The problem with atheism

each day is a blessing was posted in another thread by UzumakiAi
and he added in parentheses "in a secular sense". I agree with him.
Each day is a blessing but we have no-one to thank.

Recently we (my family) have taken to thanking the FSM, tooth fairy or
other random "deity" at meal times to remind ourselves how lucky we are
and not to take our comfortable lives for granted.

Any other atheists got their own way of dealing with this?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
each day is a blessing was posted in another thread by UzumakiAi and he added in parentheses "in a secular sense". I agree with him. Each
day is a blessing but we have no-one to thank.

Recently we (my family) have taken to thanking the FSM, tooth fairy or
other random "deity" at meal times to remind ourselves how lucky we are
and not to ta ...[text shortened]... our comfortable lives for granted.

Any other atheists got their own way of dealing with this?

Well I don't do it at meal times, but I thank the people that make my/our lives possible.

I didn't die of childhood disease because people doing science invented modern medicine
which has all but eradicated it. (vaccines people, they rock)

I have enough food because people worked hard to produce it, taking advantage of
modern scientific farming techniques and supported by sophisticated weather forecasting.

I have access to a hugely varied diet that is resistant to localised drought or other
catastrophe because of a globally distributed farming and manufacturing network that can
get it's produce to me quickly via a global transport system of planes, ships trucks and trains
that move our goods from where they're made to where they're needed.
All run by and invented and built by people.


I guess this is what I consider my Humanism.

I give thanks to all the humans that worked and suffered through history to make the world
a better place that I / We can enjoy.

I also realise that this work is not yet done, and is still ongoing, and so my main 'giving thanks'
is to do my little bit to make the world a better place for myself, those around me, and the next
generations who will come after us.



I often watch history documentaries and while I find them fascinating, I am universally struck
by one thought when I watch every one.

There is no time in history I would rather live in than the present.

For all it's faults, and there are many. This is the greatest time to be alive in the history of humankind.

And I dream that in another 50~100 years time I will be able to say exactly the same thing.



I am not sure that I think of each day as being a blessing though...

Each day was hard fought for and won by ingenuity and hard work by countless people mostly forgotten.

Almost nothing was 'given' to us by the cold hard reality we call the universe.

In fact in its mindless uncaring way the universe is trying to kill us every second of every day.

Each day is not a blessing... It's a victory.


EDIT: Good thread btw, I'll read with interest.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I am not sure that I think of each day as being a blessing though...
Each day was hard fought for and won by ingenuity and hard work by countless people mostly forgotten.
Almost nothing was 'given' to us by the cold hard reality we call the universe.

Good point.
I did not intend to sound like the puddle being grateful for the perfect hole!!

"Paying it forward" is certainly a practical way of being thankful - which is
how I interpret your "doing your bit to make the world a better place".

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Good point.
I did not intend to sound like the puddle being grateful for the perfect hole!!

"Paying it forward" is certainly a practical way of being thankful - which is
how I interpret your "doing your bit to make the world a better place".

Yeah, that was what I meant. I knew there was a term for it.

I am not saying there is anything inherently wrong with viewing each day as a blessing...

It's just not how I see the world. I am not claiming my view on this matter is in any way definitive or better than yours. It's just my view.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
each day is a blessing was posted in another thread by UzumakiAi
and he added in parentheses "in a secular sense". I agree with him.
Each day is a blessing but we have no-one to thank.

Recently we (my family) have taken to thanking the FSM, tooth fairy or
other random "deity" at meal times to remind ourselves how lucky we are
and not to ...[text shortened]... our comfortable lives for granted.

Any other atheists got their own way of dealing with this?

"This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24 (NASB)

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24 (NASB)

Today he made it cold wet and miserable, while both at home and at work he had new windows/doors put in.

If he wanted my gratitude he's going to have to do a better job.


I do wonder on occasions whether in real life you wander around with a smart phone and 'talk' to people by getting it to speak selected quotes at people...

Originally posted by googlefudge
Today he made it cold wet and miserable, while both at home and at work he had new windows/doors put in.

If he wanted my gratitude he's going to have to do a better job.


I do wonder on occasions whether in real life you wander around with a smart phone and 'talk' to people by getting it to speak selected quotes at people...

"Today he made it cold wet and miserable, while both at home and at work he had new windows/doors put in.

If he wanted my gratitude he's going to have to do a better job.

I do wonder on occasions whether in real life you wander around with a smart phone and 'talk' to people by getting it to speak selected quotes at people... -googlefudge

Be thankful it wasn't a blizzard, hurricane or tornado. He holds the universe together by the word of His power and knows all about googlefudge and his family. Be thankful His gracious forbearance tolerates an attitude of impunity in presuming to serve up conditions to Omnipotent God. In "real life" my mobility's somewhat limited due to neuropathy. (home phone only).

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
"Today he made it cold wet and miserable, while both at home and at work he had new windows/doors put in.

If he wanted my gratitude he's going to have to do a better job.

I do wonder on occasions whether in real life you wander around with a smart phone and 'talk' to people by getting it to speak selected quotes at people... -googlefudge

Be t ...[text shortened]... ipotent God. In "real life" my mobility's somewhat limited due to neuropathy. (home phone only).

Yeah to me that sounds like, "be grateful god wasn't more of an ass than he already is being".

I was kidding, god didn't make the weather miserable, physics did.

I am sorry about your health issues.

I am sure you are grateful that your god has decided only to give you neuropathy and limit your
ability to move and hasn't given you terminal cancer with three painful weeks to live...

