Given the fact that there is some confusion about the definition of atheism, it probably shouldn't be a surprise to find atheists who sincerely don't realize that they are atheists. When people who are clearly atheists ask such a question, though, it's made clear to me how the misinformation and myths about atheism can cause real harm: they prevent people from realizing that they are atheists and, from there, finding a better way for living outside of religious theism.
I have never really known what to call myself. I don't believe there is a supreme being or beings. However, I don't reject everything that we call "supernatural". I assume that every observed phenomenon is actually natural, but we just don't have the understanding to explain it in scientific terms.
It would be nice if there was an afterlife, a continuation of my existence in some form, in an alternate dimension. But it seems much more likely and logical that when I die, I will simply cease to exist. The universe is vast and complex and I can't comprehend it. I can't even understand quantum physics, which seems practically supernatural to me!
I often joke that I believe in the Force from Star Wars... some commonality that connects everyone and everything in the universe. After all, we are all made of the same "stuff". Am I an atheist?
Of course this person is an atheist — in an ideal world, there wouldn’t be any question about this. A person should be able to recognize that they are an atheist just as readily as they can tell their hair color and gender, but I certainly don't blame the author here. Not only are there many misconceptions about atheism that prevent people from recognizing what it is, there is also so much bigotry and prejudice against atheists that there are strong reasons for people not to want to be atheists. What can we do about this? Add your thoughts to the comments here or join the ongoing discussion in the forum.
The only thing I can think of to show the world, even if by one state at a time, is for some really clever individual to come up with a commercial. Something just as Christians have on the television, give the people a different choice.
I would call this honesty.
As a child, I would cry over this same exact thought. I remember my family and how they looked at me with that perplexed reaction of theirs that said, “You’re only 9. Why are you so freakin’ gloomy?” A decade or so later, I can’t honestly say that I have experienced much improvement. At any rate, what I experienced does return, albeit only briefly. It’s akin to seeing your x-ray for the first time, a feeling that borders on vacuity, fragility and limitation.
Though I could not put it in words, I felt I was epiphenomenal, secondary and powerless over the processes of reality. I felt less than necessary, more like a contingency than something divinely sanctioned, a frivolous offshoot, an unintended cosmic spasm. You get the picture.
When I started to consume philosophy and literature around 3 years ago, I expected to overcome these egoistic fears. In retrospect, my readings merely served as an escape from my unrewarding major and from the shallowness of my peers, each of whom I saw as either infected by apathy or largely consumed by social and material concerns. I don’t know if I feel that I have surmounted more primeval concern over life and death. At the same time, my readings did afford me some interesting words to describe things I in fact feel. I regret that I rarely have the opportunity to discuss these things with other people.
Know that I still have not come to find death natural either. I suppose that is an expected comment from someone who is still in college.
The only thing that consoles me is my tendency to forget and for things to slowly recess. Was it Plato who said that there was nothing that irked him more than forgetfulness? I can sympathize. It undermines learning. Even so, perhaps, all of this is a blessing in disguise. I forget how that story by J.L. Borges goes about the fabled immortals who ended up abandoning their worldly achievements, who essentially stepped outside of linear time, with its points, its beginnings and its endings. Be careful what you wish for, I guess that is the moral of the story.
All I know is that our sense of continuity, of time, is tied to such memories. Without memory of the past, can you even claim to be the same exact person? Time, how it is experienced, ends up being very subjective in this way. Though this question may not be the most profound question, one must admit that its implications are pretty frightening. In a sense, I can see how memory unites our past with our present being, while hope or despair unites us with some projected future state that lacks form. Yet, the past we remember rarely aligns with how things were in fact. Thus, the past and not just the future are fictions and, in consequence, our existence is far more specious than we had first thought. In this sense, we are always dying in a way, every second, every time we forget the most trifling fact. This is particularly true when we forget something that we hold personally important. That’s Flux for you!
