…of being an atheist? …of being a person of faith?
Having my Sunday Mornings free.
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Like most things I think it depends on the person. Some people thrive with religion, some don’t. Some might even suffer for having it around.
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What do you do with this freedom? What makes if valuable?
Sleep in usually. Have an extra cup of coffee.
Watch CBS Sunday Morning.
It is nice to watch news that isn’t yelling at you.
I am wondering about causes, examples, perhaps. What makes having faith better; what makes not having it better?
Nice… I suppose I’m looking for something beyond ‘nice’. I am looking for the great advantage, the definite upside for not being a person of faith. “I can have an extra cup of coffee on Sunday and watch the news” sounds…nice…but it doesn’t seem to go any further than nice.
Well… my response was a little jokey.
Everyone needs to find their own path through this one life that we get.
For some, they find comfort in religion and the fellowship that comes with it.
Others, like myself, finds no value in the requirement of faith when it is not there and choose to live their lives without religion. Finding fellowship elsewhere and doing what are “good works” to give to others is what is satisfying. It isn’t done at any command for celestial points, but is done freely.
I do not hold any derision for anyone who finds comfort in their faith and wish to worship how they want in a peacible manner.
As a non-theist, it means I can ground my political positions fully in the rational notions of the free market.
What do you see preventing people of faith from doing the same?
This may make another interesting thread. I’ve been a person of faith my entire life, but it has never occurred to me that religion is “comforting.” Nor do I use it for fellowship, as I tend to avoid fellowship more stringently than I do the flu virus.
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It forces people to take a little more responsibility for their lives and the decisions they make. Far too often I will look at my especially religious friends and family and they seem to almost approach life as if they are but bit players in some grand story crafted by a deity. Problems are up to their God to solve.
Life is us. People making decisions, both good and bad. People living with the consequences of said decisions the best they can. People forming communities, societies, and systems of law which we all live under. God is not coming down to save you.
Here, with the word ‘path’ I feel you may have nailed it. What is is the greatest advantage or greatest disadvantage of taking the path of faith? What is the greatest advantage or the greatest disadvantage of atheism?
Let’s take suicide for example, as I have used this example before. If your religious, you are bound by your religion’s viewpoint, regardless of the circumstance.
As a non-theist, it is a subject I can approach with an open mind and consider the circumstances of each individual case.
I personally consider suicide appropriate in cases of Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, terminal stage cancer and the terminal stage of other diseases and disorders where quality of life is gone. I personally don’t consider suicide appropriate in some other circumstances, though I do hold the view that the decision is solely that of the individual.
If I was religious, I could not approach the issue in that manner, but would be bound by religious teachings that might contradict the views that I have otherwise developed.
What about people who see a life of faith is about discerning and doing the will of the Father; that it is about serving God; working for God’s will to be done here on earth in our lives, as it is in heaven? What about people who see a life of faith as loving God first and all others as much as we love ourselves? In other words, a life of faith is not about waiting for God to save us, it is about knowing that God has redeemed us, that we are (and always have been) a holy people (even while struggling with sin)–and that life is about striving for the ideal.
Sure. Do humans need a god to treat others as they would want to be treated themselves?
Open mind? Might not it be, instead, a closed mind, when it comes to considering a human life consists of body, mind, and spirit? Of the diseases that you mention, I have the most experience with Alzheimer’s–it runs in the family, has for generations. My mother absolutely dreaded it overtaking her–and it did, just as it had her father, her grandmother, etc. What Alzheimer’s does to body and mind is devastating. Yet, within my grandfather, and my mother, I witnessed a growth and expansion of the spirit that had not–and would not have–come to either of them had they remained Alzheimer free.
Assisted suicide is not a sign of an open mind, but rather one that is closed to considering that spirit/soul might be an equally vital part of human existence.
My husband’s father died when he was quite young, proving a child does not need a father.
Dying on average 4 years sooner than a religious person and on average much unhappier.
I’d also add that if I were homosexual I would think atheism offers a better life than how God’s church has treated homosexuals over the years. You wouldn’t have to deal with self-loathing either.
