This is a guest post by Wade Preston.
I’m a theist, a Christian at that. However, I don’t hold this position intellectually — intellectually, I’d consider myself an agnostic. Existentially, I’m a Christian.
Because of this, I find myself more interested in what it means to “be an atheist” than why it is that atheists don’t believe in a god. I understand the intellectual side, I just can’t wrap my mind around the existential implications. I’m interested in what it is like to live in the understanding that there is nothing more than the empirically observable, physical cosmos.
I have many questions for atheists, but most of my friends aren’t real atheists. When I get to talking to them, for the most part, I find them to be agnostics who want to take a firm stance (usually against organized religion).
So, I have a head full of questions that I’d like to ask, with the hope of gaining some perspective on the atheistic worldview as opposed to its intellectual ideology. Please feel free to opine, and know that I don’t believe in proselytizing, so I have no agenda other than genuine interest and curiosity. (You’ll just have to take my word on that.)
I’ll start by lobbing up a softball…
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank” — Dante Gabriel Rossetti (often wrongly attributed to Chesterton).
Have you ever found yourself in this position?
Are you ever grateful for things that are out of your or anyone else’s control like the aesthetic beauty of nature, the health your children, a narrow escape from a potentially dangerous situation, etc.? If so, what do you believe is the object of your gratitude?
I think that’s an interesting question you got there. It also shows imediately the difference in world view between a religion and being an atheist.
I do not percieve things around me being made by someone or something, so i have no reason to be thankfull.
That doesn’t mean that the world around me doesn’t touch me.
It touches me very deeply.
When I see the sun, I smile. I don’t feel thankful that it’s there, but i feel joyfull for the warmth it gives me.
When hear a bird sing, i don’t feel thankful that it’s there, i feel happy and slightly amazed by the pretty tones the little animal is able to make.
The only times i’m thankful, is when the thing that’s happening is because of the action of someone else. Ergo.. a human being. So when a human makes me happy, i thank them for it.
On another example.. which is not that clear to define..
My cat has this knack for looking absolutely adorable.. and mewing in a totally cute way when i feel down.
I just look at her little head and i just have to smile.
I think that the joy that she gives me could be in a way seen as grattitude.. but not because “god” created a cat, but because i was lucky enough to get this little bugger in my house out of all the other cats that are around and she just looks stupidly adorable at times.
On another note.. keep the questions coming :)
I usually thank Harvey, as in Harvey Keitel. I believe he can kick Joe Pesci’s ass (George Carlin reference).
I guess this is the flip-side of “who do you blame when it all goes wrong but no one is at fault?”
In my case, I recognize the problem that Rossetti is talking about. Still, when I feel the upwelling of warmth and gratitude, I’ve learned to enjoy the warmth but shrug off the impulse to find someone to thank. I can, intellectually, disconnect the human tendency to assume that everything has an agent behind it. And also the tendency to assume that everything has to do with me.
So on that first warm spring day when the snow starts melting, I don’t cast my eyes heavenward. I can recognize that this warm sun has nothing to do with me and would have happened whether I existed or not.
The theist tendency to thank God for everything sometimes seems out of control. I can recognize that, say, the quarterback doesn’t want to thank himself after the big game. He wants to at least appear humble, so he thanks God. Still, I prefer the ones who thank their teammates, the coaches who trained them, the fans who supported then, the people who paid their exorbitant salaries, the wives who didn’t create a scandal over their infidelity, the doctors who provided the steroids … I seem to be wandering here.
Being an atheist, I don’t really think about these things at all. I’m quite content being ignorant to these matters, because they don’t really impact my life in any meaningful way anyway. What does it matter who I thank, and what should I give thanks for? Nature acts only on patterns, on instinct. It doesn’t do conscious acts for which I should consider myself thankful. That said, I don’t mean that I don’t appreciate those little things, because I do. However, my rational mind tells me that I should be in awe because of the sheer enormity of it all, nature, the universe, our existence, not because some one entity, for no reason, created everything just for me to look at.
I think I have the same problem you do, only in reverse. Having never been religious at any point in my life, I can’t even begin to understand what it is you see that I don’t.
Also, for me this isn’t my atheism talking, but then you sound like you already understand that. For me, even atheism is what defines me by what I’m not (does that even make sense?). I simply exist, and am quite content to keep doing so, regardless of why or how.
A lot of the way I feel has been covered above.
I don’t have a mindset that I’m being watched or watched over. My wife laughs at me for trapping insects and releasing them outside instead of just swatting them, but I’m not doing that because they’re God’s creatures and he might judge me … I’m doing it because I don’t think it’s a positive thing to end even a insect life if there’s a choice not to.
When people thank God, it makes me uncomfortable – I think he gets a lot of credit for other people’s work and a lot of dumb luck. If my son was rescued from a burning building and six other kids died … how could I thank God for that? If he deserves the credit for my son, he deserves the blame for the other six.
I’d feel thankful to the fireman, or the designer of firedoors and smoke alarms, in that circumstance, I suppose. My first instinct would be to feel terrible for the other parents and wonder if there was anything I could do to help.
When something happens that leads me to be thankful (or conversely bitter), well I feel those ways. But I do not personify them. It actually took a bit of doing to stop immediately feeling good/bad toward some “thing,” but this is a learned behavior that is culturally embedded. If you grew up in a completely atheistic household, you could not escape the looking toward the “other” for all things good and bad. You cant watch a sporting event without being exposed to 40 or 50 sessions of appreciation to the “other.” When people do good or ill towards us, we feel appreciative or vengeful, we personify nature the same way.
Pascalle worded my point of view in this quite well. VorJack also nails it on the head. I don’t thank anyone for that class 5 hurricane or 60 foot high tsunami or 9 Richter scale earthquake not happening where I live. The universe is a vast, uncaring place and we’re small, insignificant creatures with a hugely inflated sense of self-importance scurrying around on a tiny, fragile rock.
That thought doesn’t depress me, it delights me.
P.S. Kudos to Wade for daring to tread on this blog, and kudos to Daniel for giving up the stage to opposing voices now and then.
I’ve spend some time on this question as well. When I first decided I was an atheist (as opposed to being one and just ignoring the issue which is how I spent most of my earlier days) I went through a conditioning process to eliminate the canned “Thank whatever” response.
I now find that I certainly can still feel moved by nature, pleased by success and disappointed by failure and those emotions are actually made more “real” by the knowledge that the underlying events are the results of natural forces, luck, good (and bad) timing and other factors rather than the intervention of a deity.
My point is simple, but it may take some time to get there: If I were to turn my back for a moment and then look back only to find the object of my desire there, a steaming cup of coffee with a couple sugar packs and some creamer, presented to me anonymously, I would naturally look around for who did this fine thing. It is completely natural to look for cause and effect in your life for everything. But I know rationally that some things are simply beyond any willful and conscious control. Plane crashes, tsunamis, cancer. The injustice of these thing simply ‘is’ and is not attributable to any agent, natural or supernatural. But people, including me, still instinctively look for a cause for these things. It is tidier and more pleasant. For the faithful everything has that supernatural agent which I guess is comforting to them and provides meaning. For me it is chance and tectonics and worn hydraulic hoses. I am unable to willfully believe in the supernatural causes for things and live pretty comfortably with the uncertainty of the real world.
I think that feeling gratitude for natural events is learned behaviour.
I’ve never been religious (though I’ve tried, once or twice), and I’ve never been “grateful” that the sun rose, or that I didn’t get hit by lightning. I suspect that you need to be taught that these things are gifts from God, and that you should thus be grateful for them before you actually start feeling grateful.
Also, I’m with Steve on the insects.
A very good question.
The problem is that Atheists don’t recognise that there is “someone” to thank. We would agree, I feel sure, that we have a strong human urge to ascribe agency to things we feel have control over us, to anthropomorphise things. (God, Motherland, Fatherland, Uncle Sam, Britannia or Mother Nature etc) But the atheist just sees this for what it is, just a part of being human.
We do it all the time, words from a book can make a character almost come to life, we “get” their personality, they are as real to us as people we’ve never physically met.
Why should I thank someone who does not actually exist, except as a concept?
In many of the situations where people thank a god, there are actually humans that should be thanked. It really bothers me when someone survives a stroke or heart attack because of the skill of doctors and nurses and the science and technology of a modern hospital, then they give their god all the credit.
When there’s no human to thank, I just enjoy it. I recognize that a flower is brightly colored, not because a god painted it for my pleasure, but because flowers whose genes program for bright coloring are more likely to attract insects, be pollinated and reproduce. I’m amazed at that process and the things it has produced.
We have no body to give thanks to except ourselves. Everything that happens in this world happens through man’s actions or the workings of nature. When something good happens to me, it is usually the result of my hard work so I treat myself.
The need to thank someone implies that there is a higher power whose intervention allowed that good thing to happen to you.
I got into the college of my choice with an academic scholarship worth rougly half of my tuition. A higher being did not do that. I did that.
If I win the lottery, it is the result of random chance. God did not reach into the Powerball Machine and select my balls. It was pure luck.
A plane crashes with me inside it. Either a mechanic did not do his job, or the pidgeons really like engines. Either way, it is not god’s fault.
I look at the beauty of nature and find it amazing that life could come in so many different varieties, and come together so well without any divine intervention. The fact that it is pure nature is awe-inspiring. Just as god did not build the skyscraper, neither did he build nature.
When I avoid something bad it is usually my fault I got into it anyways. Usually I get myself out, sometimes random luck gets me out. Either way, its not god.
I am a firm believer that every person charts their own course. Almost everything that happens to them in their life is a direct result of their own actions, so when something good happens, thank yourself.
(Guest post… I like!)
First, I second everything Martin said.
As far as the existential implications, I’ve just never really considered them seriously. Why would I need to?
Does it affect how I get up in the morning? How I put my pants on? Does it affect my work? My relationships? My diet?
No. It only would, if I chose to think about it.
The only reason (unless I chose to sit around and contemplate my existence for some reason) that I would question WHY I am here, or WHAT my purpose is, is if someone told me that what I believe about my existence does have implications. However, because I have had very little exposure to religion in my life, no one has ever told me this. So, I have just lived my life at the level of which my upbringing has encouraged me to do so. And I have been very happy.
Do I have regrets? Sure. Do I have wishes? Sure. Do I ask myself questions? Sure. But I know that I hold the playbook for my own existence, and anything I could have done or could do is entirely up to me. Some would be frightened by that. I happen to not be.
I also very much agree with Adamus:
I practically minored in astronomy in college. Everyday I would just get blown away at the immensity of the universe. I knew that even though I gained only a tiny fraction more understanding of it, that most people, including myself, could never even begin to imagine the totality of it all. The distances, the time, the energy…
Everyday I would feel more humbled at the face of this knowledge.
But, like others have said, this doesn’t make me feel alone, or want to attribute my place in it all to the idea that I was created special, by a special person. This humble feeling gives me delight because I have confidence in the human mind to allow us to experience this existence in all that is possible. To explore. To learn. I am impressed with what humans have accomplished, and I am (mostly) confident that we will continue to exist to the best of our ability, and I believe all of that can be done without thinking that there must be something more.
@McBloggenstein
“… I believe all of that can be done without thinking that there must be something more.”
It always the question that I find most interesting — because we have developed the capacity to think there might be more why do we wish to assume that there is more regardless of the evidence. I don’t see the difficulty in believing that we aren’t special and weren’t created by a special person, why would we think that?
I do a lot of hiking and frequently pause to reflect upon the beauty of my surroundings, the good fortune which allows me the time, energy and opportunity to reflect upon them. I can’t say I’ve ever felt the urge to “thank” anyone or anything so perhaps I’m the wrong person to ask.
I will say that pausing for a moment to think about the richness and complexity behind everything we see makes everything seem more poignant and amazing. If you see a field of wildflowers, instead of thanking God which adds little in my opinion, consider the briefness of the bloom, the rich ecosystem which exists to pollinate and nurture the blossoms and the different strategies each flower uses to survive. I think Carl Sagan thought about the molecules of scent and how we detected them. All of this adds to the richness of the experience and makes us aware that all of this arises through good fortune and hard work and all can be taken away through equally small events. Again this is just me, but I think that’s not just a more honest appraisal but a more meaningful one.
This works well even for mundane events. Instead of a prayer before meals, think briefly about the people who worked to plant and harvest the crops and the animals who may have (unwillingly) given their lives that you may eat. Food doesn’t appear on your plate through the grace of God, hell no, it appears through the hard work and determination of many unrecognized and unthanked people.
