I am an atheist, but I wonder how in this day and age...

>It's weird because every once and a while I get these inexplicable experiences where I feel like I'm experiencing life with more of my senses and more vibrance, and just being conscious is nice. I don't know how I could feel that way all the time.

I get this when I take mushrooms and in the few weeks after.

You're ill - take your medicine. It really isn't different.
Anti-depressants help you find the energy and mindset to take care of your deeper set issues, such as lacking a healthy diet and exercise (don't underestimate how much this does for your mind).

>is there a book that will make me feel this way if I read it?
Yes, the Bible.

I don't believe in god though, isn't that the whole point of the bible? I'm already a pretty moral person, I think that more atheists have a better moral compass than christians do. You know what the bible is for? It's a book that people interpret and get their morals from, and everyone's interpretation is subjective. You know where I get my morals from? Everywhere, every book, every good piece of wisdom, I go off what I feel just like everyone else, but I don't just get my morals from one source. I'm not saying the bible isn't a good piece of literature, I suppose for it's time it was a pretty damn good work of art. I just don't like the way it's become like this big source of moral code for a bunch of people.

It actually IS different.

When you live a shit life, you're prone to get sick, and taking the medicine helps with the sickness, but not with the core problem, that is, the shitty life.

That being said, anti-depressants will surely help you keep going, but it's a just a parchment. Facing your issues, going to a psychologist, or both, are what's needed if you don't want to live a miserable life depending on a chemical.

Well, if you're right and there is no God, then you're seeing the world the way it really is. Everything really is ultimately meaning less. Someday you'll die, and everyone who knew you will die, and everyone who is alive today will die, and someday the sun will burn out and everyone will die, and then no one will even know we were ever here. All you can do is find ways to distract yourself. If the Bible is the word of God however, it's worth a read.

That's precisely what I wrote in my post too.

I exercise and eat the healthiest possible diet available to mankind. I'm dead fucking serious, I've been an extremely healthy dieter for years, and I'm smart about it too. I eat all raw foods, healthy fats, I don't do dumb shit like avoid fat and glutin and bread and carbs, I eat a lot of really good shit; in fact that's the only thing my diet consist of is healthy food. I exercise sometimes but to be honest being outside running around gives me stress, because to be honest just being around people and crossing the street with cars going by is enough to make me feel stressed out.

I think what would help is if I had some friends or something. I am basically a loner and I know that in mavlobs hierarchy of needs I am definitely missing social acceptance (if that really was one of the thing son it), Because I am just a total loner man, I'm not kidding when I say when I have someone over or around another people I have no idea what to say and I have no idea what to do. I don't know a single person in this entire city, this entire fucking city. I'm a loner and it feels like I'm always going to be a loner, but I thirst for something more.

My ideal life would be like, having a bunch of friends and connections to all sorts of interesting people, and close friends who I don't just have to meet up with like every month or something, but I want to have people who I can get together with on a regular basis and discuss intimate thoughts. And I'm tired of being a virgin, believe me man. I really wish that I could get out there and meet some hot guys, I just want to know what that's like to have intimacy with another person. I think that what probably needs to happen is I need to find a boyfriend or something (although I find guys attractive, I almost can't imagine having sex with a guy, or dating a guy. It's almost as though I don't know if I would like it, even though I think about guys all the time, because I don't know if I would like it).

Principia Discordia or if you don't get a hoot out of mysticism try Full Catastrophy Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
SSRI's are not the best choice for every patient unless you are this individuals psychologist you are talking out of your ass.

You have social anxiety. SSRI and going to therapy will help you with this.

I just bought GEB... That strange loop thought excites.

OP, you sound depressed. Have you been to a doctor/been diagnosed? There are many forms of therapy. Don't let someone tell you that talk therapy or antidepressants are the only solution. People have lived with depression for thousands of years without SSRIs. They are helpful, I am alive because of Citalopram, but you can find a way out of this without them. Look into other forms of therapy – maybe one of them will appeal. Mindfulness intrigues me and I'll probably be seeing a professional this fall to help w/ that.

