Just became atheist, now what?

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
What real need is procreation, if there is no higher reason for our being born?


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you kidding, i still like to [censored]. On a more serious point, do you really think only religious people want or care about children? If catholics care so much about children, why do they insist on killing so many of them.

Oh and god should be with a small 'g' in a similar way to diety, immortal etc.

[ QUOTE ]
any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice, I appreciate your attempts at humour.

Mack

[hurlyburly]

Congratulations! You've made the first step to recovery. A few things:

1. Don't divorce your wife, unless the only reason you married her was BECAUSE she's a Catholic. Plus, whenever she talks about god and how he completes her and makes her whole, pretend she's saying "your penis". If anything, you'll want her to become MORE devout.

2. Add rereading everything you have read before with your new perspective, just to see what things look like without attributing everything's existence to a higher power. You have a chance now to enjoy empirical analysis.

3. You should now realize that nothing is going to step in and save us now. Take up some environmentalist causes, that's a great way to replace the time spent on your knees. Recycle and encourage others to do so. Do more if you have it in you. If you were catholic, you can handle guilt and depression well, so use that strength.

4. This might take some time to set in (it did with me) but procreation is the ONLY way to achieve immortality. Have kids, raise them well, allow them to come to their own conclusions and try to provide them with the faculties to do so. Plus, every parent wants grandkids, and yours are no different.

4. Hang on to your assets, silly. Being an atheist doesn't mean you can just shuck-all and live like a vagabond. Enjoy your cigars in moderation, though, because you no longer have a higher power protecting you from getting cancer (also make sure you carry a small tank of extra air when scuba-diving).

5. Take another look at Evolution, now you can appreciate the evidence with an unclouded mind. It's really neat when you don't have to demand that someone breed a human using chimpanzees to "prove it" (preposterous).

6. Abortion can still be wrong, it's not a theological issue.

7. Dude, bored with Golf? Now that's heresy. Take up a musical instrument, great way to spend the time while the wife is churching it up.

Welcome to the fold!

[RJT]

Mack,

First I gotta tell you - love your name. I’m a big fan of the song that it alludes to, as well as Bobby Darin and his recording (s) of it. (Now that I am atheist , I am planning to change my screen name here. Much like converts to Islam (often or always?) do. I have a few ideas I am working on.)

And thanks for answering my more important question regarding the proper way to write the word god. Your answer makes sense - perfectly logical.

Anyway, to get to the point of my reply here. I in no way suggested that all atheist should/should not find any value in having children. I, simply, have decided it is a waste of my time, energy, and resources to do so. I decided for me, since this is all there is, there is no point to it. That is all. (And please note that I did include sex in my list of things I enjoy. I'll have it safely.)

Regards,

RJT (for the time being)

p.s. I am more than interested to hear reasons fellow atheist have children. I am not locked into this decision in my new life.

[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)

[Prevaricator]

[ QUOTE ]
To beleive that NO God exists is more absurd then saying a God exist, even if you don't understand the role of that God, what it's intentions are, or why it's even there.

I think you should reason this out a bit more, for it's quite easy to see that there is a ONE (a source). For example, all you see in your world are ONE's. Name something that isn't a ONE. Start from the smallest, and proceed to the largest thing you can concieve in your mind. If that doesn't help, then I'd recommend reading Plato's Paremendies. Plato does a neat little trick such as laying out all the implications and conclusions of the the matephyiscal constructs of the major world religions before almost all of them came into existence. If you can follow simple reasoning, and can follow a dialogue, he gives a great illustation of how absurd it is to beleive in atheism.

My two cents.

[/ QUOTE ]

only if what you call god is neither living or cognizant. At that point you are pretty much saying that the universe was just there, no need for anything to be created. There is no need for a god, and a god does not solve anything.