Dropping God for a reality-based life adds richness and depth, it doesn’t take anything away.
…. no? I don’t mean to sound horrible, here – but there’s a lot of presupposition in both the quote and the question.
I do not believe in God (or any other sort of active, local, supernatural agency with whatever attributes you’d care to assign). I don’t believe in a ‘higher purpose’ or a ‘divine plan’ – and I don’t shake my fist at some God when the river floods because there’s too much rain or the stock market crashes because even after several hundred years, bankers don’t understand risk or money. Similarly, I’m not going to attribute good luck or good timing to a God that doesn’t exist.
I’m not a special snowflake. I’m no better or worse than anyone around me, or any other creature on this planet (or, hopefully, any other!) … and that’s okay. I have no one to thank because, frankly, sometimes it falls your way, sometimes it doesn’t – and though it certainly feels good when it does, next week something else will happen that sends you another direction, offers another challenge.
So.. assuming I have ‘gratitude’ when things go well? I don’t. No more than I have ‘anger’ when things go poorly. But I can safely say I have ‘joy’, and ‘happiness’, ‘excitement’ and ‘irritation’ – a dozen other emotions, in fact, that are similar but don’t rely on placing blame or credit.
The funny thing is – I’m less ‘me’ centric now than I was. Good things that happen to me matter less than good things I can make happen for other people – as that’s ultimately more important. We get one pass through. One try – and if I don’t do my part to make other people’s journey worthwhile, when I’m gone, what meaning will my life have had?
It’s certainly a more active philosophy than reading a bible and praying about being a better person. Just.. go out and be a better person, and stop /worrying/ about gratitude.
*grins*
Yes, I am in awe of the beauty and wonder of the universe, and our planet here. If you watch the BBC series Planet Earth, you can’t help but be stuck by how amazing this planet is, and the life that inhabits it.
I don’t have children myself (yet), but I am grateful for the health of my nephews, who I care for as much as if they were my own children.
More times than I care to recall
Yes, I’d guess in most people’s lives there are countless things they are grateful for, that there is not a specific person or thing to thank. In many cases these people thank “god” or “karma” or something else along those lines.
For me personally, I don’t really thank a person, or a deity or whatever. I am just thankful that of all the possible outcomes that I happened to be alive to enjoy whatever it is that I am appreciating at that moment.
If you accept that the big bang led to star formation. Those stars exploded seeding the universe with heavier atoms. New stars formed, planets formed around many of them. On at least one of those planets, life arose, evolved intelligence, disasters happened killing off some species so that others could arise, continued to evolve leading eventually to humans, (and somewhere during all of this consciousness arose), eventually a married man cheated on his wife and knocked up his daughter’s nurse, and 9 months (give or take) later she walked into the office of an OBGYN who actually did abortions for a living (this was before he became a born-again christian) who’s single live birth in his career was me, the odds of that are incredible.
The odds that SOME life would be happen are probably reasonable, but it leading specifically to me would be off the charts.
Me living, you living, any of us even being alive to pose these questions is one of the most extraordinary things to attempt to comprehend.
So surviving a car accident is minor. Being (relatively) healthy is minor. Seeing a nice sunset is minor.
Being alive at all, is where I am most awe-struck. Of all the possibilities that could have occurred, the one where I am here to reply to this post, is the one that happened.
How f’ing cool is that.
As a former Christian, I find myself having moments where I would have previously thanked god for something. Not in a fall-on-my-knees kind of way, but in a “Thank god!” way. I have to agree with wintermute, that this is learned behavior. But I dont know that it is specifically taught behavior. My partner did not grow up religious, but the exclamation “thank god” has worked itself into the vernacular – much as goddamn, or “to hell with that.”
I’ve hit a point where I just let it be. When I say “thank god for that,” I realize that it is a meaningless phrase that has become part of my vernacular. I can fight it, but when I narrowly miss hitting a squirrel, or I realize that my mortgage check has not bounced, or that that mole is just a regular mole… I revert in moments of gut reaction. I don’t believe that I am thanking a god.
Now to the real question – when I stop and think about the good things, am I grateful. Yes. I’m grateful for the society that treasures the arts enough to give me a paid job. I’m grateful that my credit was once decent enough to get a good mortgage. I’m grateful for the farmers who grow or raise my food. But I don’t know if I am grateful that my house didn’t get hit by a tornado.
I was brought up to believe that you should be thankful for the good things in your life. Is it ok to be thankful in general, but not TO a specific person/thing? Or do we use the word “thankful” to cover the feelings of relief, happiness, amazement, etc? Because saying I am happy I found my wife is true, but it doesn’t begin to cover the depth of the feeling – thankful comes closer.
When I feel grateful – and there is someone in my life responsible for that feeling – I thank them. As in thanking my wife for chosing to be with me.
When I narrowly avoid a bad situation – like a car accident – I don’t feel grateful. I feel lucky. The world is a random place, sometimes that’s beneficial, other times it’s detrimental.
The health of my children doesn’t really make me feel grateful either, and I’m preplexed that this would cause feelings of gratitude. It certainly makes me happy, and a lack of health would make me very unhappy, but not grateful or ungrateful.
I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t ever really feel gratitude in situations where I can’t pin point that there is someone to be grateful to. It’s not until I realize that someone has done something deserving of gratitude that the emotion arises.
Here is my return question – why would you assume that gratitude is applicable when there is no evidence that anyone did anything for which you should be grateful?
Coming at this as an intellectual agnostic and an existential Atheist, I guess my personal solution to this issue is to make a conscious effort to dissolve the putative barrier that separates natural from artificial. When humans (and their achievements) are considered simply an extension of the natural world, the problem of externalizing feeling of thankfulness dissolves into the simple awe of being a participant in this universe, it being packed chock-full of cool phenomena which are endlessly fascinating and through our participation which we are partially privy.
I’m with Adamus, sort of, on “The universe is a vast, uncaring place and we’re small, insignificant creatures with a hugely inflated sense of self-importance scurrying around on a tiny, fragile rock.[...]That thought doesn’t depress me, it delights me.” Except that to the extent we are part of the universe, the universe is not an uncaring place. We care (i.e. we create meaning(s)), and we are part of (one of the phenomena of) the universe.
I’m not an atheist, so i can’t speak to the question, but kudos to Daniel for promoting an open discussion forum. Good answers as well, its interesting to to see perspectives that differ from one’s own.
Haven’t read the thread yet, but I did want to make a request to the author. Can you please explain what is meant by this:
“intellectually, I’d consider myself an agnostic. Existentially, I’m a Christian.”
I have no idea what it is you’re trying to communicate there.
Hm… that is an interesting question. To be honest, I am not sure.
I don’t think that I have ever been in that position. Not as an Atheist, at least.
I think that, rather than feeling a need to thank someone, I am just relieved, happy, and thankful, but not necessarily to anyone in specific. Just thankful in general.
Do you know what I mean?
Wade: I think you’re more sincerely interested in the real answer to this question than most Christians who ask it. For most, this is a try at a “gotcha”. Like most, it’s based on a fallacy, one into which you, too, have innocently fallen.
Only when you presume a Creator/Operator for the universe, then do you put yourself in the position of owing It thanks whenever things go well for you.
Once you accept that obligation to thank as axiomatic, subtracting the Creator/Operator leaves you with a dangling need to thank and nowhere to send the gratitude.
Recognize that the need to thank “the universe” is absurd. The universe doesn’t care if I get sucked into a jet engine or not. If I avoid getting sucked into a jet engine, and there’s anyone to thank for that, it’s whoever taught me the meaning of the big yellow semicircle painted on the ramp.
@ All
Thanks for the honest responses. I am really enjoying reading them. I feel as though I am getting deeper insights into my own spirituality.
I particularly like this from Sarah…
I think that being thankful is always a good thing, even if there isn’t and exact object of that thankfulness.
GK Chesterton said, “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
I think even atheists should say grace. As Tyro posted earlier,
I believe that pausing, that slowing down to reflect, makes life better, sweeter, and more meaningful. I love the insight of thanking the people who are behind these things. Though, I see them as agents of divine grace, and you see them as self made people of a particular skill, gratitude should always be due to them.
These thoughts make me want to buy more fair trade goods and more handmade items. It is becoming clear to me that gratitude has a way of bringing morality into the realm of consumption. I can be thankful for the vessel crafted by the potter, but I cannot in good conscience be thankful for the shoes woven by children in the poverty of foreign sweatshops.
________________________________________________
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Well first off, thank you Wade Preston for this post.
I have never thanked a god for anything. But I used to say that, “thank gawd!” Not really thanking anyone, just a leftover habit from everyone else saying it.
It’s funny how religious people cannot understand how atheists don’t believe in gods, and on the flip side, I don’t understand how my sister, intelligent as she is, believes in an invisible entity.
I totally agree with the very first poster on this.
Daniel, you rock. I love your blog.
If there is a creator of the universe, why would he possibly need miniscule humans to praise and give him thanks? Doesn’t that make him a bit weak and self-conscious to need validation from humans?
If this creator wanted our thanks he wouldn’t be invisible. Believing without seeing and giving thanks to a person don’t see makes you one step away from a crazy person.
19 years ago I called myself agnostic, rather than the atheist I consider myself to be now. The most powerful feeling of gratitude and or connection I ever experienced was at the birth of my son. Even then, the thankfulness was not towards any God or religion, but rather an immense gratitude for life itself – of being part of the circle of life.
I think this really comes down to a misdiagnosis of emotion. It’s not gratitude you’re feeling, it’s gladness.
“I think even atheists should say grace.”
And I think even theists should be able to be thankful without using rituals to express that. Now, I absolutely understand your point, and this was not an attempt to mock it. I just want to highlight that as individual and different as we all are, we all have different ways of dealing with both ourselves and the things around us, and no way is more right or true than the other. If you think saying grace makes your life richer, that’s great. For me, it doesn’t, and not because I’m an atheist either
Like I wrote previously, I can appreciate my surroundings without making an overt and conscious gesture. Since this gesture, whatever the form it might take, only makes a difference to myself anyway, what’s the point? Should I have to stop and tell myself what it is that I’m feeling? Sometimes, maybe, but I wouldn’t build my existence on it.
I think this is a personal philosophy that greatly transcends any religion, or lack thereof, and that is deeply personal. To be told what to do, based on what I don’t believe, is meaningless and unnecessary.
Thank you, though, Wade, for an interesting and thoughtful post.
I don’t thank anyone. I acknowledge that the universe isn’t here on my behalf and I acknowledge the beauty I see isn’t for me, or anyone but for itself – and I see many kinds of beauty.
In the beauty of the sunrise is the glory of the planets, the stars, the laws of physics that underlie it all, spinning through a universe uncaring of my existence.
In the maggots of a corpse, the promise of recapitulation, of continuation of everything by the sequence of death and life that created us, but cares not one whit for what it does.
In the constructions of Man, I find the only purpose in the universe, a thing both great and fragile.
These things are. To imagine a great “creator” is only to trivialize the universe.
“I’m interested in what it is like to live in the understanding that there is nothing more than the empirically observable, physical cosmos.”
I suspect it’s a lot like you live right now except for the indifference to what the spirits think about my actions, and lack of hope/fear of what happens after I’m dead or a desire to get all of my friends/loved ones on the same page so I may be with them in the afterlife.
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank” — Dante Gabriel Rossetti (often wrongly attributed to Chesterton).”
Can you provide an example of that situation?
“Are you ever grateful for things that are out of your or anyone else’s control like the aesthetic beauty of nature”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are many things that I find beautiful that other people would find repugnant or indifferent. Since beauty is a creation of my mind I feel no need to thank others for my perceptions.
“the health your children”
Luck, Genetics and the Food I feed them and the Medical care I provide to them don’t contribute to their well being?
“a narrow escape from a potentially dangerous situation”
Luck, Observational skills, and the Wit to act on them don’t deserve any credit?
When I’m thankful I don’t feel the need to attribute it to a “thing.” I have never once felt sad that I don’t have something or someone to thank (or blame, for that matter). I’m thankful for thankful’s sake.
So basically what Adamus said (much more eloquently than I could).
Stop acting like Christianity is something ‘real’. It’s a worthless discussion. Reality is real. . that’s it.
Tyro
Yes.
Sundog
Double yes.
