Hello guys, I am happy that I found this website so maybe I can get some comfort and security from like minding people like myself.... I grew up in a house that was somewhat Christian because of my mother. I was still able to swear, play violent video games, watch rated r movies, do many things cause my mother said as long as you know you are a good person and believe in god that is all that matters to me. So I went through like hating Church which i have only been to maybe 20 times (including funerals).... Crazy huh? And I also went though childhood hating every five seconds my mother tried to shove religion down my throat nicely but still annoying. So now as a person who suffers from severe anxiety and OCD when something bothers me it sticks around with me until I forget and remember or find a solution for this. Currently I am lately very much so thinking about religion and all the holidays don't help. It drives me crazy. I have always loved playing video games like Call of Duty and grand theft auto. Also listening to music by heavy metal band names such as Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Exodus, etc etc.... Slayer has such album names as Haunting the Chapel, Hell Awaits, Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, God Hates us All etc.... This always pissed religious people and made my mother angry in a sense this is what I chose to listen to and support. I have a OCD/Anxiety disorder with consistently checking my heart rate and blood pressure. I have always had a fear of dying of something cardiovascular. I am scared to die and was happy with the reassurance of religion that "everything is going to be okay and you will have an after life" Now with being an Atheist I am scared to die and to just not be here anymore, I hate the fact that we live, were here and chose to do what we do in this life, And.... we die. the end no more no less that's that. I just hate the unknown that we all do not know about that bothers me. I wonder often what is out in this universe? What happens if I am wrong about religion and being Atheist. Why isn't there an after life? What can I do to feel better about death and not fear it? Thank you everyone!!!
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Welcome to AR.
Are you being medically treated for the anxiety and OCD?
empty your mind, be like formless, shapeless just like water!
No I am NOT being medically treated for anxiety or OCD. I don't believe in taking medication or eating anything that isn't organic or at least non-gmo. I only eat real food not processed or packaged. I am so curious to ask more Atheist questions. I love my wife because she is sweet, kind, loving, I miss her when she isn't around, she is my other half, she makes me a better person, I love her personality, smell etc..... but I am always asked why do Atheists follow all the laws and rules of society if there is NO GOD? Why don't Atheists kill people or have 1,000 sexual partners (Mormons hahaha) Sadly I was married in a church before becoming Atheist! Are any of you married?
Interesting, no medications? Do you use some other method for healing when you are ill or injured?
I take large amounts of Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil from Green Pastures. And I don't pray or meditate just try to do the things I enjoy or what makes me happy.
Why would a god existing be the only reason to follow rules? Surely anyone who thinks about it for a moment can realize that we follow rules because it makes people happier. I tend to believe that people are largely selfish. Even when we do things for other people, we do it because it makes us feel good. We like to make other people feel good, not only because we empathize with them and it makes us feel good, but because we know from experience that it makes other people likely to be nice to us in return. On the other side, we don't like to do harmful things to other people for the same reason. We empathize with them and it makes us feel bad for them. We don't like feeling bad, so we don't like to do things that make others feel bad, or that would lead them to do bad things to us. These seem like very obvious, simple facts. This is essentially the basis of secular morality. No higher power need be involved. It never even crosses my mind when considering the consequences of my actions how it might affect me after I am dead. That makes no sense. I choose what I will and will not do based on the effect it will have on me in this life - the only one I think I'll ever have. I don't kill people because I don't have any desire to, and if I were to kill someone, I would be causing pain and suffering to their family, inviting revenge to come upon in the future, and condemning myself to life imprisonment. None of those things are desirable to me. I don't have 1000 sex partners simply becuse I desire only one. Which, to answer your next queston, is my husband. If I ever did desire another sex partner, I wouldn't indulge because it would hurt my husband, whom I empathize with more deeply than with anyone else and could not bear to hurt him, nor would I risk losing him because of my actions. Where in any of this consideration is even the passing thought of a god or an afterlife necessary?
I'm new to the forum and I'm married since 1991. We're both atheists who were Christians.
My husband is very bipolar and I have anxiety issues, though minor. Meds aren't a bad thing at all, its just like a diabetic having to take insulin. Happily, he has found the appropriate cocktail of wellbutrin and zyprexa, after trying lithium, etc, and can function pretty well. It's much better than having him commit suicide when he is in the depressed state or do something dangerous when he was manic.