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
Congratulations! You've made the first step to recovery. A few things:

1. Don't divorce your wife, unless the only reason you married her was BECAUSE she's a Catholic. Plus, whenever she talks about god and how he completes her and makes her whole, pretend she's saying "your penis". If anything, you'll want her to become MORE devout.

2. Add rereading everything you have read before with your new perspective, just to see what things look like without attributing everything's existence to a higher power. You have a chance now to enjoy empirical analysis.

3. You should now realize that nothing is going to step in and save us now. Take up some environmentalist causes, that's a great way to replace the time spent on your knees. Recycle and encourage others to do so. Do more if you have it in you. If you were catholic, you can handle guilt and depression well, so use that strength.

4. This might take some time to set in (it did with me) but procreation is the ONLY way to achieve immortality. Have kids, raise them well, allow them to come to their own conclusions and try to provide them with the faculties to do so. Plus, every parent wants grandkids, and yours are no different.

4. Hang on to your assets, silly. Being an atheist doesn't mean you can just shuck-all and live like a vagabond. Enjoy your cigars in moderation, though, because you no longer have a higher power protecting you from getting cancer (also make sure you carry a small tank of extra air when scuba-diving).

5. Take another look at Evolution, now you can appreciate the evidence with an unclouded mind. It's really neat when you don't have to demand that someone breed a human using chimpanzees to "prove it" (preposterous).

6. Abortion can still be wrong, it's not a theological issue.

7. Dude, bored with Golf? Now that's heresy. Take up a musical instrument, great way to spend the time while the wife is churching it up.

Welcome to the fold!

[/ QUOTE ]


Hurlyburly, man



Thanks for your help with my new life. In regard to your post:

1) Agree, perhaps. Won’t be so easy to deal with. But, I might give it a go.
2) OK.
3) Wrong for me - -why would I care about the longevity of the earth’s resources? The human race is here for no reason. So what if it doesn’t last longer than it does?
4) Also, wrong for me. I have no interest in achieving the immortality. In my previous life (pre-atheist) I understood immortality to be inevitable. I never wanted to pursue it for itself.
5) (your second # 4 - you had me confused a bit there, when I went to reply) No, it doesn’t mean I can now shuck all. I always could have done that. I meant that I can now choose to live the life that had always appealed to me. Had I not felt some need to contribute to the social order, I might have done it long ago. My reasons prior to not doing so were because, I always believed life had a higher purpose. I therefore felt I should try to contribute to everyone else’s life, as best I could. - Btw, I didn’t mean I will give away all my assets when I said liquidate them. I meant I want them within internet reach in my new found life.
6) If evolution is correct , what are we evolving ourselves into and why? Pre-atheism, I had always believed if evolution was true we might be trying to evolve into a more sophisticated intelligence in order than we can truly figure out god’s plan. Atheistically speaking, now, what is the point of evolution? And who cares anyway?
7) I have no interest, now, one way or the other. Who cares?
8) I think you might have hit the nail on the head. I love golf. Got bored with most other stuff (don’t dive anymore, btw). But, I suck at it. And I am tired of being a duffer. The only way to really improve my game is to divorce the wife. I can then golf whenever and as much as I want. So, we are back to your number 1 - the alpha. Now what???!!!


.Regards,

RJT (for the time being)

P.S. I do know that I will devout more of my life to (re)learning the proper use of commas. I never know where to put the dang things. Sorry for all the comma errors.

[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.

[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

[NotReady]

As Bertie Russell says

[ QUOTE ]

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 fears, his loves 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 the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast heat 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. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't really understand what habitation of the soul is safe given this viewpoint, but other than that who could argue with an atheist genius like him?

Or you could just say it doesn't matter and do whatever you want. You are totally, absolutely free from everything, every law, every moral code, every human being, everything - so do as you please, it makes no difference. Just try not to get caught.

[hurlyburly]

Ok, man. I just wanted to make sure you understood what's there for you if you want it. Wanted you to know that atheism doesn't have to mean apathy, but it does mean free will [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Good luck!