Meaning, consolation and atheism

[Rum]

One of the things that people who believe in a god tell you is that religion can bring meaning to life. They also say that is can be a consolation when things don't go well.

As some of you may have picked up I am likely to be out of a job in a couple of months time. The government have in effect dismissed the work that I and the people I have managed over the last 15 or so years as unaffordable and actually unnecessary in terms of priorities. Happening just as I have semi-retired anyway it makes me wonder what all those years were for. They all seem pointless and a waste of time in some ways now, if all that work is so easily discarded.

If I was religious I might be praying for some sort of insight and consolation about all of that. I might even feel a degree of anguish about the apparently meaningless expenditure of energy and effort.

Being an atheist - as well as a closet nihilist to some extent - I don't have to do that. The 'point' doesn't matter. There was no purpose to it other than the thing it was at the time. It does not have to end happily or like a Disney movie, with some sort of 'closure' and some sort of lesson or conclusion. It just is what it is. Was what it was.

Atheism can be its own 'consolation' after all it seems.

[devogue]

Indeed.

Juts as that delicious looking glass of wine in your hand is long gone and has no meaning in your life any more other than a pleasant memory. Because consuming it was ultimately pointless, does that make consuming it a fruitless waste of time? No, it was a very fruity way to spend time.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm quite satisfied with what I've done with my life. After escaping Indiana I helped keep my favorite country free for 20 years, then I started working on things that will be used by people long after I'm dead. None of the people involved may ever know my name, but it's not about me.

[devogue]

Indeed.

Juts as that delicious looking glass of wine in your hand is long gone and has no meaning in your life any more other than a pleasant memory. Because consuming it was ultimately pointless, does that make consuming it a fruitless waste of time? No, it was a very fruity way to spend time.

Just read that. What the fuck am I on?

[Rum]

Indeed.

Juts as that delicious looking glass of wine in your hand is long gone and has no meaning in your life any more other than a pleasant memory. Because consuming it was ultimately pointless, does that make consuming it a fruitless waste of time? No, it was a very fruity way to spend time.

Just read that. What the fuck am I on?

Fruitiness?

[Azathoth]

It paid the bills while you had it and now you have an extra 5 years of pension and a redundancy package. Sounds like a result to me. The mess it is going to make should go firmly into the somebody else's problem area of your brain

[Ronja]

Rum:

I think I can identify quite a bit with your negative reaction to that someone "above you" in the organization (understood broadly) that you have served is basically giving you the (meta) message that what you have spent all those years with is an expendable area of activity. I hit a semi-deep depression in a situation not entirely unlike yours.

If you feel up to listening to other people's stories, just say the word. I know I was not eager to listen at all when the crisis was acute for me, so I don't want to push.


Edit: typo

[Robert_S]

If it was worthwhile while you were doing it, then how does it being over make it less so?

My final letting go of the hazy theistic semi-concepts that I clung to has changed my perspective in a way that greatly increases my appreciation all the good in my life and in the world. Things aren't "supposed" to go well at all. Whatever meaning and whatever higher purpose we get out of life we do so by effort and a staggering amount of luck. That we earthbound lifeforms can even capable of conceiving of concepts like making a just and free society with peace among people of good will is fucking astounding. That we more or less pull it off here and there is damn near miraculous.

Unlike many religious worldviews which see the world as fallen from some perfect but unstable state, atheism allows me to just accept what is, what was and what can be as a pure gift.

If you have enough resources to live and do something interesting with your time, you're in a great position.

[amused]

As a bit of a counterpoint:

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." - Horace Mann

Kinda puts a fire under your limited time on the planet.

[Ronja]

Very well put, both Robert and amused! And IMO Rum has definitely done his honest share in helping his fellow humans (including many of us)

[Rum]

Rum:

I think I can identify quite a bit with your negative reaction to that someone "above you" in the organization (understood broadly) that you have served is basically giving you the (meta) message that what you have spent all those years with is an expendable area of activity. I hit a semi-deep depression in a situation not entirely unlike yours.

If you feel up to listening to other people's stories, just say the word. I know I was not eager to listen at all when the crisis was acute for me, so I don't want to push.


Edit: typo

..and to Robert too.

I am just fine Ronja, but thanks for the sympathy. However my point was exactly the opposite of feeling 'expendable'. As Robert says, there are in my view a number of pseudo religious traits which many atheists seem to hold on to about 'narrative' in life, about meaning and purpose, about conclusions and, ultimately about a sort of mythologising of our own lives, coding, and applying some sort of metaphorical meaning or story. They don't mean anything to me any more. Its just random happen stance. I do however know that at least some of what I did helped at least a few children and families. I feel confident in that and I am pleased.

Just because a government comes along and slashes spending on socail care related stuff makes no difference. It does not leave me feelign that somehow 'meaning' has been lost, only that the government have done a really dumb thing.

[Ronja]

... my point was exactly the opposite of feeling 'expendable'. As Robert says, there are in my view a number of pseudo religious traits which many atheists seem to hold on to about 'narrative' in life, about meaning and purpose, about conclusions and, ultimately about a sort of mythologising of our own lives, coding, and applying some sort of metaphorical meaning or story. They don't mean anything to me any more. Its just random happen stance. I do however know that at least some of what I did helped at least a few children and families. I feel confident in that and I am pleased.

Just because a government comes along and slashes spending on socail care related stuff makes no difference. It does not leave me feelign that somehow 'meaning' has been lost, only that the government have done a really dumb thing.

It is great that you feel that way! And this exchange goes to show - yet again - how much my experiences color how I read the text of others.

I guess my depression in a similar situation came largely from the realization that that particular dumb thing that our government was doing would likely influence the rest of my professional life, because they showed no signs of changing the policy (and still don't).


Edit: clarifications (hopefully)