Even if there were a heaven and hell you would have Hell one and Hell two. Hell one you would be living in an environment worse than a North Korean type environment having no privacy and being a sycophant to a murderous tyrant. When you were born you won the biggest lottery you could ever imagine. Make the most of the life you have while you’re here. Don’t waste hours of your time worrying about some imaginary murderous dictator in the sky.
Hi
welcome to the forum
"What happens if I am wrong about religion and being Atheist."
Considering the quantity of types of religions out there and their denominations, you would get the wrong religion by sheer probability alone.
So don't worry about being wrong, all theists got the wrong religion for sure.
"Why isn't there an after life?"
Yea we all wish we could live forever or have a better life but there is no reason to believe there is one so we must treasure this one we have even more.
Like saying: why isn't there a million in my pocket?, since there is no reason to believe there is, we must treasure the few bucks we have even more.
"What can I do to feel better about death and not fear it?"
It is ok to fear death, everybody does fear it in a way or an other.
It is a problem I ponder about from time to time, but it helps me be happy that i am still alive and appreciate every second of my life.
It really does help you appreciate life and be more friendly with people since it might just be the last second of your life.
Live it to the fullest/
Why are we afraid of death, nothingness- just consider this there are many worse things than death in this world. Why am I not afraid when I bet in age I am closer to the end of life than you are. Because there is nothing I can do to change it. Just accept we are all here for a limited time and stop worrying. Why isn't there an afterlife, simple question what evidence have you seen for it? So if I assume the answer is none, what other things do you believe in without any evidence?
Se most of the 'difficult' questions asked by ourselves and others are easy to answer once you apply a rational approach.
"Why are we afraid of death, nothingness"
Says the guy that never died and came back to life to tell us about this "nothingness" that he experienced.
Thank you everyone for you comments and answers. I know that all the questions in my mind are brought on more severely because of my OCD and anxiety ridden brain of mine. I do appreciate the time I have here with my loved ones. I only have my wife because she is the one person I told I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and share everything with sadness, happiness, sexuality etc. I also feel that I don't murder people because I wouldn't want them to murder me. I don't rape people because I wouldn't want them to rape me. Doesn't that just make sense? I am always feeling alone and nagged at by the religious people close to me with questions and statements that make me feel uneasy. I am going to have to start preparing for future comments and questions more carefully!!! I will always be afraid of death. I suppose I am so fearful because of wondering what it is going to feel like, what is going to happen to me, how long will it take for me to die, will I die peacefully or in pain? Etc.... It was brought to my attention through private message that I may have posted this in the wrong area of the website by accident I apologize. Tony what is worse then death?
I am married, have been for twelve years, nice to make your acquaintance.
There are so many youtube videos and books ( library or amazon :)) which can help you to understand what you feel, why you feel and how to trust in your intuition. For example to understand the meaning of atheism you can read " The God Delusion".
Here you can find about the author and his conception https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FiHRVb_uE0
There is Christopher Hitchens and his debates. or listen to Sam Harris or any other philosopher or writer atheist.
Then there is the " The Selfish Gene" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drCcUbP79AU The same author as "The God Delusion" where you can find something about the way the world can be, or is, or a can be imagined.
For the role in our life, how to find ourselves the best we can, there is Krishnamurti. There are a lot of videos in Youtube on different themes.
I know what you are going through, I was lucky because my parents were not religious. But now I am surrounded by religious people, so I wanted to understand them. It is still frustrating me a lot. But I know one thing I can never be a theist and it needs strength, intelligence and character to not look for secure point, balance and harmony in your life, in a book, in a god, in a community or any other outside thing, but in yourself. There is nothing better, nothing more free and elevating, more rational than thinking, deciding and living free of any dogma. We have a brain, not to be manipulated but to think with and not to destroy and hate but to control our attitude and make what we want not what is said to. We have a native moral, a native intelligence which it is tried to be destroyed by the system. Trust in your instincts and observe yourself. The true is just one, and we never find the answer, maybe in the next life, or after life. Look at this world, do you think we deserve to know the truth? But we have the chance to be in control of ourselves. You can not change anybody or the world but the attitude to the people or the world. You have to change what you can change. What you can not change you have to accept as being part of the world you live in. its not easy but it is what you CAN do. Just not be afraid because the life its not so boring, you have everything for survive. :) Sounds crazy but all you have to do is do not react. :))) This is my opinion.
What is worse then death? To live in fear. You do not know what happen after the physical death and this is magical. And maybe that's why you have to live now.
It is normal (in my opinion) to fear death. Your OCD/anxiety however, likely make your fear worse.
