what books do atheists read to rationalize not killing themselves?
please no snide replies proving my point thank you
>>7830976
You seem to think that atheists are especially prone to suicide. Got a newsflash for you: they're not. Three out of the seven great world religions are either atheistic or non-theistic. Most of those people aren't struggling with existential angst like you assume.
The one where the author tells the atheist that his life has great value simply for being atheist, as opposed to the religious whos lives are devoid of all value simply for being religious, regardless from actual achievements from the individuals on either side. Because choosing to be atheist in itself is considered an achievement in itself these days
>>7830987
>Got a newsflash for you: they're not.
this is demonstrably false
>>7830976
nietzsche u dumb bitch
>>7831019
elaborate? an atheist doesn't believe in a higher power giving their lives meaning because of a lack of evidence but they will believe a frail and poor man's equally unsubstantiated ramblings?
I'm an atheist and I've never really considered suicide. I just like being a good person for its own sake.
>>7831005
>Its true!
>its not!
You sure showed him OP
But seriously, what you're telling me is that the only thing keeping you from killing yourself is the idea that you will not be let into heaven if you do?
>>7831032
it is factually true dumbass, if you are too lazy to look it up i don't care
keep dodging the question though, that cognitive dissonance is really hitting you hard isn't it
you won't reply with the title of a book
>>7831035
OP you're really fucking miserable, I think you've got some of your own problems you need to sort out.
Why would I kill myself? I have a cute girlfriend, a healthy body, a lot of friends that I like, a reasonably intelligent mind, a nice apartment, a comfy bed, a cuddly dog, i can afford decent food, have a secure job and get to sleep in on Sundays.
But sure, keep telling me I'm the miserable one if you're that insecure and it makes you feel better.
>>7831049
this post reeks of insecurity, and as predicted you dodged the question again
don't know why a person who lives for short bursts of dopamine is talking down to anyone, reply with a book or get the fuck out phillistine and go squeeze meaning out of stroking your dog
Ulysses. No, really. It is a perfectly secular affirmation of life.
>>7831058
I don't need a book to not kill myself. An atheist believes the meaning of life is whatever he gives it, for me that is to love my friends and have fun. If your meaning is to suck the dick of a priest then you do you OP
>>7831069
yes you made it quite clear you live to chase short neurochemical reactions, anything else useless to say?
>>7830976
>he needs a book to not kill himself
Any of the absurdists. This world is nuts and I have an incredible amount of freedom in it. I think my life's thread will run out long before my curiosity.
>>7831079
Hey at least mine has evidence of existence
>>7831088
>religious works don't exist
stop embarrassing yourself phillistine bitch
>>7830976
I don't have to read anything to keep from killing myself. I wish I had the balls. I'm not really an atheist though.
>>7831100
>religion is true because someone wrote down that it was
Why am I the philistine again?
>>7831058
>don't know why a person who lives for short bursts of dopamine is talking down to anyone
>>7831118
>my brain chemistry has inherent meaning no don't worry it isn't arbitrary because i say so!!
>>7831136
meaning is only inherent within linguistic systems, foolio
>>7831136
So OP tell me, which religion do you follow and why is it the correct one?
>>7831031
There's no such thing as being a good person in a world with no God. If everything is destined for some eventual heat death in which everything we know ceases to exist, moral convictions are inane.
>>7831152
Remember to add "In my opinion" next time before giving your opinion.
>>7831118
Religion is true because it's in the Bible, dumbass
>>7831158
In my opinion your a faggot
>>7831163
Thanks for your civility.
>>7831158
irony, another substanceless post from an atheist who can't resolve his cognitive dissonance for 5 seconds to answer the question posed in the OP
>>7831167
Not an atheist, you chump.
>>7831152
look, i can say random words in any order too, macadamia sunshine blanket cowering cavendish.
you're speculating about speculations about hearsay about bullshit and getting worked up about it.
pretending you know shit won't help you if you really don't know shit, and you don't know shit, nobody does, we're practically fucking squirrels, why should we know shit
>>7831177
did i touch a nerve, you fucking stupid monkey?
The one where the author says the meaning of your life is whatever you apply to it—that is, whatever things and experiences provide you with happiness and fulfillment—and that it is completely subjective to you as a unique individual, and not programmed into you against your own will like every other human automaton by some authoritative higher being.
You don't need to read a book to figure this shit out.
>>7831174
>you don't know shit, nobody does
People that can form sentences without every other word being a curse word tend to "know shit." But I gather you don't know much about that.
>>7831179
no you are just embarrassing yourself at this point
>>7831181
>the meaning of your life is whatever you apply to it
can you tell me the name of that pop philosophy magazine?