I have many questions for atheists, but most of my friends aren’t real atheists…
I have many questions for theists. but most of my friends aren’t real theists. When they are sick, they want real medicine, when they fly, they want a skilled pilot, when their house is alight, they want a real fire department to quell the flames; instead of just praying to a supernatural entity to take care of all their problems.
‘The universe is a vast, uncaring place and we’re small, insignificant creatures with a hugely inflated sense of self-importance scurrying around on a tiny, fragile rock.
That thought doesn’t depress me, it delights me.’
I find ‘an uncaring universe’ immensely more attractive as an idea than that we’re in some sort of reality show or science project for the gods. I think the implications of the universe we actually observe being run by a god are horrifying, not comforting. Someone *making* the bad things happen is terrifying.
But, at heart, like a lot of people are saying … I just don’t buy the premise of a directed universe. I just don’t think that way. The universe acts like there’s no god, I don’t see any need to argue with it.
LOL
I was going to say that because Wade described himself as intellectually agnostic, perhaps his friends were the same. However he introduced the sentence you quoted by saying “When I get to talking to them, for the most part, I find them to be agnostics who want to take a firm stance (usually against organized religion).”
Maybe Wade can tell us what distinguishes a “real atheist” from these “fake” agnostics.
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank” — Dante Gabriel Rossetti (often wrongly attributed to Chesterton).
Have you ever found yourself in this position?
No. Is it possible for someone to win a lottery, or a sporting event, without imagining that some invisible sky pixie handed it to them? Can a person feel fortunate, or as you would term it “thankful” without an object of that thankfulness? I say yes.
And what about all those times when thanks goes to the invisible sky pixie rather than to actual humans who undertook heroic measures to provide a good outcome? Say, they landed a disabled plane, or successfully tried a novel and innovative new surgery technique, only to have the recipient and the media prattle on about “miracles”? It’s quite distasteful.
Stop acting like Christianity is something ‘real’. It’s a worthless discussion. Reality is real. . that’s it.
Nothing that Shakespeare wrote really happened either (even the histories are embellished beyond historical recognition). Doesn’t mean we can’t get something out of reading the plays and talking about them.
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank”
When a christian get’s cancer who does he blame?
God works in mysterious ways I guess…
Imagist
This is interesting, I think.
Besides the fact that life exists (of which it’s origin is an ongoing debate), or for events of pure chance going one’s way, cannot everything else in our experience of life be explained by either the actions of others, or the laws of nature?
I’m very puzzled by your statement here, Wade:
To me, this cheapens the actions of others. What it means to me is that everything that is them – the whole of their identity – must always somewhat be attributed to something other than them.
This idea saddens me. A volunteer firefighter, having been raised by loving parents, having been taught the golden rule, having the understanding that perhaps in order for their life to have meaning that they should make some efforts to help others… I want to attribute his actions 100% to him/her. Not 90/10, or 60/40.
I consider myself an atheist because I don’t see any evidence for god but I can understand the agnostic perspective. I sympathize with those who say “perhaps there is some sort of god out there” because we really don’t know when it comes down to it. Perhaps that makes me “not a real atheist” by Wade’s standards, but I think most atheists would agree that we cannot definitely rule out the existence of some sort of god.
However, there is a huge leap from acknowledging the possibility of some sort of god to agreeing to worship the specific god of the bible. That’s where you’ve lost me. Why the Christian god and not all the others? Do you find the bible that convincing? Doesn’t the god of the Old Testament especially seem like a bit of a monster? I don’t get it.
Oh, and if my worst moment as an atheist is not having anyone to thank I can deal with that just fine. Better than when I was in the church wondering why god was punishing me when every time something bad happened.
First, I’d like to point out that agnosticism isn’t some nebulous middle-ground. You either believe in a god and are hence a theist, or do not and are atheist. Agnosticism is entirely separate.
Second, on your question, no. That’s never come up. I can’t add anything to it, because it doesn’t make any sense.
This idea saddens me.
Me too, to a point. Credit where credit is due is an important thing.
A volunteer firefighter, having been raised by loving parents, having been taught the golden rule, having the understanding that perhaps in order for their life to have meaning that they should make some efforts to help others… I want to attribute his actions 100% to him/her. Not 90/10, or 60/40.
I think it is legitimate to give some credit to all those structures and people who built those structures that make it possible for the firefighter to do all those things. He gets all the credit for doing the work to achieve what he achieves, but he is only capable of achieving these things because there exists a society with specialization of labor, a health care system, economy, primacy of science, etc. ad nauseam. Those systems exist because of the hard work of many other people.
I don’t think that credit should (or does) diminish in any way the credit due the firefighter, by which the things you list *would not be achieved* but for his choices and efforts.
Hello,
First, agnosticism and atheism (or for that matter theism) are not incompatible. You can be agnostic and atheist, or agnostic and theist, or gnostic and atheist or gnostic and theist.
Kind of like how you can have blue or brown eyes and can have blond or brown hair in any combination.
Agnostic is referring to knowledge, not belief. when someone says they are agnostic what they are really saying is that at the heart of it all they don’t REALLY 100% know if they are right. For example I am an agnostic atheist. I strongly believe that there is no god because there has never been any compelling evidence for it, but I don’t have physical proof that there isn’t one either. That’s where the agnosticism comes in, because really no one can know for sure. What I have done is base my belief on the evidence, or lack thereof and chosen what seems most likely to me.
Saying your a gnostic means that you know, or think you know, 100% that your position is correct. Atheist or theist.
So being a theist and agnostic is not something you have to separate. You can be both at the same time without contradiction from whatever perspective you are. Colloquially we use a somewhat different definition of agnostic, but if you tell your friends we can get it right, one person at a time!
As for gratitude, when there is something or someone to be grateful to, say my parents, I feel grateful. I don’t extend any to god because I don’t think he exists.
If there is no one to shift gratitude towards, then I simply try to experience the joy of the situation. To be happy that I got to do or see something or someone wonderful.
The same goes in reverse too, but this is actually far harder. Whenever something goes wrong in a person’s life that person feels a strong inward pressure to give it meaning. I often have to remind myself that when a bad thing happens that it IS just random and non-meaningful. This is very difficult at times and I think that every atheist probably struggles with it. I also think it is innate in our thinking, which is why it is even a problem in the first place.
Hope this helps!
The question presumes that gratitude requires an object. I don’t think that’s the case. That, or there should be different words to differentiate between gratitude with and without an object.
dododod,
If that’s your definition, “agnosticism” doesn’t mean anything other than you’re open to evidence which should go without saying. You’re right that it deals with knowledge but it isn’t everything other than absolute certainty, agnosticism deals with the case where you’re split down the middle and don’t have enough information to make a decision. It means that you do not have enough knowledge to decide, not that you don’t have enough knowledge to be absolutely, 100% certain since nothing is ever 100% certain. Agnosticism is the ultimate fence-sitter. If you think there’s evidence both ways and you don’t have enough information to make a decision then I think you’d be agnostic.
As it stands, I doubt you’re a fence-sitter, you’ve made the decision. You, like the rest of us, are open to new evidence and would change your views but I don’t think that makes you agnostic.
Not a big deal but this “oooh, I’m not an atheist, I’m an agnostic atheist” doesn’t make you sound more reasonable, it makes other atheists sound dogmatic. It’s why Wade talks to his friends and says they aren’t “real atheists” even though, but all accounts, they don’t believe in God and so, yes, are real atheists. This dogmatic atheist is a bit of a strawman – they may exist, but are probably confined to a few high school children, rebelling against God by listening to heavy metal and sulking.
The question presumes that gratitude requires an object. I don’t think that’s the case. That, or there should be different words to differentiate between gratitude with and without an object.
An excellent point.
@John
I could write pages in reply to this. I’ll try to simplify it as much as possible… Basically, I don’t believe that any amount of scientific, philosophical, or theological research will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of God or gods. (read: the hypothesis of God’s existence is as non-falsifiable as the hypothesis of his non-existence). So, intellectually… I would say that leaves me agnostic.
However, I have existential experience that tells there is a God, and this God is a personal God, who (for reasons that I can’t grasp) seems to have taken an interest in my life. I have little empirical evidence to back up the legitimacy of this claim. But, it is real in my life to an extent that is undeniable. I’m not going to deny that it may seem absurd from the outside looking in. But, it is nonetheless true.
I will give you two quotes that are will never win any converts. (but, as I have stated, that’s not why I’m here) I realize, too, that the contents of each will not make my worldview more appealing to very many of you, and that they could also leave me open to much intellectual ridicule. But, in the interest of honesty I will share them, because they really do sum up the angst that exists between my intellect and my spirit.
As long as I keep my hold on the proof, i.e., continue to demonstrate, the existence [of God] does not come out, if for no other reason than that I am engaged in proving it; but when I let the proof go, the existence is there. But this act of letting go is surely also something; it is indeed a contribution of mine. Must not this also be taken into account, this little moment, brief as it may be, it need not be long, for it is a leap.” — Søren Kierkegaard
I’m sure this was a very dismal attempt to answer your question. But I hope it, at least, made some progress toward understanding. I’d love to defer further explanations to Elemenope as he will know exactly what I am talking about here, being my atheist doppelganger. (sorry to put you on the spot, there, El)
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank” — Dante Gabriel Rossetti
I stopped for a second to think why someone would make this assertion. What is bad about it? To have nobody to thank?
I think what the assertion is really suggesting is that one is lonely without God. After all, I can be in a grateful state without being grafeful to someone in particular. I don’t think that concept is hard to grasp. Ultimately, I think it is the relationship assumption that theists come back to.
To imagine a great “creator” is only to trivialize the universe.
This is the comment from above that resonated the most with me. I don’t know the proper nomenclature that would describe my views but I am not opposed to the idea of a single creator. I just look at the expanse of the universe and notice that, thus far, all of our attempts to describe a creator have been too small for the actual beauty that we can both see and imagine.
FWIW, I’ve always viewed the gnostic/agnostic question as one of knowledge, and the theist/atheist question as a “mere” decision. A person chooses to be a theist or an atheist, and that choice is all that marks the distinction. Gnosticsm/agnosticism would be an expression of how confident one is in the information and analytical tools one has at their disposal that assist in making/reinforcing the decision.
I must echo much of what is said here. I, like Martin, have never been a believer at any point in my life, so I am quite mystified by those who are. I don’t understand why people feel they must find someone to thank. When I was a kid and heard people say grace, I’d think to myself, “You should be thanking the people who made this meal possible. Why aren’t you doing that?” When I hear someone say they’re “blessed” or that a talented person is “gifted” I cringe. I cringe because our evolving, natural world is such an awesome, wonderful place that I find it sad when people think that some guy in the sky just snapped his fingers to make it so and that we are just his playthings. That’s not inspirational, that’s depressing! It doesn’t even make sense to me. I will never understand it, and I often find myself twisting my brain in knots trying to do so.
This is not to say I’m not thankful. I’m thankful to the loving, intelligent and creative parents who gave me my love of books and science and art. I’m glad that I didn’t have video games as a child and, therefore, had to look out the window on long car trips so I could think and wonder and be amazed at the beauty of the world around me. I’m most thankful to my mother for showing me how to find joy in the smallest of things. There is just so much out there to see and to know and to explore! How can anyone be content with sitting back and thinking a god is responsible? How can someone delight in their own uniqueness with a mindset like that? In America, we are taught that we must work hard for what we want. But if god just directs our lives at his whim, then is that the meaning of life? What is at all comforting about that? If you live your life according to some old rule book just so you can go to heaven instead of hell after you’re dead, then what can you claim as your humanity? That’s so selfish.
Do I wish I had grown up in a religious home? Do I wish I had known the unique community that churchgoers enjoy? Never! I have never, ever wished for that. I’ve never found that there was anything spiritual lacking in my life and I have not felt one bit of regret, not one ounce of longing for it. I am thankful that my mind has not been burdened by superstition and blind faith from which I can’t escape. I so admire those who abandon their faith and become agnostic or atheist. I realize that must be a very hard thing to do. But what I am thankful for are my family and my dear friends, for I would not be the person I am without them.
@Nougat
The question presumes that gratitude requires an object. I don’t think that’s the case. That, or there should be different words to differentiate between gratitude with and without an object.
I confess. It is a loaded question. However, “none” is an acceptable answer as well. But, I do think exploring the possibility of an object is worthwhile, whether that exploration yields such an object or not.
It’s an interesting question, but also with a built-in assumption that a warm feeling of enjoyment automatically invokes a feeling of gratitude. It also implies that there is value in assigning an agent to that feeling of gratitude when you do have it.