Jesus.

There's no evidence that god ever existed and I get that it gives people hope and stuff, and it's good that you can tell what it means that existence would be meaningless if god doesn't exist. Idk how you can convince yourself that god exists when there's literally no evidence that he does, that right there is proof that god doesn't exist because there was never a good reason to say he exists in the first place.

I think the reality of the situation is, if you're brain is producing the right chemicals then you'll be happy. It all comes down to biology, every time you're happy it's because your brain releases chemicals that make you happy. It's sort of funny to me how people always look for these deeper senses of meaning. Dude, you're only using your brain which is this big bundle of neurons, it really doesn't matter if you find any sort of meaning anyways. If you find some meaning and it makes you happy it's really just because your brain is producing the right chemicals to make you happy.

I dunno what it is exactly that causes people's brains to not produce enough happy chemicals in the first place. I'd love to know why my brain decided it would be a good idea to make me feel like shit, maybe it just denies you the feeling of happiness so that you have to work for it and therefor have some incentive to do anything. Then you get the whole paradox of life being meaningless thing so you're stuck in this never ending loop where your brain keeps denying you the chemicals even though there's really no way to solve the dilemma you've found yourself faced with.

I have been going to a psychologist for the past year and a half as a matter of fact. I have contemplated getting ssris. I mean, I'm not like cripplingly depressed or something, but I definitely have extremely low motivation, I can barely even find the motivation to wash the dishes in my sink or really do anything, because I don't really care about anything. It's only sometimes though where it feels like my brain is lacking any sort of feeling to redeem the negative, that just experiencing reality itself is enough to make me feel like shit; that doesn't happen often enough for me to feel like I really need ssri, except that seems absurd because when I look at myself it doesn't really seem like there's anything I can do with just thinking about the problem to solve it. I... guess I could go and talk to my doctor about whether or not it would be a good idea.

There's a lot you're assuming here, you know. Empiricism is in fashion, especially online, but it's far from some kind of philosophical certainty. Presumably you have a skeptical side. Cultivate it.

You're also assuming that happiness is the definite goal. This one is so deeply ingrained people usually laugh at anyone who question it. If nothing will set you free from your misery, consider embracing it for the moment... (Though I think happiness is probably preferable)

It's worth a try, user.

I'm uneducated and I don't read a lot but there's a doc about the filmmaker Ozu you should check out I think it's called oh I don't remember but its got a Werner hereof interview where he's in japan talking about how it's impossible for a filmmaker this day in age to capture truth because everything is taken over by men trying to mass produce living nessesities. Great doc imo. I think if u truly crave such feelings you want to live like a real individualist. I think men we're meant to be the master of their position on life and most naturally that'd be of their immedietly souroumding encioronment, which is a hostile force. You want to live like a mountain man, or a soldier maybe, like a Navajo which I feel was the greatest if not most natural society as of yet, if we lived like them we would not worry about global warming or any of that shit. I'd recommend Richard marcinkos rouge warrior

Really interesting perspective. You into Nietzsche at all? Could be worth a look if you haven't read him much

Allow me to solve one mystery.

The meaning of life is survival.
Many people idiotically believe that because there is no god, life has no meaning.
When, for 3.8 billion years, the continuation of life has had the one signal purpose of seeing what happens next.

If you can't handle that we are communally flying ass first into the unknown, then be my guest and get off at the next stop and don't be a drama queen about it, you will only make it more difficult for the rest of us.

>hqdefault
>pseud bbc interview

kek. i bet you think youre really smart right now

>Allow me to solve one mystery.
>The meaning of life is

Fuck off, kid. Save it for your diary.

lol, true.

Then a nice cliché-ridden 'kill yrself'

Though I like the holistic approach

You just need to find love, OP.

>“I'm in love with you," he said quietly.

>"Augustus," I said.

