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To atheists: how do you cope knowing that there is no heaven?

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Same way religious people deal with knowing there's a Hell.
There's no-one I want to see so that clearly doesn't bother me. I live 10000 miles away just to not live with my family so I certainly hope I won't spend eternity with them.

I'm not entirely sure why not having an afterlife matters in any way. Why do you want to last forever? If there's an afterlife, there's just as much purpose living in one than it is living the life on Earth. Except in the afterlife you would be certain that that's it and there's no time incestives because it's eternal (eg you can put off doing something for literally forever).
Original post by prazzyjazzy
Same way religious people deal with knowing there's a Hell.

I think it's very different. Religious people believe a 'hell' exists, and that there is a chance they may go there, whereas atheists simply don't believe a 'heaven' exists, which doesn't induce the same fear at all.
I won't care when I'm dead so why care now?
When you die, you shut your eyes and that's it.
Original post by RoryRorrzShikari
Thanks for the support. I know I shouldn't be bothered what others think of me and I should be proud. However, it seems like every day I meet someone who is against it or will dislike me because of it so it is honestly exhausting and pretty horrible for my self esteem.

I think trying to disprove religion was just to help me get through life a bit easier!


You could be looking in the wrong places for the right people. There's an LGBT social group on this site - I hope those people could be of help to you :smile:
Reply 46
Avatar for Arima
Arima
16
i know death is the only certainty, but i'm absolutely terrified of death, i really really want to believe there's something on the otherside, that i'll consciously exist elsewhere, so in some ways religion is appealing... but I can't believe in it. I just can't
I'm not an Atheist but the feeling that whatever I do, nothing at all matters because the worst case scenario is nothing is one of the most empowering things in the worst. Pain is temporary, you could kneel me down in the frozen dirt and shoot me in the head and man still won't care.
Original post by l'etranger
I'm not an Atheist but the feeling that whatever I do, nothing at all matters because the worst case scenario is nothing is one of the most empowering things in the worst. Pain is temporary, you could kneel me down in the frozen dirt and shoot me in the head and man still won't care.


Are you agnostic?
Original post by hezzlington
Are you agnostic?


Non-religious deist.
I must say I find the idea that the afterlife is intrinsically linked to God patently absurd, an afterlife may exist without God and God's existence does not imply the existence of an afterlife. The idea that hell exists is a complete howler, no all powerful God would create an infinite torture dungeon for humans, he would just not create the ones he is going to punish being all-knowing and all that...
baisically
Original post by Mistletoe
By making sure I enjoy life to my full potential. Unfortunately when bad things happen there is no consolation except to say "nature is harsh" and watch videos of Wild Dogs ripping gazelles apart to put things into perspective for me.

But if something awful happens, like if one of my family died, I would go through a phase of religiosity purely because I can't bare the reality, but I would come to my senses in a few years time and just say to myself "nature is harsh".
Original post by l'etranger
I must say I find the idea that the afterlife is intrinsically linked to God patently absurd, an afterlife may exist without God and God's existence does not imply the existence of an afterlife. The idea that hell exists is a complete howler, no all powerful God would create an infinite torture dungeon for humans, he would just not create the ones he is going to punish being all-knowing and all that...


How would an afterlife exist without G-d?
Being an atheist helped me into my constant state of existential crisis which I now know and love
Original post by Pikachū
How would an afterlife exist without G-d?


The empiricist assumption is that human consciousness is the sole result to the physical structures of the brain, until we can build A.I. which literally thinks and feels, their assumption is unproven. I've always found empiricists to be simple minded fools, there's a reason the best European philosophers were German rather than British.
Original post by Medlam
To religious people: how do you cope knowing there is a hell?


lmfao exactly !
Personally, I can't cope with it, even the mere thought of it sends me into a depressed, anxiety ridden mess. I want to believe but it just doesn't make sense to me...
Original post by l'etranger
The empiricist assumption is that human consciousness is the sole result to the physical structures of the brain, until we can build A.I. which literally thinks and feels, their assumption is unproven. I've always found empiricists to be simple minded fools, there's a reason the best European philosophers were German rather than British.


Ah, I didn't think in the AI sense. I agree, I have no doubt one day we will be able to transfer our conscience into a computer or even a robot and carry on 'living' in a simulation. A bit like lucid dreaming where you can control what happens and live the happiest life.
Original post by Pikachū
Ah, I didn't think in the AI sense. I agree, I have no doubt one day we will be able to transfer our conscience into a computer or even a robot and carry on 'living' in a simulation. A bit like lucid dreaming where you can control what happens and live the happiest life.


Assuming there is no such thing as a soul this should be completely possible.
I don't feel I have to "cope" with the fact that one day I'll be dead. I accept the fact of my own mortality which serves as motivation to enjoy my life and and appreciate my time alive to its fullest.

As a lover of science and cosmology I also draw comfort from the fact that I am only a small part of the universe and the vastness of the universe which makes any problem I have feel small and manageable.

I don't like the idea of heaven. I find it far more fulfilling to see my life as the culmination of a journey that billions of billions of particles took from the Planck Epoch just after the Big Bang, across 14,000,000,000 years of space to converge to form me and that when I did they will separate and perpetuate themselves through spacetime for googols of years to come, so I feel like I do live forever after I die, but in a far more symbolic and ethereal way. As some other part of the universe, which to me feels far more profound than simply going to heaven and my consciousness living for eternity, not least because it would literally drive anyone mad...

[see Stephen King's 'The Jaunt']


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