Nah... there is no form of that argument that doesn't make god sound like an ass.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
each day is a blessing was posted in another thread by UzumakiAi
and he added in parentheses "in a secular sense". I agree with him.
Each day is a blessing but we have no-one to thank.

Recently we (my family) have taken to thanking the FSM, tooth fairy or
other random "deity" at meal times to remind ourselves how lucky we are
and not to ...[text shortened]... our comfortable lives for granted.

Any other atheists got their own way of dealing with this?

Yeah.

Maybe gratitude is therapeutic, too—even when you don’t know who/what to thank. So, there is the sense—the sense of gratefulness—and you express it as best you can, without the baggage of philosophical angst. I wouldn’t assume that the sense is somehow invalid absent recourse to a well-defined and reasoned source.

Although I don’t give any weight to pragmatic reasons for belief—as opposed to evidentiary reasons—that does not throw pragmatics out the window. The same for aesthetics. I don’t “believe in” Beethoven—but that does not lessen the impact that his Ninth Symphony has on me, always. Nor do I have to face an absurd choice between Beethoven and, say, Ravi Shankar—as if only one kind of music can be “the truth”.

As a Buddhist of sorts, words and ideas and propositional truth claims (and counter-claims) are not the existential bedrock of my living out this round.

So, there it is: dancing wildly to Hasidic music makes me feel good, Tchaikovsky can put me on my knees, and in moments of a sense of gratitude, I say “Thank you”. It is another kind of release. Do I need any more justification for that than for my enjoyment of this dry sercial Madeira I’m imbibing? Or do these lines of poetry from Dylan Thomas lose all value in the face of the absurdity of any literal reading?—

“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower, drives my green age . . .”

So, I am putting those “thank you’s”—in response to the feeling/sense of gratitude, whatever its source—into a category similar to aesthetics, pragmatics, therapeutics. In the celebration (and the suffering) of life, not everything requires the working out of a definitive rational/empirical argument; and even when circumstances seem to cry out for it, that does not mean that a clear answer is to be had (as if every question required that we have an answer—even if we have to make it up!).

In short and sum (after that Madeira-induced meandering): Yeah. You don’t need any more than what you’ve expressed to say “Thanks”—to whomever/whatever/don’t know who or what: a free-floating "thanks" in reponse to a free-floating sense of gratitude. That's all. Just as, sometimes, we just say: Yeah.

Originally posted by vistesd
Yeah.

Maybe gratitude is therapeutic, too—even when you don’t know who/what to thank. So, there is the sense—the sense of gratefulness—and you express it as best you can, without the baggage of philosophical angst. I wouldn’t assume that the sense is somehow invalid absent recourse to a well-defined and reasoned source.

Although I don’t give any we ...[text shortened]... a free-floating sense of gratitude. That's all. Just as, sometimes, we just say: Yeah.

Miss you, brother.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Miss you, brother.

Same here, man. You don’t show up here much more (if any more) than I do. Maybe we’re like two old warriors who can’t quite work up the will to swing their swords at one another anymore—so we’d just do better to unwind the cork on a bottle of wine, slap each other on the shoulder, and laugh. One good Zen laugh to one good Christian laugh!

(BTW, we have moved back to civilization, and I buy some of my wine—and a lot of groceries—at your place of employment, I believe. Well, not the exact place of employment . . . )

Originally posted by vistesd
Yeah.

Maybe gratitude is therapeutic, too—even when you don’t know who/what to thank. So, there is the sense—the sense of gratefulness—and you express it as best you can, without the baggage of philosophical angst. I wouldn’t assume that the sense is somehow invalid absent recourse to a well-defined and reasoned source.

Well put.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Yeah to me that sounds like, "be grateful god wasn't more of an ass than he already is being".

I was kidding, god didn't make the weather miserable, physics did.

I am sorry about your health issues.

I am sure you are grateful that your god has decided only to give you neuropathy and limit your
ability to move and hasn't given you terminal canc ...[text shortened]... to live...

Nah... there is no form of that argument that doesn't make god sound like an ass.

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

(Matthew 5:45 KJV)

Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:

(Acts 10:34 KJV)

I think you are correct. God is not a respector of persons. Our good or bad fortune on earth is not as a result of special treatment by God. Your choice to give thanks to God or curse Him is up to you.

I see it like a game of poker. We are required to make the best of the hands that we are deal at random. God does not cheat for us.

HalleluYah !!! Praise the LORD! Glory be to God! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The Instructor

Originally posted by wolfgang59
each day is a blessing was posted in another thread by UzumakiAi
and he added in parentheses "in a secular sense". I agree with him.
Each day is a blessing but we have no-one to thank.

Recently we (my family) have taken to thanking the FSM, tooth fairy or
other random "deity" at meal times to remind ourselves how lucky we are
and not to ...[text shortened]... our comfortable lives for granted.

Any other atheists got their own way of dealing with this?

You are merely demonstrating the fact that you have a spirituality.

I went to a humanist funeral once, same thing, lady giving the service talked about nature or the universal laws when she really meant God but could not bring herself to say it, sure you can substitute anything you like, but the fact remains, we have a spiritual side which we are conscious of and as the Christ stated, 'happy are those conscience of their spiritual need'.

The zen master

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby

Be thankful it wasn't a blizzard, hurricane or tornado. He holds the universe together by the word of His power and knows all about googlefudge and his family.

Did He temporally forget about the people in the Philippines?