>>7831183
I can, and I choose not to, cunt
quaint suburbanism tho, go paint a fence, faggot
>>7831187
How does it feel to have never been intimate with a member of the opposite sex? I'm being serious.
>>7831187
it's literally impossible to embarrass oneself on an anonymous messageboard you stupid fucking monkey, how can one person be so wrong
>>7831191
Curse words are just filler for when people don't actually know what point they are trying to articulate, so they say something that sounds spicy rather than insightful.
>>7830976
I don't have to read something or rely on someone to tell me why I should be alive. It is not that hard to give some meaning to your life, even if it's in the smallest of ways
>>7831198
If you think life without God is meaningful, you haven't thought enough. Keep on reading, kiddo.
>>7831197
That's a stupid fucking meme
I can curse and make good points at the same time
maybe you can't imagine being able to do something so complex, but some of us can actually manage to tie our walk and chew gum at the same time
you're not cussing but all you're doing is ad hom, so who's talking shit now, fuckboy
>>7831144
Christianity because the Bible says so, you fucking Philistine
>>7831215
But the Qur'an said I should be Islamic, and they can't both be right
:^(
>>7831194
stop typing you undergraduate bitch
>>7831196
yet you manage to do it with every post
>>7831200
how many time are you going to avoid answering the question in the OP? all religious works give meaning to life, i could name any one
despite philosophical texts outnumbering relgious works by orders of magnitude you still can't reply with a single title
at this point it's getting awkward watching you desperately try and fail to rationalize your life without god
>>7831225
The Quran isn't in English why should it matter what it says
>>7831225
Choose one, then. You can't have both.
>>7831187
>He's a frogposter
opinion discarded
>>7831231
But OP you don't understand, we don't need to answer your question, any one who needs a book to tell them how to think is an idiot
>>7831234
Abbreviating the word "plebeian" to "pleb" is one of the most plebeian things I've ever heard of.
>>7831233
Which one do I choose to be my infallible meaning of life then? Its almost as if at this point I'm giving my life it's own meaning by choosing between the two
>>7831241
It's your choice. I'm not gonna tell you what to do.
>>7831241
Why are you making this so complicated? You pick Christianity because it has a white man as its leader
>>7831245
But you will tell me that atheism is inherently wrong?
>>7831262
I believe that atheism is not the answer.
I grew up with severe anxiety. Never had any friends I could rely on. I've also been on the brink of suicide multiple times. It took hitting rock bottom to realize what I want out of life. I have seen no God. No light at the end of the tunnel. Just cold nothingness. So tell me, why should I exist because a deity wills it so? I will exist because there are things I must do before I leave this world. If you truly believe life is meaningless without god, then you should end your life right now, because an outdated and unproven idea should not be the sole reason why you exist.
>>7830976
I don't understand why one needs to feel like there is some ULTIMATE meaning, purpose, or moral reference point in order to conceive of life as worthwhile. This kind of thinking has no subtlety or sophistication. It's completely black and white.
People create meaning and value by investing themselves in their life. Most well adjusted atheists don't really need to read anything to justify their being alive because they care about themselves, the world, their loved ones or any number of other things that they perceive as being meaningful.
I really don't understand this "atheists must be totally miserable without God" meme.
>>7831267
>I believe
Well there you go
>>7830976
Also sprach zaratustra
>>7831280
What, do you not believe anything?
>>7831282
Aswell, vocalized angra mainyu
>>7831288
No I just don't believe the same as you do. Yet here we are trying to convince each other that we're both right, when really this entire thread can be summer up by the two words "I believe"
>>7831297
Fascinating.
>>7830976
>what books do atheists read to rationalize not killing themselves?
They don't because they already believe their lives are meaningful. This is reason enough for atheists to continue living, however right or wrong they might be.
>>7831049
You're a cow-person, bro. You're not considering suicide or experiencing internal paradigm shifts because you're stupid.
>>7831318
>I am smart and my massive insecurities and self-loathing are proof of that
>>7831342
What? What the hell kind of rejoinder is that?
This thread sucks.
>>7831342
>le ignore all arguments and make huge assumptions that make me look like an idiot xP
>>7831388
>this thread sucks
This. Did we really need "christfags vs fedoras, round 793"?
>>7830976
If you ask questions like that you were never going to commit suicide anyways.
Why would you need to rationalize that?
>>7830976
You can't rationalize it, once you are red pilled you can never go back, I just accepted that I live an irrational life in an irrational world; my ego doesn't want me to die yet, I tried dying once but I chickened and I gave up because I don't like pain.
