Isn't it a bit depressing? Atheists?

It's somewhat disappointing, yes, but just because it would make me feel better to believe in eternal life doesn't mean that it's realistic.

Of course I know that "something other than their body" makes people special. It's called "personality" and "zeal".

Little girl, why are you so sure of yourself ? I'm nearing the end of those 70 to 100 years, and I'm sure not depressed.

I will finish my life happily, knowing that my honesty, truthfulness, helpfulness has been noticed and commented on by those who know me. I have no illusions of what comes after death. I will be what I was a thousand years ago.

It's the religious ones that I feel sorry for. They were taught that they were born to this earth as a test to see if they're worthy of the here-after. Now their God has mellowed to a kind old gentleman who will forgive anything and everything. For two thousand years before, he was pictured as a mean old SOB who would send you down for breaking the tinyest rule.

Maybe the two thousand year old idea is the correct one. That would give you religious people something to think about. How many of you have never broken a commandment ? Are you sure that you will be forgiven ? Where's the proof that you can break commandments one after the other, and all will be forgiven ?

What kind of a test would it be if everybody passes ? It must be very depressing to know you've broken religious laws that you might not be forgiven for. Did you commit adultery ? Okay, a hundred billion years shoveling coal.

Did you ever steal. even a cookie ? A hundred billion years.

Life is short. Why worry about it or be depressed?

What is the alternative? To be blissfully happy that I have an afterlife to look forward to? Sounds good, but I don't have the belief. I used to, but some hardcore thinking made me realize that the belief was just not plausible.

So, I live life as best I can. Not depressing at all.

What depresses me is seeing how other people squander their lives. Some squander other people's lives. That bugs me.

Edit: Really, it all boils down to attitude. Some atheists are simply rotten people. I don't think it's necessarily because they don't believe in a god; they are just rotten. You see it in all walks of life. How many Christians do you know are depressed because they're not living up to God's ideals? Are Christians depressed? Not at all. It's the people who don't know how to cope with what they have, whether it's a short lifespan, striving for piety, or running out of peanut butter. Being atheist or religious do not inherently make people depressed--it may form the framework of someone who is depressed.

What you just described is exactly what terrifies Christians and other believers into following the (quite honestly) ridiculous myths that comprise their religions.

I used to be a devout Christian. I was absolutely TERRIFIED when I began to lose my faith. The thought that I wasn't going to live forever chilled me to the bone. But the truth is the truth. And I couldn't deny it, once I had educated myself.

That's the difference between the believer and the non-believer. The non-believer seeks the truth, not just what makes him feel good. Believers are afraid of the truth. If they weren't, then they wouldn't refuse to look into all options.

If your religion was true, then you shouldn't be afraid to study it, and its detractors, correct? The truth will be obvious, won' t it? This is what I thought. And I studied all the things that the church didn't want me to study. What I didn't count on... was that the truth was not what the bible taught.

Depressing or not, the truth is simply the truth.

I like Achilles' response in the movie Troy. When speaking to the priestess about the gods, he said the gods envy us because we are mortal. We are able to enjoy things because this is all we have, whereas since the gods were immortal, they always have those things and take it for granted. I'm not an atheist, but it makes sense to me that they can appreciate things more than we can. Why should we who believe we will live forever take joy in each breath? The breath that ends our life will only bring us greater joy, right, as we will be with God? But to the atheist, every breath can be enjoyed, because they never know when it will be their last.

Better to be motivated by the fact that your immortality is synonmous with legacy, then to be disillusioned by over-bearing power mongers who wave salvation as a carrot to the masses in order to gain blind obedience and uneducated justification for unscrupulous acts.

When my grandmother died my position as an atheist was put to the test. But what I found was comfort in the fact that she was no longer in pain, eternally at rest, and immortalized by those left behind. There were no questions of Heaven or Hell, damnation or salvation. Just life, death, and the celebration of what happens inbetween.

And that something special you speak of is passion. People look at me all the time and are perplexed that someone as endearing and charasmatic as myself does not credit God for my intellegence and enlightenment.

Well dear it's not that we went crazy one day and started thinking that God is not there. Of course its depressing to know that end is the end but sometimes the bitter side is the true side. If only I could believe in life after death. I would be the happiest person ever. But I can't just force myself to believe that because the rational part of me says it's not true, its a fairytale. Of course it depresses me, but that's life : a miracle that one day comes to an end for each of us.

All christians ever do is enough (or what they think is enough) to score brown nose - oops, brownie - points with "god" and try to buy their way into "heaven". The christians have no concern about what happens to others on this Earth unless their "care" scores them points.

Atheists, on the other hand, try to leave the world a better place than when we arrived and a more knowledgeable world than when we began to learn. That's a far more noble life's ambition.

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Not at all. I'm just living every day to the fullest and what makes it even nicer is that I don't have to worry about all that ridiculous 'sinning' nonsense that makes believers feel guilt and shame. I find it silly that believers spend their entire lives believing in something that is as ficticious as the tooth fairy!

Of course believing in an afterlife is a great concept. I also think that believing every day it will rain 100$ bills in my bedroom is a very nice concept.

It doesn't make it true.

Last year my father died. He lives in my memories. He lives in what he taught me. I live my life in the way I live it, partly because of what he taught me. That's actually not at all a depressing concept.