Letter to new atheist

https://www.atheistrev.com/2007/05/letter-to-new-atheist.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AtheistRevolution+%28Atheist+Revolution%29

got me thinking about my coming to realize that I was an atheist. I think that I realized that god did not care about people about the same time that I realized that there was no Santa. It was all just concepts to avoid reality, and the thinking about how savage, cruel, and short life could be. Praise the Lord, an avoidance of reality method of getting through life. This offers great consolation, comfort, and ignorance of reality. Which is more important to you? I like knowledge, reality and truth.

For many years I understood that gods were concepts, and if I could believe those concepts, than I could use the benefits offered, like sobriety. But AA/OA cannot work for those who do not believe, unless the social aspects are enough to keep one sober in AA. OA is a lost cause, there were not enough people who were living in the program around here to keep me away from the food. Those who are using drugs and keeping the weight off are not good company to be around. Finally it became apparent that that approch was a waste of time.

Aristotle was good at describing the human condition without politically correct restraint. Aristotle describes the problem as; the nonrational desires are stronger than the rational desires; we do not have absolute control of our nonrational desires, aka of our bodies. Free will is just that freedom of our will, our thinking, our opinions, not control over our bodies. Many do not have complete free will, that is we know it is wrong or undesirable to do, but we do it anyway. We are unable to overcome the nonrational desires. It is a problem only for some people over some things. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway. Consider the overweight, that are unable to stop eating enough to maintain normal weight.

Christianity does not provide such understandings. It runs over such thoughts with concepts like truth and replaces that with feel good concepts; god's will, heaven, afterlife, and other bullshit concepts. It is a block to understanding, and promotes acceptance of bad ideas, consolation and comfort rather than reality. It is a block to progress.

Ethics are relative and adaptive; that is there are no absolutes. There are few objective ethic premises, but many causal-result statement that the rational person should accept. Each child should have 16 gggrandparents. If we want to live a life of peace we need to allow others to live in a similar manner. Each person must be free to live well, and freely. Only associate with those who think similarly, aka like minded peoples; avoid people who exert a negative influence, associate only with those who are a positive influence, and the remainder of the Buddhist mangala sutra, (or suttra) ,not the Hindu wedding chain/necklace.

Reality is a bitter pill much of the time, but reality is reality. We all die. Impermanence. Non-self, we all learned from our ancestors and others, until we filter and come to own our beliefs, and then we are responsible for every thought, belief and action.  This is similar to MacQuarrie Existentialism in that his concept is that after we make the decision to keep on living, we are responsible for every thought, belief and action, but I digress. The essential point is that after we own our thoughts, concepts, beliefs, we become responsible for them. Society also forces us to accept responsibility for our actions that effect others, and tries to suggest we are responsible for our actions that are driven by our nonrational desires, which we have no control over. Bullshit. These are beyond our absolute control, even if other impose this concept on us. Have you ever seen a rehabilitated psychopath or sociopath? It is just not reality. Rehabilitated overeaters do exist, but they struggle or obsess until death.