>>7830976
A snide reply would prove no point. And atheists can go ahead and just choose to have empathy and interests without being told to.
>>7831079
>Chasing a high that you share with others somehow a worse motivation as an adult than being excited to meet Santa
>>7831777
>once you are red pilled you can never go back
I was redpilled in college about 12 years ago, full women are foolish leeches, fascism would be better, Ayn Rand had it right, the Jew and cultural marxism is the poison of communists and jews.
Now I'm just embarrassed at my younger self.
>>7831029
Atheism is believing in no entity which definition equals to God
>>7830976
Generally humans as most organisms I'm aware of tend to favor life over death. Seeking death really isn't the default state which you need to be pulled away from by any religion or book.
>>7831838
Then you must be 13yo, because that's not the kind of red pill I'm talking about retard, you think "red pill" is a /pol/ thing?
This board is literally an underages' gethering, educate yourselves ffs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix
Now fuck off back to reddt or whatever retarded site you came from.
there is no difference between death and living
>>7830976
dhammapadda, semper pai
>>7831049
Not OP, and not suicidal, but:
“There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And I try licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. The white mouse and the black mouse – day and night – are gnawing at the branch from which I am hanging. I can see the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tastes sweet. I can see only one thing; the inescapable dragon and the mice, and I cannot tear my eyes away from them. And this is no fable but the truth, the truth that is irrefutable and intelligible to everyone.
The delusion of the joys of life that had formerly stifled my fear of the dragon no longer deceived me. No matter how many times I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life, do not thinking about it but live, I cannot do so because I have already done it for too long. Now I cannot help seeing day and night chasing me and leading me to my death. This is all I can see because it is the only truth. All the rest is a lie.
Those two drops of honey, which more than all else had diverted my eyes from the cruel truth, my love for my family and for my writing, which I called art – I no longer found sweet.” - Tolstoy
>>7831955
Buddhists aren't atheists
but ok
I don't need to read anything. I don't need a book to spoonfeed me moral values, and I don't need to live in fear of eternal torture or damnation to prevent me from raping and killing everything around me. My life isn't so devoid from human interaction and affection that I need guarantees of otherworldly pleasure and ecstasy to feel like I'm living a meaningful life now.
tl;dr I grew out of kindergarten
>>7832006
You must be excited for the Summer, eh?
>>7832001
Buddhism is apatheist desu.
>>7831267
allow me to clarify
christian belief comes from faith- ie in spite of evidence
secular belief comes from evidence
this makes christians seem really dangerously crazy to secular people. Which they're not, they're just regular dumb monkeys trying to pretend they're the chosen monkeys, like all the other monkeys.
>>7832007
Ya that's when I take yer mum on a three month vacation to poundtown.
>>7830976
This question makes people very angry and they will just insult you. It's right up there with asking about free will or the arbitrary nature of ethics, they spew contempt and vitriol at you and tell you know nothing about the subject without really answering what the main problems with the issues are. The only answer I've found convincing is that meaning is something that inheres in the conscious(or otherwise) moment, and that it isn't life as a trajectory that has meaning, but rather being itself, in the way that a particle has a charge. The word 'meaning' is hardly ever properly defined either.
If I had to guess, I would suppose that most atheists simply don't think about it very much, I know I don't.
>>7832014
So the house will be empty?
>>7832018
The question is itself stupid and insulting and the asker deserves vitriol in return.
>>7832018
you dumb fuck.
the only things that have meaning are words
meaning is a linguistic phenomena
things themselves do not mean anything, they simply are.
meaning isn't this great important thing, it just means something that points to something else.
what does it even mean for a life to have meaning? You're all worked up to the point of suicide over empty words.
>>7832047
Meaning is a controversial subject, and linguistic meaning is not the only type. The other two main uses are in semiotics and existentialism. The meaning of life might well be an incoherent idea, that doesn't end the discussion on existential meaning.
>>7832056
>The meaning of life might well be an incoherent idea, that doesn't end the discussion on existential meaning.
it at least sets it back to the bottom of the fucking list of things to talk about
>>7832031
The problem with the question is that it already presupposes certain things to be true:
- That everybody's natural state is to want to kill themselves
- That they are kept from doing this by a book
So straight up answering this already concedes these points.
>>7832063
If you frame the question with meaning being that which makes existence worthwhile, then it is an important question.
>>7832081
>i got a D in an undergraduate logic class once, let me misconstrue your points for you
The Myth of Sisyphus.
>>7830976
if you find a book better than this thread OP, I implore you to share it with me.