>"I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

gr8b8m8

summerfag

I know of two things he's said and think about them quite a bit actually, what should I start out with? I'm not good at deciphering literary devices so I don't want a philosophical story too much and I don't have a lot of trouble sifting the trenches of a dense and large book, I've read the Old Testament and really enjoyed it

cringe

>every book, every good piece of wisdom

The Abrahamic religions are tacitly responsible for a good deal of that wisdom - more than likely the majority of it, really - you are just too naive to see it. Not trying to shit on you here. You should just read more.

>I look at it on most days and it looks like a grey canvas, it looks like it has no vibrance, even if it's a beautiful sight it doesn't fill me with any sense of wonder, because I know in my heart that it's all meaningless to me.
Read Coleridge's Dejection: An Ode. Describes something almost exactly similar to this

>every once and a while I get these inexplicable experiences where I feel like I'm experiencing life with more of my senses and more vibrance, and just being conscious is nice. I don't know how I could feel that way all the time.
there's a theological answer but I suspect you don't want it. it has something to do with beatitude and grace and heaven

Zarathustra would be the way to go: that's where the Übermensch, whose value you seem to have already recognized, is. It's something like a novel, I guess, but if you're willing to really work with it you'll do fine. No need for literary expertise, just trust and a critical attitude, like any work of philosophy. Remember not to assume you know what he's talking about, that's the hardest thing for me to do

>there's a theological answer but I suspect you don't want it. it has something to do with beatitude and grace and heaven

It seems to me these are manifestations of more general ideas. Though they're the most pervasive forms, they need not be associated with a deity

Those two things are the quote from the naked and the dead that's like "man is between a tree and a phantom, but do I bid you to be a phantom or a tree" and a picture I saw on /lit that's says if life is relived after death is smash out all my ducking teeth with a rock and cry all day.
OP I agree with other posters U should read the bible even and maybe especially if you're not into god, I've tried to get many people to do such and it never works so I won't try to explain myself at least read the first 5 books of the OT it's like 150 pages and maybe some of Jesus's preaching a like like maybe or maybe some bs zen shit also godards films have given me much joy and discovery. I think if you're not into living dangerously you would enjoy manipulating and cultivating relationships with people and the bible would give u a decent moral compass so u don't turn into a phsycopath I personally combat your ailments with drugs which I am not proud of and really fucking need to stop I want to buy a nice digital camera and some lenses and make videos to substitute my self medication sorry for rambling but I'm high on crystal meth

No joke
Get Veeky Forums

Would you be willing to send me your e-mail address? I like you

youtube.com/watch?v=ENZ2zRB-0AI

youtube.com/watch?v=p9hEfR-cXc4

This guy's poems/videos always make me feel happy and able to do anything. If I ever need to be motivated I watch the first video.

Great thanks a lot I've dipped my toes in philosophy for a while and now I'm really going in. You started someone on a (hopefully) rewarding path. I've always felt that living by other's ideas was pathetic and irrational bit now I think the way American society is we all are bred with ideals implanted and it's only practical to hear out peoples thoughts

M or f

Come to new Mexico probably the poorest state but you could live like 30 miles from Santa Fe or Abq, always are new art events people. Although Abq is schetch as fk never a dull moment

Lol no sure but I'm not posting it on 4 chan

Feel like there's a steep learning curve for Mr. Roggenbuck, but he has also helped me through certain moments in the last few years. He just seems so annoying. He's much more thoughtful than his videos show, so anyone seeing these for the first time I'd recommend giving him the benefit of the doubt for a little while!

I'm glad I could help. That's a very good point, I think we're all capable of wanting our ideas to come from nowhere but our own brains, but it's just not possible! I'd also recommend reading an anthology that gives you a variety of primary sources so you can find which philosophers interest you the most. By the way, that was me asked for your email but don't feel any pressure.

I don't want to make it seem like I shared these because I think they would fix your problems or something, they just helped me when I was in a similar time. Your problems are probably bigger than mine, but I hope it helps you feel just a little bit better, even if it's just a little bit.

Soul of the World by Roger Scruton

Hah ok send it to me at [email protected]

also yeah. The silliness of his videos is part of the message I've always felt, part of the boost.

