How Can Atheists claim they are free and happy?

Question

here is a moving lament of someone who has given up their search for God, who refuses to pray any longer and who raises his hands inisistently against god. it is Nietzsche, who set out to kill God and put man in his place, he says: "You will never pray again, never adore again, never again rest in endless trust. you do not permit yourself to stop before any ultimate wisdom, ultimate goodness, ultimate power, while harnessing your thoughts you have no perpetual guardian and friend, for your 7 solitudes. You live without a view of mountains with snow on their peaks and fire in their hearts, there is no avenger for you any more nor any final improver. There is no longer any reason in what happens, no love in what will happen to you, No resting place is open any longer to your heart, where it only needs to find and no longer seek, you resist any ultimate peace.... Who will give you strenght for that?" here is an Atheist talking, now tell me how you atheists are happier & enjoy freedom?

Answer 1

Look, I was raised as a christian but from an early age I just knew that I didn't believe that, and I haven't worried about religion being a part of my life ever since. You make it sound so bleak...but did you know that each athiest will believe something else?

Answer 2

He was probably a depressed person who just happened to be atheist. One didn't necessarily have anything to do with the other. I don't feel that way at all. I don't pray, but I do adore. I adore my husband, my children, my family, my friends, my life. I rest in endless trust of the above mentioned people, and I trust my own senses. 7 solitudes? A little dramatic here, aren't we? Believers don't experience "ultimate" wisdom, goodness, and power any more than atheists do, though they like to tell themselves they do simply because they believe in a diety. They are also not any more "guarded" than any atheist. (Percentage-wise, they have no higher a survival rate in accidents or disasters than an atheist, so there's no clear "guardianship" there.) And as for "friend"...we don't need imaginary friends to get us through. I do, in fact, live with a view of mountains with snow on their peaks, and I love the view. And I do have plenty of fire in my heart, just not related to a diety. There is no more "avenger" for a believer than there is for an atheist, and as for "improvement", I haven't seen believers who live any better lives than any atheist. We don't need a "reason" to exist, and as for LOVE, we have an endless supply of it in our lives. We don't need believe that some invisible being loves us to feel loved. The only resisting we do to "ultimate peace" is that we don't feel that the only thing we have to look forward to is dying.
So yes...I am happy and I enjoy my freedom from delusion.

Answer 3

My question: How can you place your faith in something like a god of any kind? I could never do that. I controll my life, and I will never have the need to require anything. Even love is but a desire.

"Because I controll my life and destiny, I require nothing. I look down upon those who would seek a "greater truth" and laugh...then I pity them, for they will never understand such as the greatness I have attained, the immortal perfection and godliness, which shall remain as long as I understand that of which no mere mortal should ever understand, that forbidden fruit of the supreme knowledge. This is the truest form of freedom, yet the greatest restriction, to know that which should not be known, and to be unable to find another truly such as myself...thus is the truth of true genius, and the path to Greater Enlightenment..." -Anthony Lusa

That is what I believe.

Answer 4

Happiness & freedom --
First, I agree those are extreme words from Nietzsche. He is so prone to ostentatious grandstanding - knowingly, for rhetorical effect.

But he certainly was NOT trying to be a happy man. Happiness is not the point. Whatever he was going after, it was definitely not happiness. People don't become atheists because they think it will make them happier. They do it because of intellectual honesty and intellectual responsibility.

Freedom is a big part of it. There's no getting around the fact that if you give yourself to God, there are certain things you won't be able to do, things you can't say, beliefs you can never have. Many decisions have been made for you. Everything important you do is ultimately in His _service_. I'm not talking about anything that licenses hateful behavior, of course. The point is having the freedom to make these decisions on your own - the freedom to create something instead of having to conform to something.

Answer 5

1) Nietzsche didn't kill God, he was long dead -- ever since Descartes subjectivized us and made us autonomous from the objective world.

2) Nietzsche would not argue for "freedom"

3) Admittedly the realization that there is no God takes ambition to overcome, because our whole culture's values are steeped in the presupposition of one being there.

4) That doesn't mean an atheist cannot be happy, despite never having the things YOU value. We have our own values.

Answer 6

I'm not an atheist, but as I understand their philosophy, they are not focused on a lot of inhibiting religious restrictions, nor an afterlife; thus, they are more focused on the NOW, on enjoying every bit of life that they have, which may also include benevolence to others. Just because they don't believe in God, doesn't mean they can't live by the "Golden Rule."