The quick answer is that *if* I do have a feeling of gratitude and can’t identify anyone to thank, I generally just realize I made an incorrect inference.
It is no different from an optical illusion, almost literally. An optical illusion is a inference in the brain about what you are seeing based on visual information provided to it. But it is an incorrect inference. Human brains are structured largely as a set of inference systems acting on ontological templates. (See Pascal Boyer’s “Religion Explained” for a good academic discussion on this.) We naturally infer things without thought because that’s what these inference systems do. Much of the time they are correct which is what gives them evolutionary value, but they are often incorrect.
I have no problem with shrugging off any such feeling as a mistaken assumption any more than an optical illusion. Believing the feeling is correct is no more justified that believing a wagon wheel actually did reverse at a certain speed even when the wagon is still moving forward.
This inference error can even go a level deeper. It seems you have the feeling of gratitude, for instance, when a child is born health. But that is the norm. Rather than feeling gratitude, one should feel relief that events out of your control did not lead to an unhealthy child. It is analogous to placing a bet on the roll of a die where you lose if a 6 shows up but win with any other number. Do you feel thankful if a 1-5 shows up, or relieved that a 6 didn’t?
What gratitude I did feel at my child’s birth was towards the efforts of minimizing what risks there were based on the best scientific knowledge. It was aimed at everybody who contributed to it, though not individually identified. That includes everyone from my wife for doing the recommended things, to the doctors and nurses who recommended them, to the scientists who have studied it and come up with recommendations, to the organizations that fund these things (e.g., Health Canada), to the people who set up such organizations, to the people who support the existence of such programs, etc. Obviously you can’t identify and specify each.
As a feedback question, who do you blame when things go wrong and can’t identify a person? Who do you blame for optical illusions, or do you realize it is an error in the natural processes in your brain?
I am clearly an atheist. I have no doubts that no god or gods exist. I have no time for the superstitious nature that seems to so easily permeate the minds of man.
Your question lends itself to a variety of issues and concerns. I might postulate that there is some inherit quality in humanity, a part of his nature, that leaves him wanting to be thankful for when things are good and bountiful and someone to blame or question when things are bad.
It would appear to be part of our nature. Perhaps part of our nature due to cultural conditioning. No doubt I have some innate instinct to be thankful/questioning/annoyed with the cosmos when things go my way/don’t go my way, but I refuse to equate this conditioning with the need to believe in a god or gods.
Those of a religious persuasion often ask the question “How can you not believe there is a God? How did you get to be here? Or the Earth?”
I’m quite content to believe that all of this; me, the Earth, the cosmos, exist simply because they do. Because it is the way this existence, as we know and understand it, is meant to be.
Just because I cannot explain everything doesn’t mean I have to chuck it all up to a supreme deity or deities. To do so seems the easier way out. The lazy way out. And for me that is what religion is about: intellectual laziness. Amongst other things.
I thank my wife for doing her kegel exercises. Oh my goodness.
Just because I cannot explain everything doesn’t mean I have to chuck it all up to a supreme deity or deities. To do so seems the easier way out. The lazy way out. And for me that is what religion is about: intellectual laziness. Amongst other things.
Many people believe in God not to have access to some explanatory hypothesis. For them it has nothing to do with explaining the gaps, and everything to do with situating themselves in the universe; finding a sense of place and purpose.
There’s nothing lazy about that.
“To imagine a great “creator” is only to trivialize the universe.”
I don’t understand how this is the case. Yes, if there is a creator, we must move the universe down one rung lower on the ladder of totality. But, if there is a creator, and his creation (i.e., the universe) is perhaps the most significant way to interact with and understand the creator, then I don’t understand how that is a trivialization. In my eyes, the universe and the study of it are just as important if we live under the assumption that there is a creator behind it. Furthermore, if we live in the belief that this creator is a personal god, then the universe has become more important to us, as the physical manifestation of the one who holds the key to our existence and meaning.
As I have stated, the idea of a creator, could possibly make the universe appear slightly less important by comparison, but to use the term “trivialize” seems like a pretty big stretch to me.
Tyro
I disagree.
Calling oneself agnostic doesn’t mean they haven’t made a decision yet. It has nothing to do with decision (unless of course they think that a decision can’t be made)
As Elemenope said, theism/atheism is what deals with the decision. Gnosticim/Agnosticism is merely a claim on knowledge. It has no bearing on choice. I think you are failing to understand the difference between them still.
I do think though that those that claim they have made a decision by calling themselves agnostic are mistaken. These may be the fence sitters you speak of, but it is only because they fail to understand what an agnostic is.
In other words there is a difference between:
1. Not knowing if God exists, and
2. Not being able to know if God exists.
This is what I think your fence sitters fail to realize. I think #2 is the real definition of Agnostic, but most agnostics think it is #1, and then falsely think that that definition is sufficient to support their position.
So… I think in order to really have a position, one has to be both, and some combination of, gnostic/agnostic and theist/atheist.
I’m not real set on that last point, so feel free to respond everyone.
Wade – after reading Elemenope’s earlier response I figured it out. I always labelled those properties Theism and Gnosticism, rather than Intellectual and Existential. I get it now.
And I appreciate that you’ve made the distinction between those two dimensions, because most people don’t. That goes for believers and skeptics alike – too many people think agnosticism is halfway between theism and atheism, when it’s really more useful to consider it orthogonal.
Wade:
“As I have stated, the idea of a creator, could possibly make the universe appear slightly less important by comparison, but to use the term “trivialize” seems like a pretty big stretch to me.”
To imagine a creator is to imagine a cause. To imagine a cause, a purpose, then the creation becomes a mere tool to the purpose.
If, instead, there is no such purpose, no reason for existence save what we (and any other sapients) choose to give it, then it is not an artifact, however cunningly designed, it simply is, and that is enough. That we are here to perceive it is merely happy happenstance.
@Wade – “… to use the term “trivialize” seems like a pretty big stretch to me.”
Maybe. Remember that Christianity has always had a stream of thought and belief that specifically set out to make this world seem trivial. St. Augustine reduced the entire world to nothing more than a series of metaphors for the Kingdom of God. Christians are encouraged to think of themselves as visitors from a distant land. This place is not out home, our home is in Heaven, etc. etc.
The point is pretty obvious: this life is a test, but beyond that it simply doesn’t matter. The Gnostics and the Docetists had many of the same ideas. The universe is a wretched, fallen place which we must seek to escape. The *real* world is outside this one, a place of spiritual perfection. Many Evangelical Christians still echo this sentiment today.
There’s something about positing a “higher” reality outside our own – be it God or Heaven. Simply by proclaiming that such a realm exists you automatically lessen this material universe. You imply that this “lower” universe is not as important.
@ wade
I don’t understand how this is the case. Yes, if there is a creator, we must move the universe down one rung lower on the ladder of totality. But, if there is a creator, and his creation (i.e., the universe) is perhaps the most significant way to interact with and understand the creator, then I don’t understand how that is a trivialization.
To imagine the possibility of a creator is not to trivialize creation but I think our attempts to describe said creator have trivialized the creator and creation both. We describe our gods to be smaller than creation itself.
IMO, to say “I don’t know” about God is the only way to express a God bigger than the universe – and the only way to express a God that is bigger than our minds. To say God is “this particular thing” or “this particular nature” is, I think, a trivialization indeed.
It’s interesting. I should probably call myself a theist (though I am definitely not a Christian), but the emotion I feel in these situations is not gratitude. It’s awe, in the instance of a beautiful day or a horrific forest fire, but awe at the power of natural forces and not at the idea that something created them. It’s pleasure in the health of my friends’ children, or concern when they are not healthy. If I have a lucky, narrow, escape, then I feel lucky (or, rather, when I realized later just how many things could have been fatal in my car wreck, I felt lucky [and grateful that my parents had emphasized putting my seat belt on until doing so was second nature]. At the time, I didn’t feel much of anything, but then shock will do that for you.)
I reserve gratitude for actions of people who have taken actions that have benefited me.
This is often a problem for me during Thanksgiving, when my parents want each of us to say something we’re grateful for before we start to eat.
So much of what has been said resonates with me. It’s really egocentric to think something that happened is happening to me for a reason – and then someone needs to be thanked or blamed for it. My father’s Onkel Henry used to say, “It rains on the yust and the unyust yust the same.”
My husband and I look at each other and remark on how lucky we are: we have jobs, we found each other, we are healthy (despite bad habits). That we should be singled out for “blessings” is unthinkable. We don’t deserve it anymore than anyone else.
Yes, we may have worked hard, saved money, shared with neighbors or even strangers, but it’s mostly luck that our lives are as comfortable as they are. It’s also a matter of attitude how we feel about it. We are satisfied by what we have. We have no need to ask a god for more, to the detriment of someone else.
When things change and times become hard or one of us falls seriously ill, it will not retribution for something we did. It just happens. It’s not all about Me.
The flowers don’t bloom for Me. The sky is not blue for Us. That I appreciate their beauty is merely a function of my mental faculties – it’s all in my head and largely a result of my attitude which is dependent on chemical balance. Thank you, brain chemicals.
Very much enjoyed this post and the comments.
@ Cello
I agree, so would Karl Barth.
@Wade
This speaks more to me that the author merely “wishes” it to be true, and hence lives his life as if it were. It doesn’t seem to have much validity as to the question of whether it’s real or not. Would you agree?
After a little nitpicking, I’ll attempt to answer your question – the atheistic worldview does allow for things other than the “empirically observable physical cosmos”. Love and kindness, good and justice are clearly not physical things, but they both certainly exist… Numbers and ideas are also not physical, but they are certainly real things… for interesting analysis of ideas similar to these, check out “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence”.
To answer your question I think I’d need to have a long discussion with you about the meaning of gratitude, but I’ll attempt to without one. I would say that in some ways this is really just a question of language.
Gratitude is usually thought of as gladness with the actions of a person or entity. I often feel glad or happy about things which have no individual or organisation responsible for them. In these situations gratitude technically doesn’t enter into my feelings, but I would still say that I am “grateful” due to traditional usage of the word…
To put it another way: feeling grateful is just feeling happy with someones actions, so I would technically never feel grateful for something which does not have a causer, I would simply feel happy about it… Gratitude is so closely linked with gladness and happiness that it could be confused with them.
Hope that helps.
“If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
That quote sums up for me exactly what I dislike most about religion.
I can’t help but be reminded of Without You from My Fair Lady…
Not quite the original context, but it works rather nicely.
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank” — Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Assuming a “God”exists for sake of argument— either “God”, like the “Atheist”, has no one to thank…or “God” is somehow thankful to itself. Evidentally, the latter is unacceptable/inconceivable to Theists. Yes, to them, that would be similar to “self-worship”. ‘Can’t have that, can we?
So that leaves a “God” with no one to thank. If “God” can exist (as a personal being) without a need/desire to thank somebody(or to thank itself), then why the implication that other personal beings cannot exist without a need/desire to thank somebody? ‘Just curious. Theists?
““If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky”
This speaks more to me that the author merely “wishes” it to be true, and hence lives his life as if it were. It doesn’t seem to have much validity as to the question of whether it’s real or not. Would you agree?”
EXACTLY! This is the perspective from the outside looking in. It is also why I said, these quotes would not “help my case”.
However, when I read this I see it from another perspective: The inner, existential truth that Dostoevsky feels within his being is so real and undeniable that it trumps even that which is empirically known to be true.
[Keep in mind, too, that he is speaking hypothetically, and i would venture to guess that he does not see it as likely or even possible that such a thing could happen. (back to that whole idea of unfalsifiable claims)]
@ sundog
If, instead, there is no such purpose, no reason for existence save what we (and any other sapients) choose to give it, then it is not an artifact, however cunningly designed, it simply is, and that is enough. That we are here to perceive it is merely happy happenstance.
This is beautiful. Thank you.
@ boomslang
Why not?
This is why the Trinitarian God of Christianity makes more sense to me than the Monad of Islam and Judaism. It is a being that contains within itself the subject predicate and object of each of its actions.
@sistercoyote
Same here, but only because I’m a shy person, and am not very good at expressing myself.
But I usually thank my family for being loving and supportive. Any other “thankfullness” in my life I think is assumed that I attribute it to either myself for achieving my goals, or others for being helpful and supportive.
“However, when I read this I see it from another perspective: The inner, existential truth that Dostoevsky feels within his being is so real and undeniable that it trumps even that which is empirically known to be true.”