Heading off now... email if you'd like, no problem if you don't feel like it.

Life is the recorder of nature. Animals live or die by nature and what they are is a reflection of the encioronment they live in. Humans are the great observers, more than just recording with our being we can actually record with words and art that is our responsibility imo

Since breaking through on mushrooms I have felt spontaneous moments of ineffable joy for even the mundane. LSD never gave me that sense of wonder, but since mushrooms I feel like I can see the magic in the world that growing up took away. Sometimes I'll simply be stopped at a red light on the way to a grocery store like any other day when light shining through the trees and the clouds appear to be perfect and still and beautiful and I tear up out of pure joy and childlike wonder. Mushrooms changed my life significantly.

Stop being an atheist you materialist trash
>I think that more atheists have a better moral compass than christians do.
You literally cannot have any moral compass as an atheist because you have no place to measure from.

You're shitting around in the dark and calling it a choreographed dance.
>Everywhere
So you're objective, but everybody else is subjective

The Bible, being the word of God, makes it an objective word of morality.

Not a source, it is not subjective or up to interpretation. This does not even depend on the existence of YHWH because the Bible as literature being even the metaphoric word of a perfect, omnipotent and omniscient, just, and absolute God makes it a greater source than the scribblings of men.
Are you trolling, or are you a genuine positivist?

Let me reiterate what I said in my last reply to you: God need not even 'exist' to exist because God is omnipotent.
Positivists are not skeptics, they just call themselves skeptics.

They're ideologues.
Yes they do you ideologue.

No they are not elements of something general

>You literally cannot have any moral compass as an atheist because you have no place to measure from.

Read Kant, Steve Harvey.

Both are fallacious, I've read both and they change nothing. If you cannot define good and evil you cannot have a moral system, they cannot be given any objective definition without absolute and objective good and evil; atheists reject any absolute good or absolute evil and thereby cannot have a moral compass.

Bbbut what if you're convictions are backwards

KEK.

You just went full fucking retard and showed you know nothing about you are talking about.

You mean to tell me that you've read pic related's philosophical works? Steve Harvey is a fundamentalist who believes you can't have am moral system without god, so I was accusing you of being him.

Kant wasn't an atheist and was a heavy believer in god, as a matter of fact, he believed you needed morality outside of god.

You don't know what you are talking about.

Well, your conclusion about objective morals are wrong so your moral compass doesn't exist either :^)

*is

I stopped reading your post, in part because it was retarded, but mostly because I've read it countless times before from countless other retards. Despite that, I recommend reading something like Catch-22. It will make you laugh. Chemicals will react, synapses will alight, and you will feel better for a time.

My personal convictions? That's irrelevant. God has no convictions, he has a will and that will is the only objective morality because God is absolutely just. OP claims he gathers his morality from everything, but fails to comprehend that God knowing everything that has ever or could ever be is absolutely above him.

But that's presuming experience defines morality.
You tell yourself that, bub.
>Kant wasn't an atheist and was a heavy believer in god
Everyone and their grandpappy knows this, it's irrelevant.
>he believed you needed morality outside of god.
His opinions are irrelevant.

I don't see how saying 'I've read Steve Harvey' is incorrect. It's equivalent to saying 'I've read user' where user is me. You infact have and thereby have some semblance of what I am communicating. But please, argue how un-fallacious Kant is while being a fallacious cunt. You feeding your ego does not affect the falsity of Kant's statement or of mine. If you want to shitpost, go to one of the several designated shitposting boards and threads to do so.
False, you saying thing is wrong has no impact. You're a non-entity in comparison to God.

> MOMMA I MADE A FOOL OUT OF MYSELF
> HA, LUCKILY HIS OPINIONS ARE IRRELEVANT!

no, seriously, stop with this shitty b8.

You haven't explained why Kant is fallacious so it is impossible for me to argue against you.

It is incorrect to say you have read Steve Harvey on two levels: It is incorrect to do in the context of replying to me, since I wasn't telling you to read Steve Harvey, I was calling you Steve Harvey. It is incorrect to say rhetorically because he fucking agrees with you, you are saying the exact things Steve Harvey says just slightly more well formulated and equally retarded.

