Site-Wide Activity

Unseen wrote:
Atheists don’t see suicide as sinful or an instance of sloth. They may not feel, in some instances, that it’s anyone else’s business.

You may be right.  I wonder what the suicide rate is among the religious, who presumably see it as a sin.

In Switzerland, Spoerri et al. used census data (3.7 million adults) and death certif…

[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
Would you say that there’s something in atheism that makes people want to kill themselves? I don’t think there is, and I’ve never heard of that before. Atheism makes people want to celebrate life and make the most of it. Maybe suicidal people gravitate towards it as a nihilistic position.

“If there is no God, everything is pe…[Read more]

Would you say that there’s something in atheism that makes people want to kill themselves?  I don’t think there is, and I’ve never heard of that before.  Atheism makes people want to celebrate life and make the most of it.

Maybe suicidal people gravitate towards it as a nihilistic position.

I agree with Sartre that suicide is the ultimate expression of one’s freedom. I live in Oregon, a state with legal assisted suicide. Which is kind of silly, in a way, since most of us have a way of doing it if we were to so choose. As a diabetic, I always have vials of insulin on hand. I passed out recently in a hypoglycemic crisis. Luckily, I…[Read more]

I saw on Facebook recently that some people say that atheists are more likely to commit suicide than other groups.  I don’t know if that’s true or not.  If it is, then it could be for a number of reasons.  Atheism is a nihilistic position in that, simplistically, it’s the “worship of nothing”.  However, that’s for people who over-think thi…[Read more]

There will be no note in a bottle telling whatever (if anything) comes after what our universe was like. That we beheld beauty.

Simon Paynton wrote:
Someone might say, “If the universe isn’t eternal, than the universe itself is wasted along with everything that was once in it.”

I disagree. Whatever was here before the ‘big  bang’ is now gone. Was it wasted? Do we care if it was? No one, no thing will care when our universe is gone. No one, no thing will judge it as a waste.

Unseen wrote:
If the universe isn’t eternal, than the universe itself is wasted along with everything that was once in it.

Wasted for whom?  There’s nothing to feel a sense of waste.  You could say it’s the existential dilemma of the atheist: uncomfortable impermanence vs. the comfortable eternity of the religious.

The only sense of waste is tha…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
How to deal with it indeed.

I think the only thing to do is to live a good life: authentic and compassionate. Then, at least it’s not wasted. There is no cosmic significance of anything. The point is, what’s it like for you?

Someone might say, “If the universe isn’t eternal, than the universe itself is was…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
How to deal with it indeed.

I think the only thing to do is to live a good life: authentic and compassionate.  Then, at least it’s not wasted.  There is no cosmic significance of anything.  The point is, what’s it like for you?