First of all, I would encourage you to seek help for your problems. There are many effective treatments, including medications and cognitive behavioral therapy (among others) for these problems.
In regard to the fear of death, I have dealt with my own fear in the following ways.
1) I endeavour to make the most of the living time I have. I treat my body and mind well. I exercise regularly, I eat the best I can (everything in moderation). I don't use tobacco, any drugs or alcohol. I treat those around me how I would like to be treated. If I fear anything about death it is the process of dying....I don't want to dwindle down over a long period of time, becoming dependent on other people or a burden to other people. I would rather work now to stay as healthy as possible and then die quickly (if possible). Even if I'm afflicted with a problem which would result in a slow death, I plan on suicide when I think that I'm getting to the point of dependency.
2) I look at death as nothing more than a long sleep. If you think about it, every night, when you enter stage 5 (deep) sleep, as far as your conscious mind is concerned, you are dead. You have no awareness and no voluntary control over your body. That is what being dead will be like....just a long time in stage 5 sleep. I, for one am looking forward to a good nights sleep.....
The way I see it, being dead is exactly what it was like for you before you were born. Was that awful or bad? Or anything? No, it was nothing: No cares, no worries, no fears, no rewards, no punishments, no heart, no blood pressure... No you.
Don't be scared. Like Spewer said, we all came from nothing and we're all going back to nothing. You don't have any bad memories about all those eons you spent being nothing before you were conceived do you. There's nothing to worry about. Also, have you ever really thought what an eternity would be like if it was real? Imagine being in heaven and every blink, fart, twitch, sneeze and every variation of every blink, fart, twitch, sneeze you would just be repeating endlessly, over and over, for trillions and zillions and trillions of years! And all that time spent just doing that is an infinitesimally small amount of time compared to an eternity. That doesn't exactly sound like any sort of 'paradise' to me...
It sounds to me like there is to mush focus on death.
That's religions main "point of attack": When you die, you get to go to a paradise and everything will be jolly and fine and you will be living in the clouds and we will eat rainbows and fart butterflies! - No!
Life is not about worring about death, it is about living.
I would also recommend reading and watching videos of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchins, Daniel Dennit. And I would suggest working your way backwards, starting with the newest videos and books. Since they include the more recent information and are more focused on the positive sides of atheism, where the older works are more focused on pushing atheism forward. (That is my experience of it, feel free to educate me on this)
I'm married, by the protestant church.
Mostly because my wife wanted a "traditional wedding". I managed to get the religiousness reduced a lot, and the ceremony took place in small wooden buiding on the churches property. Though, today I would insist on a completely non religious wedding.
Don't worry about the critique from religious people about video games and music taste. They said Elvis hip movements would corrupt everyone as well, pure nonsene.
My music spectrum is very broad. But it includes Disturbed, Otep, Opeth, Sepultura, Fear Factory, Throwdown, Lamb of God, Korn, Drowning Pool, Deftones.
As well as Judas Pries, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, AC/DC, Dio, Black Sabbath, Queen, ZZ Top, Dire Straits, Jimi Hendrix, Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple, The Who, and many more.
And I have played a lot of violent videogames, still I haven't murdered anyone or even beaten or tortured anyone. Even though I am an atheist. How strange... :)
No slayer in your music? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Sorry :)
Their one of the artists I just pick a few goodies from.
You don't have to call yourself as atheist if you don't feel like it. Label is not important. Do what you want and what you must and belief in what you truly believe without driven by a title.
To get back to your question of morality.
My view is this:
The Bible has little to nothing to offer. One of the few exceptions is the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The few of the Ten Commandments that actually concern morality could have been better defined by any decent human being today.
- Thou shalt not murder.
What about injuring someone? Killing in self defence?
Killing can always be justified in religion anyway, so why bother with this one?
- Thou shalt not steal.
What if you steal to feed your family?
- Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Fine, as long as I can have multiple wifes and rape my slaves (all whom I'm allowed to beat).
- Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Don't lie. Okay then.
And it seems to have slipped the mind of both God and Jesus (although they are one) any moral guidance regarding slavery, rape, torture, terror, repression, discrimination, etc.
Morals can easily be derived from evolution.
Animals that live in social groups are depending on eachother and have in some cases developed helping/caring/nurturing behaviours towards their own kind. Groups that share the same genes and help eachother by for example sharing food, helps those shared genes to survive and reproduce.
In some cases it seems that this behaviour even crosses between species.