>You literally cannot have any moral compass as an atheist because you have no place to measure from.

So you're saying Buddhists don't have a moral compass?

How do you know what God's 'true' morals are? If your answer is The Bible, then who wrote it? How has it stayed perfectly unchanged for thousands of years?

what a noob

You keep saying that, bub
Maybe you shouldn't be extraneous then.
>dude your dumb because i said so
You aren't fallacious at all, nope.
Yes
God doesn't have morals, He has a will and that will is our sole form of morality.

Replace morality with will, and the challenge still remains, you are avoiding the question.

It's irrelevant is why.

You might wanna check out Buddhism or Taoism.

What edition do you subscribe to? What about Allah, and Jehovah, and Yahweh? Are they not all the same God? Is Jesus really God's incarnation, or a prophet?

Is this the only argument,
What you deem to be irrelevant?
If I believe god irrelevant would I not be correct by your logic?

>Yes
If that's the case I'm not sure if morality in an objective sense has any sort of value or validity. For the most part, the Buddhist moral precepts mirror those of Judeo-Christian values. In fact, there are some instances where Buddhist may be said to be more compassionate or empathetic than Christians. For instance, dedicated Buddhists traditionally swear to pacifism and vegetarianism. This is a result of their belief in Karma. Karma works much like God's decision to allot a being's soul to heaven or hell. Additionally, they have constructed laws (the Eightfold Path) to negotiate the operations of Karma in the best possible way.

In other words, they have both a rule system and an incentive to follow those rules. Their rule system happens to resemble a Judeo-Christian worldview quite closely.

So my questions to you are these:
- Why do you think a god has to have made the rules that govern the universe; why is Karma an insufficient model from which to derive morality? To me, agency has nothing to do with the validity or invalidity of the order of the universe.

- If Buddhists, for all intents and purposes, follow the same principle teachings of Christianity; compassion, preservation of truth, avoidance of damaging behaviors; excepting worshiping of the Judeo-Christian god, how do you interpret that they have no moral compass? For instance, if you were to encounter them, and they showed you immense kindness, but you had no way of conversing with them to find out whether they were doing so out of Buddhist or Christian teachings, why would it matter if the result was the same?

No. Life, and the world, must be experienced, to be experienced.

Irrelevant
>If that's the case I'm not sure if morality in an objective sense has any sort of value or validity.
My goodness are you stupid.
>- If Buddhists, for all intents and purposes, follow the same principle teachings of Christianity
They don't.

One can be virtuous and amoral you idiot. Here's a better example than your half-assed one: a religion that is EXACTLY like Christianity, somehow in every aspect save for they are technically atheistic, exists. This religion is virtuous but has no moral compass.

Learn to read before posting.

You didn't answer any of the questions in that post.

Learn to read before posting.

>follow the same principle teachings of Christianity; compassion, preservation of truth,
I'm sorry, what version of christianity is this?
Having soent 38 years in the church, I have yet to hear of this as an imperative in any denominatiin.

There were no questions to answer because it was built entirely on false premises and did not even interpret my argument correctly.

If somebody retorted 'are you a faggot?' to my post, should I also answer that question? No you fuckhead because it's irrelevant.

If you read the post in its entirety it would be clear that your response was out of context.

So, you make an assentation, yet fail to provide proof, physical or philosophical, to support your claims? What's more you complain of fallacys. What circle was it that hypocrites went?

> I'm sorry, what version of christianity is this?
Having soent 38 years in the church, I have yet to hear of this as an imperative in any denominatiin.
That's extremely sad. I hope you're trolling. If not, you've been totally misled your entire life and I'm sorry.

> “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
-Jesus

I did, I think you're just upset.
Proof of what you dirty empiricist?

>I did, I think you're just upset.
Please answer the following questions to the best of your ability:
- Why do you think a god has to have made the rules that govern the universe; why is Karma an insufficient model from which to derive morality?

