided to become atheist.

I kicked around the idea of being agnostic. But, that seems like a waste of time and no fun at all. It would be a waste of time (one’s life) because, I can’t imagine if God exists, that when I die, him not saying, “Oh, you thought I might be, but you didn’t pursue me further and at least try to find me in your heart’s desire. Get lost, man.” I won’t waste time pursuing him, since I know I can never prove him and taking a leap of faith is deemed illogical. It would be no fun, because it would be like playing a roulette wheel with no greens.

So anyway, now that I am atheist I have a dilemma. How do spend the rest of my life?

I have tried a whole gamut of things thus far in my life: drugs, drink, philosophy, theology, and religion; have already traveled a great deal, tried scuba diving, skiing, and marriage. I have spent a lot of time volunteering my time and talents at my church. I have experienced the suffering and death of loved ones (no fun at all, trust me). The things I enjoy doing at this point in my life are reading, traveling, movies, music, art, golf, poker, cigars and of course sex.

So now that I am atheist, I have decided to spend the next few years doing what I enjoy most. Going to get divorced (no kids), since the wife is and will remain Catholic I can’t see how that can work in the scheme of things. Liquidate my assets and spend time traveling and doing the things that I (already stated) enjoy.

My dilemma is this: I know that eventually I will get bored with the things I now enjoy. I can’t seem to think of anything new, otherwise I would be doing them now, too. I know that eventually I might get lonely. Then if I find someone who interests me, I can’t imagine the woman not wanting to get married and most likely want kids. I can see no point in having kids as an atheist. Maybe it is me, but I don’t think human life is so great that it needs perpetuated. (This here might be my problem, maybe life is so great and I am missing something. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great life and enjoy it most of the time. I have the wherewithal to do most anything, too.) What real need is procreation, if there is no higher reason for our being born?

I ask this question now, because who knows, by the time I need the answer years down the road, the wisdom of this forum might not still be here. Then where will I go? I already tried published scholars, before I found 2+2. They were no help.

So, how does an atheist, who believes that to procreate is nonsense, live out his life?

Btw, I feel that the poker room is the logical place to end up. I just don’t see it as being enough.


Oh yeah, one final question. Now that I am atheist, do I capitalize the word god? I know that grammatically speaking I should, because it refers to a proper person (thing). But, now that I believe in no such thing, how do I handle this? It seems silly to capitalize something that doesn’t exits.

[carlo]

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Love it,
carlo

[FrankTheTank]

Wow, that's an interesting post. How should you live your life? I dunno, carlo's answer seems as good as any, though I'd hope there would still be some morality involved. I'm agnostic myself (I think, I don't really give this much thought), but I'm just curious, what argument did you read on this forum that was so powerful as to make you shift from religious to athiest?

[carlo]

I "think" he's making a joke [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

regards,
carlo

[RJT]

Carlo,

Already I am finding ways to occupy my time as an atheist. Maybe the answer to the question in my original post will take care of itself.

I now find myself no longer interested in the search for the Sublime. Instead, I am already fascinated with the ridiculous (The word mundane I will use for that term from now on. Seems a better word.)

My first interest in the mundane relates to your post. (Actually, I always wanted to know this, but never enough to take the time to inquire.) How the heck does one include those cute smiley faces in a post?

Your prompt attention to my request will be appreciated, as time now seems to be even more of the essence.

Regards to you too,

RJT (for the time being)

[carlo]

"My first interest in the mundane relates to your post. (Actually, I always wanted to know this, but never enough to take the time to inquire.) How the heck does one include those cute smiley faces in a post?"

Dear RJT,

I'm floored and cannot answer [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]; I'm laughing too much. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]


regards,regards, and thank you,
carlo

[snowden719]

honestly, you're retarded.

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up. They have no holidays.

[RJT]

Dang, I forgot about that.

Being Italian heritage and previously (prior to today) Catholic we always have wonderful Christmas eve (btw, I tried to not capitalize Christmas, but the spell check in Word auto corrects it. I will have to figure out how to turn that thing off. Atheism isn‘t as easy as I thought it would be.) dinner over my mom’s. All kinds of great seafood made with an Italian culinary flair.

A friend of ours, who is Jehovah’s Witness (they don’t do holidays either for those who don’t know that) would come over to help mom cleaning afterwards. That worked out well.

Now that I no longer have holidays to celebrate I will miss this wonderful dinner. (Maybe I’ll barbeque a big thick steak that evening.) Yes, this atheism thing is not so easy as I first thought.

[MtDon]

You are suffering from a misconception. Atheists can celebrate any holiday we want to. I've been an affirmed atheist since I was 20, I'm 53 now. Christmas is my favorite holiday. I consider Jesus to have been a great man.

A few years ago I was active in a wicca group, they have lot's of holidays. Being an atheist was okay with the leader of the group.

I am still interested in religion, and for several years was very active ( on the board, planned Sunday services, presented programs, taught children's and adult RE classes) in the local Unitarian Universalist [UU] church. The [UU] has many atheist members. They also have agnostics, christians, pagans and new agers, etc. I do plan on going back and becoming active again. [edit:] In fact, one of the programs I presented during a Sunday service was titled: "The Joys of Atheism and Agnosticism."

PS: I think your post is funny, but thought I might as well make a serious reply.

PS: I do hope you are an atheist, and making the rest up for humorous effect.