>>7830976
On the Heights of Despair by Cioran. That's pretty much it. There's also Schoppenhauer, but his reasons on this subject are pretty much bullshit as long as you don't swallow his whole Panentheist fuckload.
>>7831342
Terrible quality bait.
>not being agnostic
Plebs.
>>7830976
Stormlight Archives, Jasnah Kholin is basically the only atheist and leads a good life dedicated to scholarship and not held back by religious convictions. She's freed herself to study anything she wants and has become incredibly smart and happy because of it.
I literally wish all atheists would get shot in the head
>>7833497
For some reason no one can cheer me up like Cioran.
>>7833679
ask your god to do it for you
>>7831063
How so? I'm an atheist and plan on rereading Ulysses now that I have some more time to thoroughly analyze it.
>>7831174
>we're practically squirrels
Wat
Last I checked, they have yet to construct a rudimentary nutcracker.
The bible or Koran, sometimes the Talmud.
All hilarious.
Sometimes I think I wish I was smarter,
Then I read a few passages of weak reasoning from those, and laugh.
>half the world believes this shit
>no miracles in 2,000 years since science started explaining shit properly
>modern day saints have laughable, unverifiable claims, after they are dead, so results not repeatable
>seems legit
A modern day pleb has more reasoning power and knowledge than most so-called scholars and students a couple of millenia ago.
A fucking pencil or zippo lighter would seem like the devil's work and would require lectures to explain.
>behold! He doth control fire at will!
A half-assed conjuring trick you could teach a 10-year old today, would seem like witchcraft back then.
>>7834001
imagine how retarded we're gonna look in 2k years famalaysian
>>7830976
Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
Or just watch it since it's a play. Don't expect a shakepere type play. It's set in one location and it's sparse.
>>7831159
Thats circular reasoning th'r boyo.
>>7830976
First you're going to have to offer to me a logical reason why I "should" kill myself.
Only then am I obligated by impingence on my credibility to offer a response.
Until that time arrives, I am as unlikely to have to justify my reservations about suicide to you as I am my reservations about your religion.
If you like, you can save yourself the trouble of responding, and just assume that any answer on that subject would simply replace "Should kill myself" with "believe in your particular interpretation of a particular mythical god" in my now formally standardised "religious debate response format".
Thank you, good night.
>>7834579
*tips fedora*
>>7834595
you're not clever
>>7831246
Jesus ain't white muh bruh
>>7834608
And neither are you.
>>7831296
literally wut
>>7834595
*tips collection plate*
>>7832011
A lot of secular concepts require giant leaps of faith.
>>7834796
Your cup runneth over with examples, I see.
Furthermore, I might add that there is no official "secular" line of dogma to cleave to, so whatever "leaps of faith" a person might make aren't handed down prescriptively.
And frankly, it's not much of a "Leap of faith" if you've been indoctrinated from birth.
Children are remarkably pliable, you can indoctrinate them with all sorts of weird bullshit, and it never quite goes away because it actually effects how they process information later in life.
You have, I'm afraid, been victimized.
>>7834931
I was indoctrinated with atheism in childhood, bud. And spirituality is a seed that must be planted through your own willingness.
Example, from my "cup": The idea that after death there is nothingness. Quite an intense belief to hold, almost as without basis as any other belief, it would seem.
>>7830976
Almost anything pertaining to botany. It is a pleasant and beautiful subject, concerning nature at its most baroque. I turn to it from time to time for relief from all the furious racket being made by the salesmen of theocracy and tribal strife these days, who in a grim dumbing-down chorus of chaos are ever busy setting fire to this lovely and otherwise placid world of ours. Novels packed with gossip, intrigue, discourse, and psychologically telling incident, such as Mann's The Magic Mountain or Meredith's The Egoist or Joyce's Ulysses, also do much to increase what quality of life I still enjoy, against the wishes of demagogues and other trash who hasten to bonfire what vanities are better digested. The 2nd part of Goethe's Faust, the poetry of Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop, the ghost stories of Edith Wharton and Henry James, the essays of Hazlitt, Montaigne, Johnson, Emerson, Coleridge, also contain banquets of sense especially rewarding to the appetites of my intellect and imagination. Dante is a scream, all the more because his insanely aggressive imagination overpowered his own apprehensions about how others would take his Comedy. Some day I'd like to write a cosmological drama as blatantly offensive to good taste, if a little more dished with encyclopedic memory on the science side of its spectrum. None of this needs any rationale, least of all in the sense of apology for having a good time, bawdy or otherwise. Merry pranksters, who turn the bait around, all have a curious affinity to creative genius, in that they enjoy a measure of immunity to being seduced by equivocations about the value of things. They're also company I prefer to most of what the rest of populations have to offer, for the same reason I'd rather stroll a park in high summer than yoke myself to some infernal plow harrowing a barren or overcrowded land. May the muted and inarticulate swarms of Asia strangle themselves, while I live on in the Occidental way.