- If Buddhists, for all intents and purposes, follow the same principle teachings of Christianity; compassion, preservation of truth, avoidance of damaging behaviors; excepting worshiping of the Judeo-Christian god, how do you interpret that they have no moral compass?

Ah, ad hominin.

I will wave your passage through limbo on the way to the 8th circle of hell.

>- Why do you think a god has to have made the rules that govern the universe; why is Karma an insufficient model from which to derive morality?
Are you presupposing the existence of Karma here?
>If Buddhists, for all intents and purposes, follow the same principle teachings of Christianity
This is a false statement. I also answered this already, you just ignored it because it upset you.
That's not ad hominem.

Learn to meditate and take mushrooms occasionally. And for your own sake, unlearn your cynicism. Realise how little you actually know, philosophy can help you there. Epistemology general, Hume on inference and Berkely's immaterialism are all great help in deconstructing that illusion of knowledge.

You attack my character rather than my argument, read, ad hominin.

Made me kek.

Antideps+therapy OP

>Are you presupposing the existence of Karma here?
No more than you are presupposing the existence of God here. If you would like, you could use your "Just like Christianity but no God" thought experiment. But I would prefer you would stick to Buddhism if you have enough brain cells.
>This is a false statement. I also answered this already, you just ignored it because it upset you.
Okay then. To put it into your terms, what distinguishes the virtuous from the moral and why is morality necessary if virtue is present?

Empiricism isn't your character.
I'm not presupposing the existence of God because God need not exist to have an influence.
>But I would prefer you would stick to Buddhism if you have enough brain cells.
Awww, he's insulting me because he's wrong.
>To put it into your terms, what distinguishes the virtuous from the moral and why is morality necessary if virtue is present?
Virtue is substanceless morality. I don't know how you can be so ignorant as to think a religion that A. has nothing to do with Christianity and is not similar in any way somehow is 'the same'; and B. somehow having the same moral compass despite rejecting the existence of the entity that provides the moral compass.

I would suggest abandoning your poor example.

>I'm not presupposing the existence of God because God need not exist to have an influence.
Karma need not either. Karma is traditionally believed to occur on a different plane of reality, beyond human understanding, in a realm of "omnipotence" much like your concept of God.

Your concept of God as being "beyond existence" has its own problems. There's still a clear belief you are holding that "God exists". If God transcended the boundary of existence and non-existence, he would both exist and not exist, and therefore you would both have and not have a moral compass. Therefore you would both have and not have morality. If that's the case then morality both does and does not matter. In essence, if you can't nail down the fact that your God exists, you cannot nail down your own morality, or even whether you are right or not about anything you could possibly think.

>Virtue is substanceless morality.
So are you telling me that Morality is Virtue + A Moral Compass?

No it isn't, you understand Buddhism as well as you understand Christianity
>he would both exist and not exist, and therefore you would both have and not have a moral compass.
How is this a problem
>So are you telling me that Morality is Virtue + A Moral Compass?
Morality is a directed virtue with an ends. A virtue otherwise is blind and vain.

>How is this a problem
The real problem is here:
> Therefore you would both have and not have morality.
It signifies that very action conducted is both moral and immoral. Whether you kill, steal, give to the homeless, or cure cancer, all actions you can take are in the same way both moral and immoral. Likewise, both those who believe in God and don't believe in God are in the same way both moral and immoral, because God both embodies and doesn't embody his negative counterpart, and therefore, atheists both do and do not believe in God, just like you.

There you go, presuming again.

Yes, this is the basic idea. Why do you think they always say Satan is just acting in God's plan in the end? Everything that happens is the will of the omnipotent God and goes towards his master plan, even things done directly to resist him. Fate and God are literally the same thing in the Christian conception, granted that they think this final Fate is generally good for humans and reflects God having pity.

You clearly believe in God. Just admit it. You detest the world in its degenerate state, and worship the "sense of wonder," the imaginative other world, the kingdom of Heaven, where "everything is vibrant and I feel happy," Stop calling yourself and atheist unless you want to live and die alone through eternity.