Wanting a reason to believe

[Darth Avlectus]

This is all I know to say to answer that question, but I not afraid to say more. I'm just not sure what other information about myself is needed for this conversation.

Look to the last post I made for reference:

 

 

Alright. I'm an atheist. And I hate it. The most frightening thought to me is that when we die, that's it. I can't imagine what true nothing is like. I just cannot grasp it. But unfortunately, because of how my mind works, that is what I believe happens when we die.

Perhaps another way of looking at it is that you are left unsatisfied with what you know and realize with harsh reality, intellect, fact? If that was the end-all-be-all, then it would be enough. But it isn't the end-all-be-all.

 

I really wish I could believe in something different, a religion or something, just to help make the end a little less scary, but I can't just believe in something to believe in something. I can't do it. I could say I do, but then there's still that thought hidden behind the believing exterior. It's really hard to have a positive look on life and think like this. Does anyone else feel the same way? Can anyone help me change my belief?

 

Well, I've been in a similar place. While I cannot say I completely believe everything in religion, I relaxed my disbelief in the idea there's something more to reality. See, I used to automatically shut it out just because. Then I came to the realization that I was just as strict and lacking for lenience as some theists out there. Now I like to think I'm a happy medium. Highly intellectual folk may think me whacky, highly religious folk may call me heretic. I am what I am.

 

Thing is we're different people. I have my reasons I came back to faith. I can share them if you'd like but do realize it isn't going to be easy for me.

 

I have met atheists who not only acknowledge spirituality, but profess it because they recognize it is another aspect and dimension to who we are, and thus it is part of our overall health.

 

Can I help you change? That depends. You say you want to, but you can't.

With all due respect: Are you even sure you have any idea what you want?

 

Before you can know what you want, do you even know yourself? How can you be sure? These are things you can answer to me if you want but you need to ask yourself and answer them for yourself. Nobody else can make you believe anything.

 

I want to help you by encouraging you, because I myself am seeking encouragement in this point in my life. In order to do that, you have to meet me halfway.

 

No, I do not have all the answers to any questions you might ask.

 

I'd like to add: though my reasons for returning to faith are my own, I doubt they'd be of much help to you. Your life is you, not me.

 

Yes I may faithfully 'believe' something but honestly at the end of the day I probably don't know any more than you do (Well, tested against objective standards anyway!)--I can only presume. We can neither prove nor disprove a negative.

 

Facts: We all die. We don't know what happens afterward.

 

I'm not going to pretend some bull**** like I have answers for you what happens after, be it through science or mysticism. But I can try to help you see this in a different way. What is important here is why you see things in life the way you do. Much of the reason for that, possibly, is how you view yourself.

 

Life is about the journey. In the end are you going to be proud to have lived or not?

 

May I ask, are you buddhist?

You may ask, and no I am not. More or less am freelance/non denominational Christian-probably have more in common with an agnostic. However, I'm not going to impose upon you. You've probably had more than your fair share of THAT--am I right?

 

I am studying and practicing the philosophy of Shaolin. If possible I want to help you at least get a perspective on what you can control and change in your own life.

 

Why? Not because I think I can be some invincible badass like Jet Lee or something. Simply because at 29 I need to learn

1) new ways to help myself and

2) to feel encouraged in order to better self-motivate.

 

The best way I can do that is to help others and to encourage others. Like yourself. So if you do not mind, how 'bout we start from the above quoted post?

[Canderis]

This thread is old but now as the smoke begins to clear from my last year of high school and I am free to think on my own again my mind has begun to wander back here again. I am young, I just turned 19, and I should have many years to go. I don't face death as an immediate threat but it could come at anytime without warning. It's unpredictable and inevitable.

Since starting this thread a lot has changed in my life. First off, a lot of my life will be completely different in 3 months. I have been so busy preparing for college, moving to another state, finishing school, and other things have kept me so busy and so drained that I have not been able to really think much about anything. This is what has really been the best fix for my problem, being too busy to care.