There is a very recent documentary about baboons in Saudi Arabia that are "adopting" dogs and including them into their pack. The baboons groom the dogs and share their food, and in turn the dogs protects the pack with their lifes, even from other dogs. The dogs willingly abandon their newborn to what seems to be a nursery, from which the baboons then adopt/kidnap and then raises it and teaches it as a member of the pack.
(The documentary was shown in Sweden as part of a regular science program, but stupid me didn't record it.)
There is a short clip from the documentary on youtube (the first half can seem a bit cruel): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2lSZPTa3ho
It's not hard to realize that when societies started to form, you had to start obeying certain rules. If one were to walk over to the neighbors hut and smash the mans head in to get that new tool he made or forcably mate with his woman, you might face retaliation/punishment since the rest of the village doesn't want that happening to them.
From my reseach,here are some misunderstandings and confusion Christians make.
I do not have much time so forgive me if I make some mistakes in this post.
"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! 12"In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets."
That does not really relate to the context of the statement Jesus was making at the time but nvm.
What really bothers me is that I do not want always that people doing things to me that I would do to them, especially where sex is concerned.
But this is a dirty joke.(although) it is true if you think about it.
The truth is that Jesus golden rule is a copy of someone else, he did not invent it himself.
Confucious (500BC) said the same thing.
The Romans just copied good ideas that fit their purpose and put them in the gospels.
https://books.google.com.mt/books?id=gg0XPVxfS2wC&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=do...
Have a nice read
"- Thou shalt not murder."
In the OT, in the Aramaic language
The commandment WAS not - Thou shalt not murder.
but - Thou shalt not murder.thy neighbor
Which means you can kill others as long as they are not your neighbors.
Yahweh had a military camp to capture the promised land and for this reason he needed order and unification in his military camp.
He himself ordered the slaughter of children, he is not that stupid to make a commandment to contradict himself.
It is Christians that are stupid not to research the lies their leaders had translated for them.
"- Thou shalt not steal."
Same the commandment was - Thou shalt not steal thy neighbor,
Got the drift?
have to go
I'll continue later....
Yes, I agree with you Jeff. I just picked the "popularized" version.
Actually, I have been meaning to ask anyone here if you know where to access the least corrupt version of the biblical texts (although in English). A website with these texts and a search function would be very interesting.
The Ten Commandments should be a great laugh to read, with as little translations and re-writings as possible.
The Cambridge University Digital Library has a large collection of digital copies of old papyrus, including the Nash Papyrus considered to be one of the oldest copies in the world, but you will have to look around for a direct translation for the text. I would use the library to find documents, and then do a simple search with google to find the best authenticated translations for it...
I didn't get how to search out anything at the The Cambridge University Digital Library, but it is an interesting site.
I looked up the Ten Commandments in Young's Literal Translation (at www.biblegateway.com) and as far as I can see, the commandment "Thou dost not murder", doesn't contain "thy neighbour".
But it is in the "..not bear false whitness..." and "...shalt not covet..." commands, which makes them even less useful.
I said that If you had to translate the original Aramaic you would easily understand it.
No punctuation, no vowels.
But even if you understand the context of the translated version you can still see why it is "thy neighbor":
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [King James Version of the Bible, and the first Jewish Publication Society translation]
• You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. [Revised Standard Version]
• You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself. [TANAKH, most recent Jewish Publication Society translation]
"In context, "neighbor" meant "the children of thy people," "the sons of your own people," "your countrymen" -- in other words, fellow Israelites. Keep this definition of "neighbor" in mind as we consider the proto-legal portion of The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:17-21):
Thou shalt not kill.
Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
Neither shalt thou steal.
Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.
-- and remember that there was no punctuation in the original. That is, the scrolls from which these words were translated have no periods, no commas, and no first-word capitalization. Decisions about where sentences and paragraphs begin and end are supplied by the translator. Accordingly, instead of being written as five separate paragraphs of one sentence each, Deuteronomy 5:17-21 could be legitimately translated:
Thou shalt not kill, neither shalt thou commit adultery, neither shalt thou steal, neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour. Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's."
Hope that helps
I understand what you mean, interesting. I didn't know this.
Well, the library only really gives you a good digital copy of the original without translation:
http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-OR-00233/1
Now, I have looked over a number of online translations, but many of them seem to differ slightly. As you can imagine, I am hesitant to make proclamations as to which one is THE correct translation, as I don't speak ancient Hebrew or Aramaic. However, there is but a single link I have found from an actual university, so I will post it even though I don't know if it is accurate:
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/02-exodus/tex...
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