Still, there is an inclination of some sort to maintain the assumption that we are infinite in some capacity. This is human and some would call it delusional. Perhaps to be human is to maintain such delusional outlooks to a certain extent. Still, I believe that the Human Spirit emerges in the foreground of all creative action.
We are so quick to judge what is and what is not true without taking into account the creative dynamics of human beings. I do not deny that we hold false notions that run deeper than we can imagine. However, I believe that the eradication of these beliefs should only be merited by their potential harm. All of these predetermined moral outlooks rest on affinities that we all possess individually or separately. Still, I don’t think that people should compromise any of this deliberately. Who would like to harm another’s spiritual outlooks and opinions? I question the ethical perceptions of anyone who places someone’s notions of an afterlife or of a “life-force” into jeopardy.
Despite my toleration for a variety of things I might find personally disagreeable, I see myself as kind of lonely given my minority (some would say conflicting) opinions and unwelcomed outlooks. It is hard growing up in the Evangelical South where the inquisitive are dismissed and even reprised.
Still, I do not want to propagate the same kind of realizations that I experienced in my youth. It was a Discovery Channel scientific documentary that caused my distress. It was an article on the Human brain and the affects of brain damage on personality traits and cognitive abilities. What is there left to think or feel upon realizing the role of underlying biochemical processes that both shape our perception and guide our cognitive mental processes? A feeling settles over you that is more than crippling. Science, despite its obvious benefits, has led to moral degeneration to a certain extent. Look into Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky. NOTE: I’m not saying science is bad…at all. I am saying that OUR ability to deal with and manage scientific discoveries and advancements on both an ethical and existential plane are light-years behind their utility or application.
We live in a modern age where science seems to be elucidating life’s mysteries. I, for one, believe that most people do not believe the things they say they do. I believe that everyone has their doubts and that these doubts compound with scientific achievement.
After the funeral in old pagan Ireland, people celebrated the death of their friend or relative. These people believed that the departed was entering a new life in the “Otherworld”. Today, we do not celebrate death as a process of life as the old Celts once did. I feel that this development has two possible explanations.
First of all, the old Semitic religions had a pretty bleak conception of the afterworld. This fear of death, which is the premise for The Epic of Gilgamesh, translates into Judeo-Christian perceptions of the afterlife. Christ, it is said, freed man from death, for death in Judaic antiquity was something to both fear and lament.
The other explanation for our modern fear of death is the transposition of belief from dogma to the scientific method and, consequently, all scientific discoveries proffered by this method. All things lying outside of the purview of scientific investigation are consequently held in suspension, in a kind of limbo.
I look upon my own experience with loss and the way others grieve before me and I know deep down the reason behind their sadness. Why would people cry when someone dies? The answer is simple. People, like me, cry because they know deep down that they will never again have any form of contact with that very unique and irreplaceable person who they loved so much during life. It is loss and certain losses are very difficult to overcome, and if it weren’t for the quietude of forgetfulness, something which comes in time, we would all go mad.
Your notion of the Force is not absurd or trite. Why would it be – because it possesses genuine feeling and/or optimism? The lenses of science may be impersonal and the evolutionary forces stirring deep within our organism may be cruel and self-serving, but we make a conscious effort to distance and differentiate ourselves from nature as we go on to establish our own rules regarding morality that are independent of our origins. Likewise, our interpretations of life and the universe (meta-physics) are inviolable in so far as they effectively represent our particular trains of thought at a particular point in time. The process is itself sacrosanct. Spirituality is founded on the notion that there is meaning in life, whether it is innate or self-created. The fact that we have spiritual dispositions is in itself impressive. Poets possess this sacred affinity, which is how I choose to perceive it. They, in fact, feel something. Beyond that, they yearn for it and dedicate their lives to their pursuit of what is generally ineffable. Hence, they seem vague and too subjective to be intelligible….a real pain in the @## to some!
What they feel for life is equally true for life’s absence. Yet, how do you feel this absence? Furthermore, what terms would you begin to use? Nothing can be described outside of the range of human language and, yet, we continue to feel so much more than words can formally substantiate.