Second, I have a reply for what was mentioned a few times before in this thread, that a way to conquer the fear of dying is to appreciate what I have. A lot of great and wonderful people have become very prominent in my life lately and I am so lucky for the life I had, I'm terrified to lose it.

Lastly I have cut off any kind of faith(I was agnostic before) from what I believe. I am studying to become a computer scientist, a completely logic based profession, and in a way this has led me to my current mind-set of seeing is believing. I need to see proof to believe anything. What I want is something I know I won't get from a thread on the Internet. What I want is the truth. I am lately finding it pointless to speculate on the concept of "nothing" because there is no truth. Religion is the answer science can't provide, but I believe science is the only answer. If truth can't be found in science, there is no truth I can find. I won't know the truth while I am alive, and if true nothingness follows death then there was never any truth in life to begin with. I also feel like if a God, as shown in religions in Christianity existed, why would he give us the ability to think logically and not give us clear evidence of his existence. I'm not trying to start a debate, I'm really not up for one right now, that's just one major flaw I find in most religions. That just seems like a curse to me, giving us the freedom to believe God doesn't exist and not giving us clear, indisputable from every prospective, evidence.

 

I feel like I have grown up a lot these last 6 months and I'm realizing now what I truly fear is change. What is death but the final change on earth? I am afraid change won't be better than where I came from and I can never go back.

 

I don't think I can change my mindset on faith, but what do I know? I'm just a kid.

[DuckfromPortal]

You are younger than me?!?

[Darth Avlectus]

I'm glad for your clarity. It's one thing I don't think any of us are alone in seeking.

 

Apologies in advance for such a long post. I'm sharing with you what I wish someone had told me when I was graduating high school.

 

I don't face death as an immediate threat but it could come at anytime without warning. It's unpredictable and inevitable.

 

Since starting this thread a lot has changed in my life. *brevity* things have kept me so busy and so drained that I have not been able to really think much about anything. This is what has really been the best fix for my problem, being too busy to care.

 

Actually, being busy is a healthy thing to stave off depression and other things that tend to continue to bother us but linger annoyingly out of reach. The important thing is to keep yourself going. However, don't let it be an excuse to keep running away from problems you *can* solve.

 

I guess the shaolin would say "use momentum to move onward instead of just moving around". Something like that.

 

Second, I have a reply for what was mentioned a few times before in this thread, that a way to conquer the fear of dying is to appreciate what I have. A lot of great and wonderful people have become very prominent in my life lately and I am so lucky for the life I had, I'm terrified to lose it.

 

I once thought that way, fearful of loss. Ultimately almost everything slipped away from me anyway in spite of my best efforts. Slow and agonizing. If I can share anything I wish I had known 14-15 years ago is that while it's good to be conscientious (as you are), don't become paralyzed with that fear.

 

You will undoubtedly hit bumps and face setbacks. How you respond to them is what's important. Attitude is everything--this from a guy who scoffed and never believed I would be saying it. Ever. How you see yourself is just as important, if not more so, than how others view you.

 

Lastly I have cut off any kind of faith(I was agnostic before) from what I believe. I am studying to become a computer scientist, a completely logic based profession, and in a way this has led me to my current mind-set of seeing is believing. I need to see proof to believe anything. What I want is something I know I won't get from a thread on the Internet. What I want is the truth. I am lately finding it pointless to speculate on the concept of "nothing" because there is no truth. Religion is the answer science can't provide, but I believe science is the only answer. If truth can't be found in science, there is no truth I can find. I won't know the truth while I am alive, and if true nothingness follows death then there was never any truth in life to begin with. I also feel like if a God, as shown in religions in Christianity existed, why would he give us the ability to think logically and not give us clear evidence of his existence. I'm not trying to start a debate, I'm really not up for one right now, that's just one major flaw I find in most religions. That just seems like a curse to me, giving us the freedom to believe God doesn't exist and not giving us clear, indisputable from every prospective, evidence.

