How does it feel to be one?No worries or fear in any real sense?Must be liberating? You have peace with dying anytime?Or killing yourself anytime?I badly want to be an atheist sometimes, but are you guys more depressed?Are you afraid of death? How intense is it?Is it different?Personally, I only fear death cause I’m not ready, not sure whether I would go to heaven.To believe you could just die and cease to exist anytime must be freeing I believe, I’m envious I can’t ever have that.
Christians fear death more than anyone, most people don't even think about it.
>>17439751>How does it feel to be one?Fine I guess, I enjoy my life in general>No worries or fear in any real sense?I have worries and fears, mostly concerning my loved ones happiness and safety >Must be liberating? I guess >You have peace with dying anytime?Yeah, I would prefer to live long but when it’s up it’s up nothing I can do about it so I accept that>Or killing yourself anytime?No, I don’t want to kill myself, I enjoying living>I badly want to be an atheist sometimes, but are you guys more depressed?I am not depressed personally>Are you afraid of death? Not at all. I hope my death isn’t painful and I don’t suffer with dementia or scoliosis but death itself isn’t scary to me>How intense is it?How intense is what?>Is it different?I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t born into a religious family or community, personally it’s not that as an atheist I dont believe in anything more. There is an idea that atheist are obsessed with empiricism and science, I think there are many metaphysical things beyond our comprehension, I don’t think we are able to understand it with our senses and level of awareness. But in the sense of if I believe in some sort of Abrahamic god I do not. I suspect we are all one organism and separation and duality is just the way our minds work in order to categorise and interpret the world but it isn’t reality. What does a fish know about water, we don’t know shit, we certainly don’t know what happens after death
>>17439760Even if I get my life together and get straight with God, there is no guarantee I will die immediately soon after.I fear living more. Every living moment is an eternity of suffering for me unless I distract myself.That’s where I came from, I didn’t mean to offend any atheists.
>>17439771I guess being afraid of death is something you grow out of.Dying, suffering on the other hand is scary.
>>17439780>being afraid of death is something you grow out ofNot at all, it’s just a perspective thing, my grandmother on my father side has cancer right now and is perfectly ok with dying, she’s not afraid at all, she focuses on her love for her family and the enjoyment she gets out of little things like drinking tea and reading. My grandmother on my mother’s side is much older and terrified of dying, she can barely walk anymore and she is a hypochondriac, just mortified at the concept of dying. Acceptance is huge, you really can change your perception on life through acceptance and choosing what to focus on
>>17439773Yes. Christianity has presented you with a false choice, that's why you feel confused and want to extend or guarantee you get it right.
>>17439751>How does it feel to be one?Idk. I'm two.
>>17439773>afraid of living>copes by imagining that he'll live forever with a supernatural being that will solve all his problemsChristianity has destroyed you.
>>17439845What a coincidence that you would say that because I did thought of bringing up the severe lack of options for cope.Aside from breaking my mind and destroying my self and ego, there is no other cope.Even then it’s not a valid cope but I guess it wastes or in my case buys time.Sedate myself basically.
>>17439857*Aside from breaking my mind and destroying my self and ego with psychedelics, there is no other cope.
>>17439751You're starting from a position that's alien to at least a sizeable chunk of non-believers. The bottom line is the arguments in favor of specific religious texts being specifically true don't sway us. That's all it is. Everything that's imagined must exist in the absence of Christianity in particular was imagined by post-Christians in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
>>17439751Atheists typically aren't starting from a moral position. It's that the Bible isn't accurate history and isn't accurate cosmology. It belongs in a category with other mutually exclusive religious texts. If you think all atheists are out here feeling guilt-free and are all morally unscrupulous (from a Christian perspective), you're wrong. We're social animals in extremely complex culture systems And if fear of punishment and God's wrath is all that's keeping some Christians from behaving evilly, then they should carefully examine their motives and try to improve them, which can sometimes lead to some freshened up Christianity.
>>17439751when i was a christian i used to suffer from OCD. depression, anxiety panic attacks, pain in chest, intrusive incessant thoughts, nightmares. now I don't have any of that. i do fear going to jail, getting drafted in a possible war, getting a bad disease, down to earth stuff.i did feel like a stone was lifted off my chest when i deconverted, but peace with death i don't think anybody has. especially when the hour will come, i imagine i'll shit my pants, I don't know of any way to supress instincts, and self preservation is one of the strongest ones.it is massively different. back then i was policing my own mind and trying to supress the intrusive thought (that might offend god). in christianity you can offend god just by thinking, and that gave me a full time chore of making sure i don't think too much about sinful things. problem was i can't really suppress thoughts away from my mind, all i could do is focus on something else (like say a prayer) to make the intrusive blasphemous thought go away.one time while reading the bible i had a spontaneous thought "THAT'S BULLSHIT!" so i had to focus on reading to try to bloc it.when jesus said "my yoke is ligth" he was lying! this thing is not light at all. my life was a dreary living nightmare. in the back of my mind i was yearning if only there was a way out of this fucking pit in my mind. it was as if i were in jail and i couldn't tell anyone how i hate my life because you have to pretend you love god and want to obey him. i couldn't even admit how much i hated my life because i might offend th LORD my life was a pit of emptiness. jesus said "whoever doesn't hate his life cannot be my disciple" boy was he right about that one. relationship with god is like being a battered wife with stokholm syndrome: god makes you feel like shit perpetually but you have to pretend you love him. i used to look at birds and think how fortunate are they are that they don't experience existential crisis.
>>17439751What disquiets you? Fear of hek?
>>17440891Wow, we are the same.I’m definitely not an orthodox Christian.Like whenever I hear any gospel songs I just go “bullshit” too.And that part where you mentioned the yoke and all.I always thought I’d be this special strong Christian but I have been really disillusioned. Like the Joker said, one bad night, that was the straw.I don’t want to get argumentative but I still believe Christianity is true despite all that.I consider it an unfortunate cold truth.Gnosticism doesn’t work btw, the all powerful one cannot be exempt from the equation.One thing I can say is that God definitely isn’t all good, or all loving.
>>17441133And that might is right, the book of Job wasn’t very subtle about it.I used to have difficulties incorporating the denial of the fact with my worldview, cause it wasn’t true.Might indeed does make right.
It’s funny that God warns us of judging without knowledge but he is going to judge us, people without knowledge?