Answer 7

Usually the "Strain of time" takes its toll. You have to remember that after the Old Testament, there was a long period of time, (Hence Strain) before the birth of J.C. So it would be common that people would give up hope, leaving a handful left. We take God for granted, and all he ever asks of us is to be merciful, compassionate, and Humble. There seems to be a wave of Athiestic views, which tries to say "Hey. It's ok to do those things that were taboo to our parents. Their God was a joke. A fairy tale." Even the parents themselves have stopped teaching, letting the school system (Which died after the early 90's) "Raise" their children, yet they forgot that things have change from their time. So, it really goes according to plan when you really let your mind indulge deep into this. But sometimes its for the best. I mean we reap what we sow, eh?

Answer 8

I in part agree in that only because someone claims to be an atheist or lacks a concept in gods would not inevitably cause them to a "loose logician". i imagine it relies upon on even if the atheist is keen to coach an identical strategies of evaluation which have carry about them to doubt the claims of the religious to different claims or propositions related to non-religious topics. a more suitable positive time period for it may be "serious logician" because it truly is what it truly is. it truly is only utilising a fashion of doubt to the claims that others make. The label of "loose logician" likely sounds a touch more suitable glorified than it may because "freedom" is a note which could be used to placed across many diverse concepts.

Answer 9

i'm a atheist.
why cannot we be happy when we own our life, bind by our rules and morale compass.
We don't pray to god becos we don't believe there is one. We don't go against god as do you go against some thing you don't even think it exist?
it amuse me when the theist say that we are self centred when we take responsbility to our behaviour and actions. We do have fear and sometime we are weak. Just that we don't paste our hope to other but to know what went wrong in our life, learn the lesson from it and contiune with our life.
It strengthen our mind and will power to live our life to the fullest.

Answer 10

Two of the greatest theologians to read are Charles Guignebert who taught at the Sorbonne in Paris during the 50's and wrote a book called "Jesus", then Lloyd Graham's book "Deceptions and Myths of the Bible", then a book called "The Vatican Exposed", there are many others. More people have been killed through or by religion than all the world wars put together. I respect anyone's religion if they do not ram it down my throat. The problem with believing in God is what God. Jesus was human and not a God and never made himself a God. He has children with two women at least and this can be obtained in other books. He said 26 words on morality, and volumes have been attributed to him. Remember only 3% of the people could read and write in biblical times. Books had to be copies and the ones who copied them by hand deleted or added their pleasures or displeasures, or their frustrated feelings. I believe that God is a force in the Universe and that force is in each and every one of us. Many think God watches every move we make (Not True). We are given a brain to use. Past history shows what religion has done - it burned the great libraries of Alexandria and Constantinople. 36,000 volumes were burned in Spain. Half the population of Spain was killed for religion. People were tortured and burned at the stake for religion. Science and life was set back years because of religion, and censorship was rampant. I can remember when the Catholic church had movies like Joan of Arc banned and stopped, and Jane Russell's "The Outlaw" because she showed some bussom. People get outraged with abortion and yet 5,000 children a year commit suicide in the U.S. Countries like Mexico keep churning the kids out by the drove and yet they cannot feed, clothe or educate them properly and many parents throw them out on the street to beg or they go into prostitution. The Jews and Arabs are at each others throats and yet they are both Semetic tribes.. The Greeks and the Turks are at each others throats. In the U.S. hate is everywhere. If religion did its duty there would have been no Klu Klux Klan, Blacks were hung and killed, yet they found no fault to go to bed with one, rape or otherwise. In recent times we have Kosova where men came out of church and raped and killed. The Jewish Bible was made by MEN not GOD, the New Testament was written by the Greeks. If it had not been for the one Roman Emporer to take on his wife's religion of Christianity we would be worshipping something else. The people that pushed Christianity were the slaves, lower classes and women who were the down trodden of the times and it is thru these people that it spread. Most of the stories of the bible are copied from religions of long ago. Nothing new on the parting of the sea, the emmaculate conception (Isis and Osiris), much was copied from the Babylonians. If Christianity and God gives you comfort then stay with it. For educated people that read and read it does nothing. I know there is a power but it is not in our form, just like when we die we are in another form. The heaven and hell routine has been played to death to keep people in line, just like the Virgen of Guadalupe was used to convert 8 million Aztecs to the Catholic religion, as Juan Diego NEVER said he saw the Virgen, he said he saw a woman. Analysis has been done on the painting and three layers were removed proofing it was a fake and painted by the priest. You see people standing on corners with the bible in their hands that are so strung up and get themselve into a frenzy when they are screaming out. This is the same frenzy where they see miracles and Saints etc., Events like Christ's miracles would hav e been recorded throughout history, yet NO historian has written on any. Hagiagraphers created a Christ and now there is doubt that the crucification was real but staged to spread the religion more. It is the lies of the church that will be its own destruction. So you ask about happy. With the divorce rate soaring, home life destroyed with both parents working, and whoredom taking over the world, what happiness?? Enjoy your God and do not put others down for not wanting to feel the same.