 

Though I failed in becoming a Laser/Electro-Optical Engineer, I am not entirely clueless in these matters. We're not machines, though, and even if you don't believe it to be a strength, we can still do things that fundamentally binary logic cannot. Save reproducing, we have otherwise been unable to replicate this. As in AI. Computers (currently) must have data which is decide-able. Humans can handle illogical things, AI can't; illogical things do terrible things to code because it is not decide-able. (1)

 

Becoming educated is one thing; using that education to dismiss everything else because it "doesn't fit" is quite another. I find the latter amusing when those same kind of people should talk down on others for being "ignorant".

 

How you see the 'big picture' is up to you. Entirely. You already realize there's something more to life than just what science has established. I would simply ask you to keep an open mind as to the possibilities beyond that and to not use your education to dismiss something, or to snuff it out simply because it "doesn't fit". Tempting as it is to criticize, correct, argue with, and browbeat other people, don't. I'll elaborate why.

 

 

I've actually met Nils J. Nilsson in person. Nilsson is the author of The Quest For Artificial Intelligence (2), which you will undoubtedly come across in your studies. Probably an apex figure of the sort of professional you wish to become.

What I observed about his personal character: He, despite all his greatness in his field, is an unassuming man. Humble. Much like yourself, he doesn't desire to debate or correct people in these matters. He simply cares for "what is". He has nothing to prove.

I was amazed that for as accomplished as he is in academics, he didn't feel any need to belittle other people, and he wasn't pompous. He was sharp and bright, even as old as he is. I think part of the reason his work is so widely accepted is because of the kind of man he is. Social adeptness is key to being attractive in many ways. Welcome and invite gains the recognition that "qualifications" alone never will.

 

Beyond your chosen field there is your truth, personally, and nobody else can live, quantify, or explain it for you. I'm not talking about becoming a believer in anything. I'm talking about being unassuming when it comes to things you don't know or cannot know, which can't be explained.

 

Which brings me to my next point: Spiritual enlightenment doesn't necessarily need to be "superstitious nonsense". One such way of it is the art of Zen. Zen concerns itself with "what is", and with balance. Very much so about truth. You don't need to get off into every aspect of it to understand this is its main goal.

 

An indirect example of Zen:

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My mentor, an Electronics Engineer, once told me "I may be a terrible Jew. Hell I disobey the dietary laws all the time because, well, who doesn't love bacon and prosciutto? You might even argue I'm a deist and see the concept of God as I would a vendor on the corner. But there has to be a point at which you are creative to allow yourself to not be bound by the rules and what you've learned. For me this is to balance myself out from designing circuits and searching patents all the time with something else. Something that doesn't always have to make sense."

 

He isn't sure what he believes. He's a scientific sort uninterested in superstition. At the end of the day, he accepts things simply for what they are.

 

TL;DR: Don't be surprised to learn that you're human. So be patient and take your time to learn and grow into yourself.

 

I feel like I have grown up a lot these last 6 months and I'm realizing now what I truly fear is change. What is death but the final change on earth? I am afraid change won't be better than where I came from and I can never go back.

 

I don't think I can change my mindset on faith, but what do I know? I'm just a kid.

 

-There's things you can learn as soon as you wish, then there's things you can only learn with age.

-Courage is not the absence of fear. It is continuing on in spite of that fear.

-The easiest way to lose your power, is to believe you don't have it.

-The word "just" is terrible. You know why? Because it trivializes. Don't trivialize.

 

You are the only truth you know, so believe in yourself. Also Self almighty will eventually fail, so do not forsake others who live among you. Even that odd janitor with the glasses who gets on your nerves when he kicks you out of your study hall because it's 10:30 at night.

 

Uncertainty will turn you into a recluse if you let it. It doesn't always need to be feared. In these situations, sometimes knowing the worst that can happen *is* what causes you to lose out. Like a self fulfilling prophecy. When Han Solo told Threepio "never tell me the odds", this is the very thing he meant.