This is that “I know in my heart it is true,” attitude, that renders the believer immune to any persuasion that they are following the wrong course. And that feeling causes immense evil in the world.
I’m sure that someone has pointed out from above that most of the things that you mention as being thankful for have a basis in reality and how science works.
“the beauty of nature” is something to truly be thankful for…evolution is a wonderful thing. I am very thankful that it works and produced what we see today. I am also very grateful that we now understand it as well as we can. For that I am thankful for Darwin and all the other scientist who have followed in his foot steps.
“the health of ourselves or our children”…isn’t medicine great! Due to science we can beat most of the things that used to kill thousands. We still have some work to do…AIDS, cancer, genetic disease. I am very thankful for science giving us medicine. And, as a result, I am very grateful to Alexander Fleming for the discovery of penicillin.
“the narrow escape from harm”…is a little bit more difficult. This is because it depends of circumstance. Being in the right place at the right time (just barely). But if you think about it even this is not miraculous. All the events leading up to that moment were put into action long before the “narrow escape” occurs. So those cases I am grateful for physics and the explanation of “cause and effect”.
So in the end, as an Atheist, I have many things to be thankful for and many people to thank for these things to exist. I am sure that there are some things that I might be thankful for that are not so easy to determine who is responsible for, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
I think even atheists should say grace.
A few months ago I had theist visitors at my house. Before we ate lunch, they took a moment to thank an invisible sky pixie for food that I had bought and cooked for them. This seemed rather rude and galling to me, but as a matter of hospitality I did not make an issue of it.
“If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
And you actually identify with that thought? I find it utterly repulsive. I want to know as much truth as I can, even if that truth should turn out to be unpleasant.
However, when I read this I see it from another perspective: The inner, existential truth that Dostoevsky feels within his being is so real and undeniable that it trumps even that which is empirically known to be true.
I would mark this down as a misuse of the word “truth.” You are trying to elevate a desire by mislabeling it as “truth.”
First up, this is an open ended question. It is not really possible to answer with out a frame of reference.
For example, what am I thankful for? You don’t mention specifics so it’s a little hard to actually give specifics as to how I would answer you. However, there are some common areas where giving thanks can be discussed.
My life. I’m thankful to my parents. Mom and Dad did a good job and even though both are gone now, I still thank them a great deal for loving each other enough to bring me into this world.
A gift. The person that gave it to me.
My marriage. My wife. How she puts up with me sometimes is way beyond me, but she does and I’m very thankful to her for it.
The health of my child. I’m very thankful to the doctors, nurses and the people that trained them for his health
Nature? Nature is both wonderful and terrible. I’ve seen both and there is no need to give thanks for the wonderful. I’m simply happy that I’m lucky enough to be alive to witness that part of nature.
Escape from tragedy. That’s a great one. I served 8 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, and I can tell you a few things about narrow escapes and pulling people from certain death. My thanks went out to my boat crew, the people that trained me, the folks that built such fine boats ans ships. There were a lot of people to thank.
In almost every case, I can find a person to be thankful to for what ever it is that I feel the need for.
If this does not satisfy your curiosity, please feel free to contact me privately and I will respond.
I want to know as much truth as I can, even if that truth should turn out to be unpleasant.
You need to read some H. P. Lovecraft. For serious.
@McBloggenstein
That thing about shyness, too.
And the banal things that most people are “grateful” for – job, roof over my head, family, friends.
@McBloggenstein,
That’s also a useful distinction which dovetails into those atheists who say that “god” is not a coherent term so discussing its existence is meaningless. I think that #2 does overlap with what I tried to define, since the inability to gather data either way does lead some people to go splat in the middle.
The main point I was trying to make is that anything other than 100% certainty or knowledge doesn’t make someone an “agnostic”, and that point is much closer to a band around 50%. I’m very confident that anything we’d call a “god” doesn’t exist but I’m not certain. I’m not dogmatic but calling me “agnostic” dilutes the term to meaninglessness. Much better to just call yourself an atheist or non-believer and only tack on “agnostic” if you really harbour significant doubts or think the issue really is close to equally weighted.
My impression is that atheists are forever trying to define atheism and agnosticism using latin roots and discussing knowledge and belief but to what end? We aren’t going to change the colloquial definitions and we are just muddying the waters when we discuss the issues and it implicitly smears people who just call themselves “atheists” as dogmatic. The whole thing’s a mess. Much easier to keep it simple and say we’re atheists (true), and that we’re open to evidence (true), and that we aren’t dogmatic but reached this conclusion based on thought and study of current evidence (also true).
Otherwise we get into this “True Atheist” thing which Wade has already hinted at in his opening.
@ All
In reference to the Dostoevsky quote. As I said, I know this opens me up to much intellectual ridicule. I don’t expect everyone to understand my point of view. I realize that most will scoff at it. I can’t stand up for myself in this regard. I am just being as honest as I possibly can be.
As far as the mislabeling of truth… There are some things that we know a priori, some a posteriori. Somethings are existentially true to us, while some are empirically true to all.
Again, we are drifting into the realm of the existential, which, to borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein, is a “frictionless” environment. I will not make any arguments or defend anything within this realm. I just want to honestly communicate my perspective. I know full and well the intellectual implications of my belief. Belief can be all at once a beautiful, terrifying, dangerous, and precious thing.
>Are you ever grateful for things that are out of your or anyone else’s control like the aesthetic beauty of nature, the health your children, a narrow escape from a potentially dangerous situation, etc.<
- Sometimes I remember I am thankful to the human conservationists who have worked to preserve beautiful places on this earth.
- I am grateful to my wife because she’s got medical benefits that helped insure the health of our children.
- Over the years I’ve come home from some potentially life-threatening situations – bicycle accidents, electrical storms on mountains, etc.
Long ago, while ascending a peak in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, I looked into the eyes of a young woman with less climbing experience than me.
I said, “I know what you’re thinking, Martha,” and I did know. “Please, the God I don’t believe in,” she was thinking, “just get me up and down this mountain safely.” She didn’t want to fall, for the result would be her death.
She was grateful to be alive when she reached the base of the mountain, but not to the god in which she still didn’t believe.
Do some Christians have this same belief in a god, a belief forced upon them by fear? “Please, God, just get me through this life safely and into heaven.” Presumably they don’t want to fall, either, for the result – in their minds – would their eternal damnation. Are the grateful because they believe they have been or could be saved by their god?
I would mark this down as a misuse of the word “truth.” You are trying to elevate a desire by mislabeling it as “truth.”
If you could give a solid definition of truth, you’d be a famous guy indeed. This is a good survey of some of the attempts and problems with each.
“Nature? Nature is both wonderful and terrible. I’ve seen both and there is no need to give thanks for the wonderful. I’m simply happy that I’m lucky enough to be alive to witness that part of nature.”
Yes! I love the (paraphrased) Calvin & Hobbes quote that says, “Nature is always trying to sting you, bite you, or get slime on you.”
@nope
Ever played Call of Cthulu? My strategy in that game was always to learn as much as possible, and be the first to go insane in the gaming group. After a while, our game runner would let me continue to play my insane characters because he liked the way I played insane.
My guy was always the old university professor who knows everything, but has trouble getting it out between the gibbering.
I think everyone else pretty much hit the nail on the head here, but I would like to add one thing: I don’t doubt that what we experience is gratitude, I just think we need to distinguish transitive gratitude from intransitive.
In the course of life, there are things that make us feel grateful or wronged, and are not directly attributable to a human — or supernatural — agency, although the feelings of gratitude or resentment can at times be very powerful. This doesn’t mean we need a person to hang them on to make them valid.
I’m not an evolutionary psychologist, but I think this need to find an agent for everything that affects us is an evolutionary by-product. We adapted wiring to deal with complex social interaction and other individuals’ motivations; the idea of agency became a sort of shorthand for ‘all of the various motivations that cause people to act.’ The problem came when this attribution reflex overshot its target — other things like ‘me’ — and we started applying it to rocks, and weather patterns, and chance occurrences. When I stub my toe, I temporarily imagine there is some cosmic being that wants to cause me pain, but that sentiment is fleeting. I soon realize that my human mind is searching for an agent where there is none.
In short, your question hinges on the presupposition that we have to thank someone. Although the drive to thank is strong, it’s misplaced, and we don’t have to indulge it.
Your question is, intentionally or not, a trick question. It invites the reader to share your incorrect assumption that how you or he feels provides evidence about the structure of the universe.
Have any of us ever ‘felt’ like there was someone standing somewhere near us, only to look and discover that we were mistaken? In such a case the experience we had was quite real (i.e. a real experience) but does not support the fantasy that there must be a ghost there.
> I’m interested in what it is like to live in the understanding that there is nothing more than the empirically observable, physical cosmos.
“Nothing more”? The physical cosmos is already more than I can handle. You could live a million million lifetimes and not understand or experience or appreciate more than the tiniest fraction of everything there is to see.
The physical cosmos is enough for me. This little planet is enough for me. My neighborhood and friends and family are actually enough for me. When I need more, there’s a huge world right here waiting to be explored.
Ever played Call of Cthulu? My strategy in that game was always to learn as much as possible, and be the first to go insane in the gaming group. After a while, our game runner would let me continue to play my insane characters because he liked the way I played insane.
My guy was always the old university professor who knows everything, but has trouble getting it out between the gibbering.
Yep. A friend of mine used to run a scenario which was a little Evil Dead/Army of Darkness blended into the Cthulu mythos (in fact, IIRC, he did one straight out of the cabin scene from Evil Dead). The investigation seemed to quickly devolve into “man it sucks to be in this cabin. Oh, c**p…”. But it was fun.
re: Intentionally losing sanity, that’s a fun strategy for the game (comedic gold!), though I don’t know many people who would choose that way with their own life IRL. I guess that would be my question for the “truth, double or nothing” crowd. What if the “truth” turns out to be so horrible that you’d turn into a gibbering blob just by knowing it? Would you really still want to know the truth?
Well said, Brian.
I think the correct translation for “nothing more” when spoken by a theist is, “no guided purpose to the universe.”
I always think of comets (being an astronomy nerd, among other things)
Comets are a by product of solar system formation. Every now and then, they get knocked out of their cloud by impacts or gravitational forces. Then they can wind up in a long orbit of the sun, whizzing through the solar system, shedding their mass into long tails, and looking gorgeous.
Every now and then, one of them falls on you and really fucks up your ecosystem.
There’s no purpose there. Just nature in all her glory and terror. A series of seemingly unconnected events that lead to complex behaviors that can be beautiful, and sometimes can kill you for no reason at all.
For many theists this is a terrifying concept.
An atheist who needs someone to thank has not yet freed himself of his theism. The atheist who has learned to celebrate and mourn without attribution is a truer atheist.
“What if the “truth” turns out to be so horrible that you’d turn into a gibbering blob just by knowing it? Would you really still want to know the truth?”
Since that doesn’t happen in reality, then that’s a silly question.
I mean, what if eating pop tarts turned you into a werewolf?
Topic-appropriate verses to consider…
In ALL things give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus…1 Thes 5:18
Enter His gates with thanksgiving…be thankful unto Him…Ps 100:4
Gratitude is an attitude…a good one!
The root meaning of the word thank in this verse comes from the Greek word: Exomologeo, which means to acknowledge and agree fully. This word in turn comes from two Greek words: Ek or Ex which denotes the origin or beginning of action, and Homologeo which means to give thanks.
Since that doesn’t happen in reality, then that’s a silly question.
Not really. Lovecraft’s point was that empiricism only gets you so far. What if it merely scratches the surface? What if what’s under the surface is something so horrible that your brain can’t process it?
Most models of brains argue that the mind can at best be a Turing-complete phenomenon. That means there are processes it can attempt to execute that will never halt, or only halt by breaking the physical machine. Which implies there are ideas which literally break brains, or cause them to cease operating properly. The best part is that any testing procedure for knowing whether all given sets of statements in a language halts…doesn’t halt. (Screw you, Turing!) So you can’t know *for certain* whether a statement halts until you try to execute it.
Complexity of any given system seems inversely correlated with the tendency for the system to tend spontaneously towards equilibrium. Why are institutionalization rates so much higher amongst “geniuses” than amongst the general populace? Perhaps because the same process produces both effects?
@Wade
“the aesthetic beauty of nature”
Nature may look nice on the outside but for the vast majority of the participants it is brutal and unforgiving.