>>7835041
You obviously weren't indoctrinated enough.
The worst kind of fucked-up friends I had growing up where those indoctrinated from birth into religion, but don't fully believe anymore.
There is this nagging doubt, but they seem to resist really exploring atheism and embracing it.
Also, spirituality does not necessarily equal religion.
Why cannot reincarnation, for instance, be a simple chemical or biological process we don't understand yet?
Why does it have to involve an almighty god(s)?
And how come religious people, at least those of the top 3 religions, always ask 'do you believe in God?' as if it is binary people, not 'do you believe in any god(s)?'
There have always been, and always will be, those who believe in multiple gods too
>>7835041
There is no continuation of experience after death, probability= .999
That's my secular belief. Point out the leap of faith, please.
>>7830976
>>7835571
how the hell would you even work out that statistic faggot
People read /lit, not books.
>>7835589
because muh bayesian thought and muh objectively chosen priors and muh roko's basilisk
t yudkowsky
>>7835179
Thank you for this post, brother.
>>7831058
>lives for short bursts of dopamine
>Doesnt understand an inkling of the other complex processes involved with interaction, reward pathway systems, and basic human emotions
10th grade biology class extraordinaire detected
How can atheists believe in any moral code when the existence of a god is necessary for all practical reason, thus for morality?
>>7835943
>god is necessary for all practical reason, thus for morality
Maybe this assumption is wrong
>>7835944
Good luck proving Kant wrong.
>>7835957
I don't need to, the fact that there are several millions of non-believers (and non-christians, because I don't even need the info to know you're a typical whiny christposter) right now living their lives without going on rape-kill sprees proves your assumption to be completely wrong
>>7835974
>without going on rape-kill sprees
That does not exclude living an immoral life.
>christposter
Nice strawman.
Don't bother replying if you haven't read any philosophy, pleb.
>>7835982
>That does not exclude living an immoral life.
Immoral by what standard? And don't deny that you're another smarmy little christposter, you show quite literally all the hallmarks of it
>>7835993
According to a moral code based on practical reason.
Again, have you read any Kant at all?
>And don't deny that you're another smarmy little christposter, you show quite literally all the hallmarks of it
|Nice strawman, it's obvious that you're just vying to get the last reply since you lack the intellectual faculty to disprove Kant, something that many have already done.
I merely posed the question to weed out pseuds like you who can't back up their claims.
>>7835601
trying to use bayesian probabilities and Man's parallels with (inorganic) Artificial Intelligence (ie, glorified thought experiments) to combat something as abstract and unfathomable as a nonphysical god-entity is laughable
>>7831031
You're not a good person, though.
>>7831029
>Thinks he can talk about atheism with having read Nietzsche.
Go fucking read the seminal work of atheism, before you try to talk about something you don't understand.
>>7830976
you have bisexual tendencies, anon.
>>7831992
This is great. Thanks.
>>7831992
>>7836275
The Strawberry
A Zen Tale from Japan
There was once a man who was being chased by a ferocious tiger across a field. At the edge of the field there was a cliff. In order to escape the jaws of the tiger, the man caught hold of a vine and swung himself over the edge of the cliff. Dangling down, he saw, to his dismay, there were more tigers on the ground below him! And, furthermore, two little mice were gnawing on the vine to which he clung. He knew that at any moment he would fall to certain death. That's when he noticed a wild strawberry growing on the cliff wall. Clutching the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other and put it in his mouth.
He never before realized how sweet a strawberry could taste.
>>7836334
A strawberry cup of gatorade
>>7830976
The desire to live is emotional and instinctual rather than strictly rational. This is how otherwise rational people are able to kill themselves when they become depressed.
>>7836334
Nice. I prefer Tolstoy's story though.
Probably the new testament tbqh OP
I wouldn't know though.
>>7836275
It's from "the confession" I suggest you to read WaP and Anna K. first.
Imho tolstoy should be read chronologically from WaP.
>>7831992
What a pussy, why doesn't he fight?
WHAT DO THEY NEED TO READ??? THEY ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING!!!
>muh bible has no contextual meaning or underlying philosophical principles that are important for coexistenting with other men
>>7831029
Cute guy OP u got more pictures?
>>7838070
Thats kaiji kun, how about you go watch evangelion you uncultured degenerate fuck
>>7831159
I'm a Christian and I hope you're joking.