 

 

 

(1) Partial credit to fellow megaman fan Daniel Page on youtube for his layman explanation of these things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGRhqXN9ul4

(2) http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Artificial-Intelligence-Nils-Nilsson/dp/0521122937

[Aldrisang]

I don't think there's any such thing, or prior state of universal being, as "nothing". If there's something now, and something can't come from nothing, that means that something has always existed. Something is the default. Why? No clue! =) I'm not afraid to say "I don't know," when that's the most honest answer available. Our differences will therefore be about what that "something" is/was. Notions of a "universe from nothing" are either red herrings or failures of logic and reason.

 

Some people think a god existed first and created the Universe... but with what? Again, no something-from-nothing. Where'd he/she/it come from? How could he/she/it function, unless made of something that followed consistent behaviors (making the existence of energy/laws a prereq)? Faced with the two mind-boggling, inexplicable choices of either energy and its behaviors/laws always existing or an all-powerful sentient being always existing (and somehow creating energy from nothing), the former corresponds most closely with the application of Occam's Razor, logic, and the laws of thermodynamics. No leaps of faith or assumptions, but also no definitive answers.

 

Universal laws acting upon all things at all times creates order from chaos. We may never understand why there's something instead of nothing, but I've seen no compelling justification (yet) for Deism or beyond. We know that energy exists, we are pretty certain it can't be created, and we don't know that any gods exist. These are the facts of the moment... and we need to deal with them.

 

I'm a Buddhist/Humanist atheist, formerly just an atheist, and that's what I think at this point. Open to discussion!

 

As for the fear of being nothing when you're dead... what were you before you were alive? Mark Twain said it well: "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience." I don't want to die, but it's my thinking (and worrying) that are the problems. Death isn't itself worrisome. =) Many things are simply our ignorance and failure to see what's really happening in our minds. If religion or spirituality should deign to have any purpose, it should be to come to terms with our realities... not to blind ourselves to them.

[Adavardes]

Alright. I'm an atheist. And I hate it. The most frightening thought to me is that when we die, that's it. I can't imagine what true nothing is like. I just cannot grasp it. But unfortunately, because of how my mind works, that is what I believe happens when we die. I really wish I could believe in something different, a religion or something, just to help make the end a little less scary, but I can't just believe in something to believe in something. I can't do it. I could say I do, but then there's still that thought hidden behind the believing exterior. It's really hard to have a positive look on life and think like this. Does anyone else feel the same way? Can anyone help me change my belief?

 

PS. If this has to be deleted or locked for any reason, I'm sorry for causing trouble.

 

To be honest, I find that sort of atheism to be as presumptuous as Christianity. We DON'T KNOW what happens after we die. No idea. Don't know if that's it, don't know if there's more, no idea. Not a single clue, because nobody's come back to tell us about it, as far as we can tell.

 

Atheists like to use the phrase "it's the logical conclusion" to support a very pessimistic view of death that is closer to nihilism than it is to scientific skepticism. There is no observable data to refer to or infer from as to what happens after we die, therefore, we have no working scientific theory as to what takes place for our consciousness. Saying that it's most likely that we just switch off and cease to be is guesswork, at best, and it's guesswork based on nothing. Absolutely nothing. Entropy is a cyclical system. Energy and matter does not cease to be, it only moves.

 

So, if you don't like believing that, then don't. There's no good reason to. In fact, in all honesty, believing in some form of an afterlife, though not any particular religious one, makes a lot more sense to me than believing it's just over. There's more general scientific evidence to support it, given the fact that most things in physics and nature work on cyclical systems that repeat themselves.

 

Personally, I take the Confucian standpoint. I have no idea, and there's no sense worrying about it when there's so much to do right now on earth. So don't worry about it. Just live your life, and when it comes time for the big punchline, then you'll know. It's about the best we can do with our current level of knowledge. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Carwil]

To be honest, I find that sort of atheism to be as presumptuous as Christianity. We DON'T KNOW what happens after we die. No idea. Don't know if that's it, don't know if there's more, no idea. Not a single clue, because nobody's come back to tell us about it, as far as we can tell.

 

My feelings, almost verbatim.