This question is interesting to me, because it shows how powerful language is. Imagine a mountain dweller having a conversation with a desert dweller, the mountain dweller is shocked the desert man doesn’t understand what “snow” is, and the desert man is shocked the mountain man can’t understand “heatstroke”. And both of them, never having seen the ocean, have no words to describe the difference between puddle, lake, and ocean, which would exasperate the shore dweller.
It’s the same situation for religious versus secular life. There’s an easy way to express the concept “I praise God in his infinite wisdom for allowing me to swerve away from that car accident.” and it’s “Thank God I didn’t crash!”. There is no similar phraseology for saying “I am fully amazed and, to be honest, somewhat impressed that I was able to swerve out of the way of that accident in time.”
It’s a bit 1984-ish to say it that way. But it’s true that it’s easy to rapidly and concisely express concepts that there are already words and phrases for. And it’s time to acknowledge that the church doesn’t have a monopoly on concepts such as morality, justice, family, or thankfulness.
Nature may look nice on the outside but for the vast majority of the participants it is brutal and unforgiving.
The rabbit does not find the eagle to be beautiful. The eagle, however, does find the rabbit to be yummy.
@nope
You aren’t trying to say that the correlation between genius and mental illness is a sign that people are glimpsing something they can’t handle, are you?
I mean, everything I’ve read suggests it’s the wiring, not what the person has learned.
Also, I very much dislike the idea that we should be afraid of learning everything we can.
I’m not an atheist, and I despise the muddled thinking of Christians. I was Christian for about three years in my late teens, and the contradictions, and control of people (especially women), were so egregiously unhealthy that I put that away for good.
And yeah, I have moments of gratitude with no “outside authority” to thank.
Why the bloody hell would you or Rossetti think that that is a “worst moment”?
If I ever give a flying fuck, it won’t even rate as a “mildly bad moment”.
@Wade
“But, I do think exploring the possibility of an object is worthwhile, whether that exploration yields such an object or not.”
Then we’re back at square one. I did explore that possibility at some length, and learned that it is less reasonable to presume such an object exists than doesn’t.
If you want to gain some perspective on *my* atheist worldview, think about what it’s like to have objectless gratitude. That’s kid of why I answered the question the way I did. Simply replying “none” gives you no perspective you don’t already have, and leaves us re-arguing the same points over and over.
I hope to peel away a layer of this onion.
@Val
Why the bloody hell would you or Rossetti think that that is a “worst moment”?
If I ever give a flying fuck, it won’t even rate as a “mildly bad moment”.
Easy Tigre. I mean no harm.
@John C: isn’t trying to convince an ATHEIST through the use of the Christian Bible the very definition of stupid?
@ Nougat
I mean, everything I’ve read suggests it’s the wiring, not what the person has learned.
All the wiring is is hardware…a predetermined set of algorithms for correlating symbols or mental objects in specific ways. The actual act is a thought. The study seems to imply that more efficient or more effective hard-wirings tend to fail catastrophically more often than inferior or unoptimized hard-wirings when handling thoughts. The better we get at running the algorithm, the higher the chances that we go nuts.
It is possible that there is another etiology, but it is at least *plausible* that the damage is done by the program being run. People who run the program poorly (by being unable to correlate certain symbols well, or at all) are protected by the inability from running the fatal program.
BTW, I agree this is not really a good reason to shy away from approaching truth. But it does illustrate a possible cost of that knowledge. One of my favorite comics illustrates the dilemma pretty well.
We have to choose the risky path to know anything…but sometimes at the end of the risky path is something hungry that wants to eat you.
@elemenope
It was something I read once — and this was referring to humans only — that life is generally not worth living and is brutal from beginning to end. I do think that we here in our cosy little life styles tend to forget about how much of the population live. I don’t see much beauty in Zimbabwe at the moment.
A lot of that presumes a similarity to computer programs I don’t think exists in the human mind. At the most basic, we are analogue, not digital. And since we process in wide bandwidth parallel, it is not possible for our processor to get ‘stuck’.
We are learning more and more that most mental illness can be traced back to physical defects in the brain. It’s certainly possible that some of those defects also create architecture that allows for more efficient processing of other types of data.
But I seriously doubt a person with those hardware issues could protect themselves from mental illness by just avoiding learning anything.
Sheesh. Analog. Where did those extra letters come from?
Hardware failure.
Sheesh. Analog. Where did those extra letters come from?
Hardware failure.
LOL.
A lot of that presumes a similarity to computer programs I don’t think exists in the human mind. At the most basic, we are analogue, not digital. And since we process in wide bandwidth parallel, it is not possible for our processor to get ’stuck’.
We are learning more and more that most mental illness can be traced back to physical defects in the brain. It’s certainly possible that some of those defects also create architecture that allows for more efficient processing of other types of data.
But I seriously doubt a person with those hardware issues could protect themselves from mental illness by just avoiding learning anything.
That the brain is an analog rather than a digital machine doesn’t at all break it out of the problems of it being a symbol-manipulation machine. And its massively parallel structure doesn’t help if one of those processes is system-wide critical. Imagine if the process that governs linguistic syntax gets fried; it doesn’t much matter what higher-order systems are still humming along, because they can’t really do anything useful without the lower level process.
Hrm… so in the accidents I’ve been in, I’ve felt glad that I happened to lie in the “not-too-badly-injured” part of the distribution, and not one of the poor saps with a splattered brain. If prayer worked, or a deity protected his chosen people, insurance companies would have noticed that small shift of numbers from the “bad” to the “good” end of the distribution, and would offer discounts to the members of the “chosen” faith.
Now, feeling glad is a different feeling than feeling thankful. My thanks were directed to, in the few instances in my life when I directly faced major injury:
* the long line of scientists and engineers who developed all the safety mechanisms in automobiles (including the glass that shattered into little cubes rather than smashing my head or cutting me to ribbons), and the doctors who saw to my treatment, and the long line of scientists and doctors who developed those treatments;
* the long line of people behind the development of bicycle brakes, helmets, and fancy jackets that protected my skin from being too badly scratched up. Oh yes, and the lawmakers who set the low speed limit on the street, and the general public who were obeying those limits and thus able to stop without first running over little ol’ me who was sprawled across the road. And the friend who quickly arrived to help, etc. etc.
* my mother’s skills as a nurse, that she second guessed the initial diagnosis and took me to a second doctor who correctly IDed my appendicitis and removed that “self-destruct device” before it burst, and the hard work and skill of the nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and techs involved in my operation
As for wanting to feel thankful for the beauty of nature… I’m thankful that society has invested so much – in terms of paying my teachers’ salaries, creating special schools to help me escape the desert hell hole of ignorance I grew up incovering my tuition – in giving me a good science education, that I can (and here’s where I’ve gotten in trouble with friends in the past for sounding like an arrogant twit. But I hold firmly to this stance) more deeply appreciate the nature around me. Not only do I look at the rainbow and appreciate it’s beauty, but I can also enjoy thinking about the mechanisms that cause it, I can appreciate the beauty of refraction, how the variation in rain droplets, the presence of rain behind me, etc. can change its appearance. I can follow those thoughts through to the fundamental mechanisms at work around us, and follow the timeline back to how the clouds formed… how the atmosphere formed… I can zoom in and out to different levels of detail, from contemplating the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up, , let my thoughts drift to the past, and to the future. I’ve been reflective enough on my own learning that I can compare my mental states now to my states in the past (to some degree, acknowledging that memory is incredibly flawed). I am so incredibly thankful that my society is able to provide me with deep scientific training.
Most of all, and this is something I remind myself of daily, I am glad that I live where and when I now live, that I happened to be born in a time and place where I could receive this education, and have this opportunity to be able to see the beautiful universe at all these levels of detail.
Of course, all of these experiences are part of what has made me such that I appreciate all these experiences.
No object.
It’s interesting because in some ways I do have some narcissistic traits.
But I am absent the narcissism that leads people to believe there is some entity preferentially looking out for them.
I just feel grateful for what I have without feeling any need to believe that I have it because I am special or preferred or deserve it over others who are less fortunate.
It is mostly a learned response, as I grew up (in the UPC) as a fairly negative thinker, and learned to be more positive AFTER I became an atheist, and to recognize and be grateful for the fact that compared to the vast majority of people living & who have lived I am enormously privileged & wealthy, even if I am only middle class in my society.
This seems awfully close to a Neal Stephenson story.
I still don’t think there is anything inherent in the data being processed that causes the problem.
I don’t think not knowing things would protect a person from mental illness.
@Roger-
Not trying to convince…merely injecting ancient text and greek word meanings into an interesting topic…just because something is found in scripture doesnt mean its not worthy of consideration…even I read secular literature from time to time…sir.
This is not very far from asking, “Atheists, what imaginary being do you worship?” The question reflects assumptions that atheists don’t necessarily have – although some ex-theists might.
One question is whether “gratitude” is really the correct word in situations which are “out of anyone’s control”. Some have suggested that e.g. “joy” is sufficient. However, one might consider that there’s more to gratitude than that – for example, that being grateful, beyond just being joyful, has some benefit to the person experiencing it, such as reminding one of one’s place in the universe and dependence on things outside oneself, and encouraging humility. But there doesn’t need to be an “object” for such an emotion.
Then again, if we’re going to be comprehensive about it, we owe many things in our lives, including our own personal existence, to an unimaginably immense tree of thankees that stretches back to the beginning of human history and beyond – not just our direct ancestral tree, but all those who helped them live their lives, entire communities.
One of the practical functions of a deity is to address the dilemma of the Oscar winner, who needs to finish up at the microphone before the music starts playing him off. There are too many people to enumerate, and having a single object to use as the target for the expression of gratitude can be useful.
“Atheism” in general doesn’t offer such a concept, because atheism is neither a belief system nor a cultural construct that would address this issue. Individual atheists or essentially atheist movements such as humanism, (modern) pantheism, or Buddhism, have various ways of addressing it.
For example, here’s the Zen Meal Chant, “Gokan-no-ge”, also known as the Five Rememberances or the Five Reflections:
This meal arises from the labour of all beings,
may we remember their offering.
Delusions are many, attention wanders,
may we justify this offering.
Greed arises from self-cherishing,
may we be free in moderation.
This offering sustains us, gives us strength,
may we be grateful.
We use this strength and attain the Way.
Prajnaparamita!
“Prajnaparamita” is often translated as “perfection of wisdom” or “perfect knowing”. For more, see: http://www.wwzc.org/dharmaTalks/RememberingRealityCommentsontheGokan-no-ge.htm
Two particularly relevant points about this chant: the first reflection acknowledges the labor of “all beings”; and the fourth one urges gratitude, without mentioning an object.
Of course, one might assume that the object of gratitude is “all beings”, but that’s not necessarily the case, particularly if you accept that there can more to gratitude than thanking some other being.
The Seven Gods of Sex, myself, or humanity in general.
In order of frequency.
I often say, “Thank Cthulu!”
The unspoken portion is, “that he has not devoured the earth prior to this nice thing happening.”
” If so, what do you believe is the object of your gratitude?”
The basic emotion is not gratitude, but pleasure or happiness or joy or relief. If our intelligence realizes that some or all of that emotion is due to the actions of others, then (if we have any empathy) we also feel gratitude to that person/people. The gratitude is a secondary emotion that depends on both intelligence & empathy. One of the things that annoys me most about christians is their (usual) lack of gratitude. They seem to lack the intelligence or awareness or empathy to thank actual people (farmer and cook and pilot and safety engineer and doctor and nurse and medical researcher) for the things (food, safe landing, recovery from sickness) that they claim to be “grateful” for.
I think that “gratitude” comes down to being pleased with the way something is (i.e., the flower is beautiful to me, which gives me pleasure, therefore I am “grateful” for the existence and presence of the flower, irrespective of its source or reason for being).
It is frequently served up with a side-order of relief—as when you are “grateful” that the tornado touched down in the open fields rather than in the heavily-populated suburb, or that your children are healthy, or that your job has survived the last Great Purge.
The pleasure and relief are internally generated, as side-effects of our biology. Whether or not said biology was specially designed, or came about as the result of a long chain of naturally-occurring processes, is completely beside the point.
Dante was wrong. The worst moment for an atheist is when he smashes his thumb with a hammer and has nothing to say.
That is a great quote (I found via Twitter). We want “real” instead of praying. Yes Yes.
Bottom line, you guys are unaware of what Christians are supposed to really believe and speak about. I do realize that there are some that make your job of mockery and sarcasm easier. It makes me do the same thing. But you’re still speaking of the few that have no clue what they themselves believe and, much less, WHY they believe it.
