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- Jul 12, 2013
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This is kind of the problem I have with a lot of atheists. They sit around and spout off crap like this as if it's some super easy concept that everyone should be comfortable with. This is actually an incredibly difficult thing to wrap your head around on a personal level, which is it's so easy for so many people to buy into religions.
Sit around for a few minutes and think about your own non-existence. Actually think about it. Think about how you'll never experience ever again anything you've ever done. You'll never see anyone you ever loved, never think another thought. How the universe will keep going on for billions of years without you. Think about what you "existing" even means. This is a problem that has plagued philosophers for centuries, many of whom deny a person can ever understand what their own non-existence is considering everything you experience and think of is viewed through the lens of existence. Even when you try to rationalize it and write it off, realize that you're doing all this through the lens of your own consciousness and existence.
When you contemplate it for a while, you may realize that you're actually scared of dying now. Scared because you'll realize that, if you died crossing the street tomorrow, that's it. There's nothing left and won't ever be anything left. All the countless hours you spent working towards something in the future wouldn't ever matter. If you really buy into the idea that when we die, that's it, you have to be comfortable with the fact that you're less than a sh*tstain on the undies of the world. That's a very hard idea to be comfortable with and I think the people who say they're totally cool with that idea are bullsh*tting themselves and everyone they talk to.
Yeah and I know the old "I didn't exist before I was born and it didn't bother me then" which basically has no relevance to this situation.
What are you even talking about? No sh** it's a difficult concept; that's the whole reason everybody's still clamoring on about religion or the lack thereof. What I said was what I personally believe and never once did I claim that it was a "super easy concept." I've struggled with it for the majority of my life, and I agree with what you've said so far.
I think it's very hard for anyone, me included, to even imagine "nothingness," let alone accept it, but it seems to me like the most plausible scenario. The majority of us view life as some sort of sacred entity, yet somewhere this very minute, someone's father, mother, son, or daughter is dying and will be dead by sunrise - and nothing they did will have mattered to you or me, and we will never ever know who they were or what they did for a living or if they were nice people - and we will never, ever meet them. It has already occurred and has occurred countless times throughout history, yet we still hold onto some sliver of hope that our lives will be different and that death will take us to a better place.
Maybe it's not so much that people are cool with it as it is people accept it for what it is and move on. Life is not any less enjoyable or meaningful to me.