 

I lost faith in religion some time ago. However, while I suppose my stance would be classified as atheism, I'm a firm believer that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of there being an afterlife, because, after all, its existence is just as difficult to disprove as it is to prove.

 

Conversely, I've also heard it said (in defense of religion) that it's better to believe in God and he turn out not to be there after you die than not to believe in God and he turn out to exist after you die...in which case atheists are screwed, according to popular Christian doctrine, and probably the doctrines of other world religions as well. I'm not sure. That is, of course, if you buy into the concept of a dichotomous afterlife in accordance with a heaven and hell, which I don't think relatively many people do anymore. Reincarnation is another interesting perspective to consider.

 

While I'm uncertain of my stance on religion overall, I would offer anyone having similar doubts the advice to make their own decisions, and, if you're truly interested in pursuing a religion, read its holy text(s).

 

I can't remember where I found it first, but Mark Twain once put the idea of death into perspective for me:

 

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

[Jae Onasi]

For those searching, these talks may be quite helpful.

Top Five Questions Part 1

 

Top Five Questions Part 2

Top Five Questions Part 3

[Darth Avlectus]

For the beginning years of life I did believe, then I didn't because I failed to see the point of rituals. Then came back enough to where I am now. There's many questions I have and holes in much of what I was taught.

 

Unlike many who are afraid of it all being over when they die, I actually dreaded the notion of living forever. Then for several years I'd been adrift as I was learning. While I saw nothing that would objectively prove 'anything more', there had come a point in life where I acknowledged that I was wasting my life away fearing the uncertainty either way. I have, however, seen enough about how life works to say that regardless if you believe we're all interconnected or not, what affects one will affect us all somehow. The way you treat people is very telling of you, regardless of anything else. Education, talent, social adeptness of projecting an appearance (in other words if you're "cool" to most everyone else), wealth (or lack thereof). Your integrity is what ultimately matters: name any amount of money and sell it for that, and then you'll notice how even a thousand (or more) times that much money won't buy it back. Sure you can buy things which frame your perceived reputation favorably but it won't change the reality of who you really are or what you've done.

 

Karma is there. Mystical, or just a really basic score of some kind of ultimate deservance, it's there.

 

When I learned the world wasn't ultimately such a bad place, that people weren't all so contrary or malicious natured, it became clear that life was worth living. People, in spite of everything bad, still manage to find a way to "be okay with it" in life. In all walks of life.

 

I guess I do believe there's something there just at the edge of perception: I once defended the idea of there being nothing, but thinking about it more closely, I questioned if the fact I'm defending such an idea... if there wasn't ultimately some kind of ironic implication something was there. The notion, laughing at me behind my back or in my face... It can't be proven but it also can't be disproven. Yeah, yeah, I've heard all about that Schrodinger's cat theorem "disproving" a negative. To me this is basically saying if you don't perceive it, it isn't real--you have a point to a point. After which point, it becomes as ridiculous to hear from an atheist as hearing religious people refusing to believe reality. You don't know what I know, like I know, and vice versa I to you.

 

Also, when it comes to rights, some are by semantics of law, while others are fundamental to life and inalienable (regardless whether you believe in a higher power or not). Rights aren't rights if they come from other people such that the others can take them away all willy-nilly.

 

My job isn't to convince you whether or not something is there. Just understand where I'm coming from and I'll do the same for you.

 

Life? It is what it is. Beyond life? Ditto. If nothing? I try to live in a way that I will have as little regret and dissonance as possible so I can die knowing that at least I wasn't a complete putz cuz I tried to treat everything as some kind of learning experience. If there's an accounting? I'll face whatever I've done (or not done) throughout life, good or bad, for better or worse, regardless.

 

Uncertainty? Not to be feared. If it's scary enough to fear? Take heart with courage. Courage isn't an absence of fear, it's acting in spite of it.

 

It is well to know the Dilbert theorem: We're all idiots. Somehow, some way. All of us.

4chan-ism: You never know just how much you suck. You can never ever suck too much.