And Mr. Florien is coming from a, no doubt, very fundamental background where a pastor or two were over-the-top, said chicks can’t wear jeans or cut hair, you have to give millions of dollars, etc…. I agree, that pastor is a moron.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT WE REALLY BELIEVE, then ask me. I’m engaged in a few conversations with atheists around this country and others who I’ve met through this blog. They ask an intelligent question and I give intelligent answers.
I know, I know, it’s much more fun for Mr. Bloggenstein to throw out generic “delusional” comments and sarcasm which rarely vary in creativity and thought. I know, sarcasm is fun for me too. But at some point, wouldn’t it be wise to hear from someone who can somewhat articulate what they believe?
Anyway, if you really want to speak to someone who won’t argue for the sake of arguing, won’t try to convert you, and will call you out on your pointless sarcasm, LET ME KNOW! I’m your guy.
And to the rest of you “Christians” in the mood to argue, SHUT UP! You’re just entertainment for both me and for Daniel Florien. Get a clue. Be intelligent in your speech and STOP IT with the Sunday School answers. Crap!
When I consider things like my relatively comfortable life (in a world where so many are miserable), my wife’s love, or even especially pleasant weather—I don’t feel ‘grateful’.
I feel fortunate.
@ Stephen Webb
I may be overstepping my bounds by speaking on behalf of everyone here, but to that effect… What in the hell are you talking about?
*nods*
@ Stephen Webb
What do Christians really believe?
1. What is necessary for salvation?
2. Is there such a thing as original sin?
3. What is the nature of hell?
4. How many sacraments are there? Which ones are necessary?
I’m sure I could think of more.
My point being…Christian belief is hardly uniform. How can you pretend to speak for all Christians? That is just as inaccurate as the stereotypes which you decry.
> Have you ever found yourself in this position?
No.
That’s kind of a rude answer, it just cuts you off and ends the discussion. But it’s hard to know what else to say.
And even if I did feel gratitude, it’s not clear that a feeling necessarily has an object.
On the other hand, I do say things like “thank God for that” from time to time. But it’s just an interjection copied from the people around me.
Personally I think feeling gratitude, enjoying a moment in the sun if you like, is quite important psychologically, of setting the many so-so or negative experiences in life in a more balanced framework. Gratitude can be felt in so many ways – for the ‘blessings’ we have, to people who are special to us, even for the affection from pets etc. I don’t think feeling good about and celebrating these is a problem, nor do i see why I should attribute these to a mythical being or be worried that I don’t have a mythical being to attribute them to. I can enjoy these moments and give thanks where due when the source is other people.
@ Wade
“I may be overstepping my bounds by speaking on behalf of everyone here, but to that effect… What in the hell are you talking about?”
not at all i was thinking the same thing.
@ Metro,
An Atheist (after smashing his finger with the hammer) usually curses (or some milder exclamation) and then says ouch!
No imaginary creatures required. Some would even be amazed at the fact that our nervous system works so well….
“Are you ever grateful for things that are out of your or anyone else’s control like the aesthetic beauty of nature, the health your children, a narrow escape from a potentially dangerous situation, etc”
Grateful? No.
The beauty of nature? I am pleased to be able to experience the beauty, but that beauty simply is. Why feel gratitude when there’s nothing to thank.
The health of my relatives? No. If someone were to find out that what was thought to be cancer was something less serious I would be relieved, but not grateful. Again, nothing to thank.
A narrow escape? Again, relief, but not gratitude, there isn’t anything to thank.
I think Dante Gabriel Rossetti is simply wrong in thinking that non-believers feel the need to thank anyone, because things are simply proceeding according to the laws of the universe. If you believe in a god or gods, you might think that they intervened and made a beautiful sunset, kept your relatives healthy, or helped you out of a sticky situation. A nonbeliever understands that their relatives are healthy partially by taking care of their own health, partially through chance. That a beautiful sunset is the result of particulates in the air, and that a narrow escape is mostly chance.
If that is difficult for a believer to understand, try this:
Have you ever been grateful that the fairies didn’t come and tangle your hair in the night? Are you thankful that the charm you wear has warded off the evil eye of your neighbor? Are you relieved that you avoided accidentally breaking a mirror and suffering 7 years of bad luck?
If you don’t believe in those superstitions and think that hair getting tangled isn’t the result of fairies, but just of tossing and turning in the night, that the “evil eye” doesn’t exist, or that breaking a mirror is nothing more than a broken mirror, then maybe you’ll understand more the non-believer position.
I admit, I haven’t read all the comments, they were too many!
But I’m giving a short reply to the original question anyway.
I sometimes feel thankfull, and since I grew up in an atheist household, I never thought I’d be thanking someone. Saying things like thank god or equivalent in my own language was just words pinned to emotions for me, they never meant anything. When I now, as a grownup sometimes get overwhelmed with positive emotions, filled with joy, I feel enormous gratitude towards my parents and my friends, lovers I had and also towards myself. I thank the people who made me Me and gave me the chance to experience the world like I do. And I feel grateful towards my younger me, who didn’t ruin the then future me by for example killing herself, taking an overdose, or for that, becoming utterly boring. I’m thankfull for the fact that my parents instilled a feeling in me, that at some point, it’ll all be allright. And I’m thanking myself for listening to that voice who claims it’ll be ok in times of pain. Or thanking myself for learning how to appriecate things.
Yeah. I really like me sometimes. I think it’s important. :)
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I feel grateful or thankful in those situations. A better term – as has been raised by others – would be “lucky”.
If you want to drill right down to it, I suspect I vaguely personify the laws of chance in a slightly totemic way; grateful that a cosmic pattern has arranged itself in such a way that I benefit today, all the while being aware that it was not according to a plan this way but merely happy serendipity, which could quite easily leave me tomorrow. I’m quite aware that this is seeing faces in clouds.
I was about to suggest that a sense of gratitude was one of a set of universal biases in psychology (like “one’s abilities are unique and one’s opinions are universal”), but I suspect it isn’t. I suspect it’s a trained response to the christian worldview, where all good things are from God. If you don’t have that trained response, the concept makes no sense.
Scanning the comments (I should learn to do this before writing my posts) I see that these opinions have all been said already.
What will the next question be? Where will the next question be asked?
I’ve saved my own life a number of times. I have no problem being grateful that I am calm and rational under pressure, that I tend to make good decisions quickly, that I am physically fit and have good reflexes, and that I have never run into a situation where those things weren’t enough.
I’m grateful also to the combination of genetics and training that made me that way, and to the people who contributed those things to my makeup.
Nothing wrong with that.
Ah, I see. Webb’s a godbot.
He posted that same screed on the thread above too.
@dc-agape
Yeah, but I had to overcome my Catholic upbringing before I could stop taking the name of the lord in vain when I did it. I mean, what’s the point?
These days I just sort of howl inarticulately, clutch thumb, run around in circles … you know the drill.
As to gratitude: I believe almost every good thing in my past seven years of life stems from my meeting Mme Metro, and I often feel randomly thankful for her. But I don’t thank any sort of agency (except possibly the Society for Technical Communication–We were both members, so that’s where we met).
Of course, I also blame her when she causes me problems. Which I oddly never really did with my ex-god.
Whoops–wrong on Webb, maybe.
He did actually say he was posting it for the second time on the other thread.
My bad.
“except possibly the Society for Technical Communication–We were both members, so that’s where we met”
See, I knew that place was just a meat market.
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank”
I thank myself. For not being a douche and making good decisions. Nothing ever just falls into your lap, every effect has a cause.
“every effect has a cause.”
You’re playing right into the creobots hands!
:)
Who says I have to be thankful TO someone? Can I not just be thankful?
Why is there this assumption that gratitude should be directed toward an object? Why can’t one simply be grateful when life clicks?
And when times are tough, can one not simply accept that fact and do the best one can? Why do we feel a need to have an object upon which to direct our displeasure?
Surely this is manifested through unresolved fear, no?
I’m thankful my parents met, had me, raised me, and are still together to guide me.
I don’t really think anyone else is responsible unless you wanna go back through the family tree.
“I’m interested in what it is like to live in the understanding that there is nothing more than the empirically observable, physical cosmos.”
athiests dont always think that way, being an athiest, and most of my friends too, i know that my understanding of the universe, and indeed life, is often different to theirs.
but i think what you are saying is that you find it hard to understand how we can be comfortable knowing that there isnt anything more…
i personally dont believe that, its just that the”empirically observable, physical cosmos” as we understand it is only a tiny fragment of the spectrum of reality, science tells us this. there is much more to it than we comprehend, however this does not make me agnostic
i dont believe nor need a definitive creator, or fear a divine personality, or feel guilt because of silly manmade dogmas,
or anything religeous, because the universe, and life itself is not all that there is to reality.
the cosmos is not the macro but indeed micro, part of something much bigger, nature, all of reality the full spectrum of reality, which we cannot measure or observe, with all its dimensions , is nature
the expanding universe is relative to a microscopic chemical reaction on the scale of what reality is, and that description im sure doesnt even do it justice, it is that big and uncomprehensable
and in that microscopic chemical reaction of a universe is us.
in much the same way an atom doesnt need to understand the matter it is part of, it still exists, it has a purpose, and its actions defines how everything else around it will be
quantum physics teaches use that particles do not always do what we expect, or understand, life itself is very much the same,
everything is relative, and it all effects the chemical reaction of nature, whether we can measure it or not
so what is our purpose in this, what is our part in this chemical reaction
it is to love and be loved
i assure you i am no hippy, but it is as simple as that.
to love, be loved, and to learn. and to do these things you must be good
and everybody is thankful for the one they love, and loves them, everybody is thankful for the good they do and good done for them, you dont need a god for that
and if you are good, and loved, you will die happy without fear or regret
I’m in agreement with the others who have questioned the need for an object.
I can stop and appreciate something without adding an immediate compulsion to find some entity to thank. I believe the feeling of gratitude is diminished by leaving that feeling of gratitude in a quest to find an object for that gratitude.
Expressing appreciation is an entirely separate thing from feeling gratitude. I will thank someone who prepares a meal for me. That’s an independent act from my feeling gratitude for the meal.
I have never found myself thankful without having someone to thank. In fact, when I was a Christian I sometimes used to feel vaguely guilty for not feeling thankful, as I was told I should, when I did feel joy in something just for its own sake, or for appreciating something that had no “Christian” purpose such as the beauty of nature. Now I don’t, and it saves me a lot of wasted energy and makes me more positive.
I think that the definition of grateful is important here. Perhaps you could call what I feel gratitude, but if it is, it’s never had an object in my mind as far as I can remember, even when I believed that there was someone to be grateful for.
I am just being as honest as I possibly can be.
As far as the mislabeling of truth… There are some things that we know a priori, some a posteriori. Somethings are existentially true to us, while some are empirically true to all.
It’s good to hear that you are being as honest as you can be about your dishonesty. I can only infer from your statement that “existentially true” means, “it’s not true, but I wish it were.”
I can only infer from your statement that “existentially true” means, “it’s not true, but I wish it were.”
Think of the statement: “It is true that strawberry cheesecake is the best food in existence.”
That is not objectively, empirically true. But it definitely can have a truth value for individuals. One person may experience that statement as absolutely true (a person that *really really* likes cheesecake), whereas another person may assign a truth value of “false” to it (they don’t like cheesecake at all).
These are existential valuations of truth, truth that is dependent upon the experience of the *subject* of the experience. Not as nice and neat as empirical valuations, certainly, but you’d be hard-pressed to argue they don’t exist.
Elemenope,
Since Reginald was clearly talking about the existence of God, a fact that must be independent of the observer, and not a subjective opinion, your “clarification” is moot. Reginald got it right.
BTW: even your attempted clarification is wrong. The statement “cheesecake is the best” isn’t objectively false but existentially true unless you try some bait-and-switch. Rephrase that to read “cheesecake is the best tasting cake to me” can be empirically true (assuming you really do think cheesecake is the best), so there’s no split, not even when describing your subjective experiences. And lets face it, there’s a huge gap between debating which cakes taste the best and whether a cake actually exists.
What Wade wants to say and which he clarified later, is that he has no empirical reason to believe that God exists, no reasons which could convince anyone else but he still believes God exists. Exactly what Reginald was saying.
