Why don't you belive your life is important? Every life is important.
And if you think you're not important why do you take all the crap this world offers?
Just because some idiots don't accept atheism it doesn't mean that all the christians are like that.
Generalizations not only that are not intresting they are dangerous. Not all the christians are close minded, not all the arabs are terrorists and not all the american are fat (no offence meant). Generalizing brings hatred and conflicts between people.
Life is not always black and white. Sometimes colors are involved too.
Ok, you definitly should go down that christian road, you are a master word bender.
I didnt say my life is not important, I said I dont consider myself to be so important that I at all need to give my life a meaning and know that my soul will go somewhere. I dont want to go somewhere, I couldnt stand people when I was on Earth, how possibly shall I stand them in so called "heaven". The meaning to my life is life itself, I live in the here and now in the physical reality of the existing world and when its over its over, I have no problem with accepting the fact that there are some things on this World that are out of my reach.
When you build a machine, its dedicated to fulfill a certain service over a given period of time and after that its destined to break. Thats its purpose. This gift of life it has, it can use to do something good with, to enjoy it in full breaths. That christian attitude basically wants me to wait until I am dead until I can enjoy life. I can enjoy life and the afterlife probably too in the christian world but I find it arrogant to assume that every person on this world is afraid of Death. I consider myself to be one of billion cogs turning in a huge system and I was given the gift to live on this planet, so why do I want more ? Why would I run around having the claim I am so important my soul needs to live forever ?
I dont think that way. I dont think the universe was made that way, to give every atom the ability to live forever that would be in direct violation with the second law of thermodynamics which is the entropy. I think this world follows cycles, things are created and things are destroyed, so that new things can emerge. That is the circle of life but by taking elements out of this equation and putting them in an eternal life, you are ruining it.
With generalizations, I dont refer to stereotypes. Regarding the american church its a thing you see often in this forum. When christians start to evangelize people in threads for their causes. To say that America is "advanced" and therefore not prone to such error is a bromide. The contrary is the truth, the larger a system becomes the more prone it becomes to error. This is some sort of worship that comes along with that bromide, namely "because god is all-knowing he always must be right". You cant imagine how much I hated those anti self-deterministic quotes in my religion lessons. I regulary was thrown out of class because I became aggressive at this sort of blind wisdom.
I perfectly know that life is not black and white and I want it to stay that way. If I start tho idealizing something and to believe in some sort of idea, may it be Krishna, God or Allah; I am adding a component to my life that was not meant to be its nature. But and thats the kicker, maybe believe is meant to be lifes nature, since nature has brought us and we have brought religion. We cant argue that fact therefore I accept it as an unresolved question and I accept religion. What I dont accept tho is religion telling me how I am supposed to live my life to get a gift at the end that I do not want.
You asked if atheism was good. By that you implied that people who choose atheism dont know if its good and maybe need to be told otherwise. That again is anti self-determination. SD means that your choice is always good. Of course not everyone can do that for himself but you can assume that I can do that for myself and have done it for myself. I am not an Atheist, I am an Agnostic. This is not because I dont dare to say God sucks and like to keep my options open in case of there maybe is a God but we dont know it. Its because I believe in facts and fact is: "we dont know it". The likelyhood of manking only imagining this whole religious stuff and having made up all religions is for me 100%. But the likelyhood of species existing in the universe, maybe as pure energy, which could seem like Gods to us, is for me: given. Thats my standpoint.
Furthermore I believe in the power of belief. Its an integral part of human existance and everyone inherits that. if its just you believing in your favourite soccer team to win the match on saturday, you are a believer, everyone is. Therefore I dont deny nobody to belief, on the contrary I respect the beliefs of people every day in my usual life and ignore their objective blur. They do the same for me. But the mass phaenomena that is religion I dont follow, because:
- I have made bad experience with mass phenomena and generally think they are bad
- I dont want no afterlife, I am glad when this life is finally over
- I dont like to be controlled
Still there is a kicker. Tmorrow on xmas, I'll go to church for the first time in 5 years. My gf didnt want to go there because she is very atheistic but I dragged her to. From times I like the social gatherings and I think the single persons in church have a lot of wisdom to convey. You conveyed wisdom as well in your posts to me. So here is my offer: if the church can accept that I am a self-determant being and accepts my way as it is and lets me live my life, I will listen to its wisdom and accept it as a morale guide and mentor for myself. I am convinced that the World needs a morale guide and mentor more than ever. The church needs to reform itself in that direction and then it can serve the purpose again it did before. As long as they let me alone with afterlife, higher beings and whatever sort of physically non-existant kind of stuff.