The question doesn’t really make sense to me. I’m not sure why there has to be an object for gratitude here, I guess. I look around me and experience wonder/awe all the time at the beauty of things around me, or the overwhelming size of the universe. I can think it’s amazing, and wonderful, and overpowering even, without needing some thing or person to “thank” for it.
I think appreciation and gladness can and do exist, without needing an “object,” know what I mean?
In fact I sometimes think that not believing in God makes me more appreciative of the world around me, because it’s almost more amazing that it just “is” (rather than being created or directed) and it makes our existence that much more unlikely and amazing.
Tyro –
That makes an assumption that God is an object and not an experience. Existentialists (and phenomenologists, for that matter) would disagree. A person who makes the existential claim that “God exists” is making an experience claim. Experiences are apodictic to the person experiencing them, i.e. it is impossible to deny the reality that it *is* an experience. Whether the experience refers to an object is another question entirely.
Phenomenologists use schizophrenics as a convenient example to explain the distinction; the hallucinations are the schizophrenic’s experiences, there is no way for the schizophrenic to deny that he or she is experiencing them, and they are his or her’s alone. We tend to divide schizophrenics from sane people only on the basis that we have some confirmation of the object that generates the experience, whereas a schizophrenic has trouble pointing to the generative object.
Rephrase that to read “cheesecake is the best tasting cake to me” can be empirically true (assuming you really do think cheesecake is the best)
That’s the true bait-and-switch. The person is reporting entirely private subjective states. It isn’t true *outside of his head*, and it is *only* true about him. To understand the distinction between truth-experience and truth-description, check out the discussion of qualia.
Then I think they’re being even more abusive towards language and speaking in a (perhaps deliberately) obscure manner.
If you really believe that God doesn’t exist except as an experience, emotion or sensation then I think you owe it to your audience to make it clear by saying “I have experienced the sensation I call ‘god’” which is bad enough, taking the term “god” an using it as a sensation but at least people have a chance of understanding what you’re talking about.
This whole “truth-experience” think stinks to high heaven (pardon the expression). You can truly and accurately state your subjective experience without issue, it only becomes ridiculous when you try to restate it as absolute fact (“Cheesecake is the best cake, absolutely.”) and then redefine truth to make truth subjective. Postmodernist twaddle, intellectual cow crap. You think cheesecake is Teh Awesome, true, but the key is you think, just as it’s true that it’s true that schizophrenics perceive many things without the object of their perception being true.
Postmodernist twaddle, intellectual cow crap.
Uh, what? How is this: “Knowing about a thing is different fundamentally from experiencing a thing,” postmodernist twaddle, intellectual cow crap?
How about you actually check out the link I provided, rather than throw insults around about something that has nothing to do with postmodernism and is intellectually rigorous.
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank” — Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Wade Preston
“The worst moment”????
Seriously dudes, I’ve had gas pains worse than that.
I’m thankful to myself, for having the consciousness that allows me to perceive things that are beautiful.
@ Reginald
How on Earth is that being dishonest?
And arriving at the existential assessment of the truth value of a notion involves experience not preference.
I know I’m going to get flamed for saying this, but I mean it with all sincerity. Have you ever spent more than a minute or two pondering any epistemological issues? Have you ever really tried to adequately define truth? You think believing in god is gullible and delusional… If so, believing in you black an white, cut and dry notion of truth is all the more so. Please, educate yourself before you start hurling insults.
I have to admit, I’ve sort of come to believe that the world ‘truth’ is almost never helpful. It’s nearly meaningless.
I prefer facts, and I prefer models that fit the data we have.
As soon as a person’s feelings can become ‘truth’, then there is nothing useful to be gained from the word in any sort of argument.
But that’s just me.
When possible, I thank the person (or animate object) that is responsible for the object of my gratitude. I don’t thank God if someone is kind to me. I thank the person (perhaps not always verbally, but most probably, I am kind back).
The great thing about not thanking God for when things go good is not having to be pissed with God when things don’t go my way. I understand that what happens in our life is mostly hard work/our actions and good/bad luck.
A few times I’ve nearly gotten into a car accident, and just paused to reflect on how things could have gone differently. I’m thankful/grateful, but not thanking anyone in particular. And it also helps to share the good news with other people. But often it’s enough to be in tune to the fact that you just got lucky and be happy for that.
Good things don’t feel any worse b/c you don’t have a god to thank for them. And with time and experience, we learn to take a little as possible for granted and to enjoy our good luck, and do our best to bounce back from our bad luck.
Well, Dan Dennett had a good piece in which he decided to “Thank Goodness”. http://edge.org/3rd_culture/denne ett06/dennett06_index.html – thanking the goodness of the doctors, specialists and nurses who saved his life, the scientists who developed the techniques that saved his life, the journals and the institutions which created the scientific framework in which those scientists work, and so forth.
I have, since becoming an atheist, wished that I did have a supernatural friend to grant prayers, if for no better purpose than to give the appearance of doing something even when I was unable to. I can certainly sympathize with somebody who wants that, even if I can’t go to the extent of actually believing that such an entity exists.
I would go so far as to wonder if our language lacks the words we need for most people to be non-believers – the assumption of the existence of gods has meant that there are few words to explain the nature of the universe, sympathy, or a sincere wish or hope for recovery in a way that is non-supernatural.
I have to admit, I’ve sort of come to believe that the world ‘truth’ is almost never helpful. It’s nearly meaningless. [...]But that’s just me.
No. You are really not alone.
It depends on who the cause of my good fortune is. If a person caused something good to happen, I thank that person. But if it’s something that just seems to blow out of nowhere – good luck, if you will – then I feel grateful to just that: luck or chance. I tend to think of fortune, be it good or bad, as a nonsentient, invisible force that sort of blows around at random, effecting all manner of changes here and there without any cause or motive. When something good happens that doesn’t have a definite cause, I give a nod to the “wind of fortune”. It’s really more an abstract concept; a catch-all descriptor for any cause that I can’t identify. One way I might summarize it is: “Whatever caused this good thing to happen today, I really appreciate it.”
> I can only infer from your statement that “existentially true” means, “it’s not true, but I wish it were.”
>How on Earth is that being dishonest?<
I agree with you Wade, I think you’re honest. Delusional, maybe, but honest.
Above, you quoted Fyodor Dostoevsky (correctly). He wrote his friend that he could believe something (Christ) even if he knew what he believed was not true.
That’s a good definition of faith – and a good definition of delusion, too.
Dostoevsky also wrote, “In Western Europe, the peoples have lost Christ (Catholicism is to blame), therefore Western Europe is tottering to its fall.”
The Berlin Wall, the leading edge of Eastern Europe, did fall, and perhaps all of Europe is in an economic free-fall now, but so is the rest of the world.
He also wrote about the “ultimate destiny, of the Russian nation: namely, that Russia must reveal to the world her own Russian Christ [snip] who is rooted in our native Orthodox faith. There lies, as I believe, the inmost essence of our vast impending contribution to civilization, whereby we shall awaken the European peoples.”
He imagined Christ, and Russia gave us Stalin.
Dostoevsky was therefore both delusional and a poor prognosticator of future events.
Dostoevsky’s books, like the bible, are fictional. Yes, works of fiction can contain truths. But just as there was never a real Rashkolnikov, so there was and is not a real Christ, nor a Santa Claus who flies through the skies with the help of tiny reindeer, except as each exists as electro-chemical reactions in the human brain. To believe otherwise – as a thinking adult – is delusional.
I never mean to, but I always say “Thank God” by default. I’ve grown up in a society & household that does so, so it’s ingrained in me.
But in those situations? I just mean to thank. Thanking no one in particular, and just being thankful. Something goes my way for once, I feel grateful to all who had a hand in it, whether I know it or not.
What a strange question. Why the implied a priori assumption that ‘good’ things must be caused by something that deserves gratitude? That’s simply false. If someone does something nice for me, I’m grateful to that someone. If I can see that a nice thing has been brought about by an actual person or persons, I direct such gratitude as I may feel towards them – the agent responsible. If I can detect no such agency, I do not feel gratitude because to do so would be wholly irrational.
>What a strange question. Why the implied a priori assumption that ‘good’ things must be caused by something that deserves gratitude?<
I think it’s logical to ask that question within the framework of first assuming the reality of a supernatural agent – god – who hands out good things.
To ask the question Wade does to a group of atheists, who don’t believe in supernatural agents, doesn’t seem to make much sense, except that, in my case, it does serve to reaffirm the nonsensical concept of a god.
“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank”
It’s really nothing at all. Not having an object for my gratitude doesn’t diminish the gratitude itself, not one bit. It’s still worth the same as anybody else’s gratitude, and I’m pretty sure it feels just as warm and fuzzy inside when it’s undirected, as it would if it were sent up to a deity. It’s satisfying enough to just say “The sun is out today! AWESOME!!!” I don’t need to thank a god for it. (But sometimes I do exclaim “thank god!”, or “oh my god” just as a force of habit, and because those are standard figures of speech.)
Most atheists’ senses of wonder, fascination, gratitude, joy, all those good things, are fulfilled by nature itself. (You don’t just lose all those good things when you lose faith – a common misconception. Same goes for morals. You won’t suddenly start committing crimes if you lose your fear of eternal punishment. The conscience is sufficient to keep a person in check!) The universe is even more amazing than you’d expect, once you take off the rose-coloured glasses and look at it for what it really is. I think religion is like a painkiller. It numbs the senses to all the truly amazing stuff that’s right under our noses!
If anything, I’d say that not having a god or gods to turn to when you need help is probably one of the scariest ideas (to a theist, anyway). Luckily, statistically speaking, results in times of need tend to come out the same, regardless of who’s praying (or not praying) to whom.
I think it’s of a piece with many theists’ inability to believe that an atheist can behave in a moral and ethical fashion without it being mandated by an Edict From Above (with optional threats of punishment for non-compliance). They don’t believe that humans can be self-regulating in any positive way, individually or in a group. With no deific hand on the tiller, the boat has no way to hold a course.
Addendum to my post above; it may be that they are unwilling to believe that humans can be self-regulating, that they fear that they would not be able to behave morally on their own, and project this on to others, thinking this to be an inherent (presumably in-built) trait.
@cicely
To be fair to Wade he did state that he wants to understand what atheists think so it’s a reasonable question — I thank god but if you don’t believe in god what do you thank? To be fair to Wade (again!) he’s one of the few believers that post here who I consider reasonable then again he may secretly be working out which of us is going to hell :-)
This question is nonsensical and idiotic. What is it even supposed mean?
Holy Crap this is a long thread! Not that anybody is going to read all the way down to my answer, but….
I have TWO “objects of my gratitude”. Serendipity, and Mother Nature.
As an (recent) ex-Christian living in the Bible-Belt, if I went around being militant about not personifying random events and uncaring forces, I would alienate many good-hearted people, thus increasing my friendlessness, reducing the quality of my own life, AND perpetuating a stereotype of Atheists as militant “Grinches” who only get off on tearing down other people’s beliefs.
(wow, that was all one sentence….)
If the weather is nice, and I feel a need to gush about it, I “thank” Mother Nature. Christians and Theists “believe” in Nature as much as I do, and it won’t start a Theological argument. If the weather is terrible, I can “blame” mother nature, as nobody expects Nature to be Omnibeneficent, or “all good”.
If an incredibly random thing happens to break my way, I “thank” Serendipity. Or even “Thank my Lucky Stars”, as we say here in the south. No one interprets this to mean I actually believe in “lucky stars”, which would be Astrology, it’s just a saying. To most people, so is “Thank God”, but many people take that one a bit too literally, So I try to avoid it. Almost three decades of Christian training die hard, though, so I have “relapses”.
Great topic! Keep ‘em Coming!
>Almost three decades of Christian training die hard, though, so I have “relapses”.<
Good luck, Frank – and welcome to the world of reality.
This post was highlighted in the February 19 edition of Gratitude Watch.
Thank you for promoting the value of gratitude.
I don’t feel gratitude but amazement at the beauty of nature. I don’t have any children as I’m not ready yet. To escape from a potentially dangerous situation wouldn’t make me have any gratitude to anything other than I still have my life.
OFF TOPIC: This brings me to a point I want to bring up I don’t say god dammit as prayer or oh god or any other religious sounding sentence as prayer but as exclamation. It is like swearing its not actually prayer. This is why I hate the no atheists in foxholes theory if you grow up around anyone people will use these phrases but if you use them in anyway you are no longer an atheist, what kind of crap is that you always have to use secular swear words, I guess I must have been Jewish this morning because I ate a bagel, there is no logic in this.