Submitted 4 months ago by _number8_@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
By that I mean, it must be an inherently comforting thing to think - we inherently know this and want there to be something after death, because it feels right, or more meaningful. There’s a reason basically every civilization ever has some sort of afterlife ethos.
I realize I am basically horseshoeing my way into evangelicalism but still. Maybe life was better if we believed there was something beyond this.
I’m depressed at the wealthy marching the planet off a cliff for profit at the cost of everyone else.
Yeah surely it’s the afterlife what caused my depression. Not the unemployment, my inability to find a job in the industry I’ve spent years of education, not my finances, not trying to figure out how to afford the dentist, not the state of my personal relationships and friendships no no no. It’s the afterlife
I was raised Catholic, but as time went on and left it, I think one of the misconceptions people who are still deeply religious have is that atheists or non-religious people are continually thinking about NOT having religion as much as religious people think about their religion, but the fact of the matter is, sometimes MONTHS go by where I don’t have a single thought about religion, the afterlife, God… When you grow up in an organized religion you tend to feel the lack of religion is some kind of continual rejection of it, and it’s hard to imagine people for whom it just isn’t a presence in ANY sense. When you realize the presence of religion is neither necessary or sufficient for any part of life, you can start to see how life satisfaction or lack thereof has nothing to do with belief. There are horribly depressed devout worshipers and annoyingly peppy and positive atheists. It’s an entirely different axis.
This is an insightful observation.
I was raised Catholic as well, stopped going to Mass when I left home in my early 20s, and just never missed it. As a child I think I believed but as an adult religious belief seems completely unnecessary.
My son, who was raised an atheist, is now deeply religious—he’s a Benedictine monk (no, we didn’t see that coming!)—but even when visiting him religion seems like a lot of nonsense to me. (He’s happy and we accept his choice despite not sharing his beliefs.)
Science hasn’t proven any of that, nor is it interested in it. Those are untestable claims made by religious institutions.
As for why I’M depressed, it’s because all forms of agency that I consider important have been stripped of me. I’m trying to claw my way back, but the system is setup against it.
…all forms of agency that I consider important have been stripped of me.
This.
Na, it’s more likely that worker wages have not kept up with productivity or inflation, we are killing the planet because it is cheaper/more profitable than not killing it, and the people who we vote for to lead us to better times are doing fuck all.
A depression is an illness. “Feeling depressed” is a symptom, not the cause. The cause is a bodily malfunction that needs to be treated with appropriate medicine.
If believing in some “higher being” or “the afterlife” helps an individual to deal with the symptoms of a depression that’s great, but not believing such things does not cause a depression.
Im an atheist and im not even remotely depressed. I live everyday to the fullest because I know it might be my last day on earth, all we are guaranteed is right now. And once I die I dont need the superstition of an afterlife, I believe that I will live on in the positive influence Ive had on many people.
No. It’s because of lifestyle choices affecting diet, exercise, and sleep. But it does help to believe in something and feel a strong sense of purpose and meaning in life.
Science is a tool for answering questions about the physical world. By definition, it can’t provide complete answers about things outside the physical realm.
Not really.
There are tons of religious people who are depressed. I just see that, compared to today, there was a giant social stigma to being mentally unwell. People chose to hide being depressed.
I also see a lot of non-neurotypical behaviors being explained away as “being weird”.
Not believing in an afterlife is fantastic! When I die my life is complete, and what I did during my life is all that matters. No worries about having to meet some arbitrary morale code or fighting for eternity or being reincarnated, just the void like before I was born.
Now living s And becoming more and more aware of how completely awful people can be, that is depressing.
Really? Science disproved God? News to me, could you tell me more?
Didn’t disprove, just made clear that the odds are inconceivably low.
No, science simply doesn’t (and can’t) provide any answers or odds for or against god.
God by definition isn’t subject to the laws of nature, and all science does is observe nature and come up with theories that fit the observation.
I’m not religious, but I want to add that the chance of us existing right now are inconceivably low so that’s not really an argument against God.
Don't think so. If life is just your SAT... I don't think examns are that enjoyable. And it's not like God gave us clear instructions anyways. If that sucks, it's on him. And the bible is more treating us with the carrot and a stick. Lots of it is invoking fear... don't do this, don't do that... He'll send plagues and illnesses, seems a narcissistic father and has no issue whatsoever making some of us suffer. I wouldn't like it at all if it were true.
For many, life feels meaningful when… you can achieve goals you desire, improve things in a meaningful way for others, work at a job where you feel you are using your skills to build something notable, or have meaningful, successful relationships with people.
But, at least in the US… education is ruinously expensive, and is far from a ticket to a meaningful job in many cases, and there is more data than ever showing that, basically, if you are not born wealthy, or absurdly lucky, you’ll end up doing worse than your parents.
The world is warming, infrastructure falling apart, scams are everywhere, personal debt levels are generally rising to the point that a significant number of people have to finance their groceries.
Divorce rates are high, huge numbers of people either cannot afford the time or money to put into developing a relationship with a life partner. Birth rates continue to decline.
In my estimation, people are more depressed because their material conditions continue to deteriorate, and they realize they are less likely to achieve their dreams, much less what were considered ‘normal life patterns’ by the previous generations (home ownership, family).
The way I see it, meaning in life comes from agency, and beyond that, your ability to decide what is and is not worth doing, learning, cultivating.
Put more and more people in worse and worse conditions and many will despair.
Personally, I think that religion basically functions as a crutch for those otherwise unable to mentally process the gravity of mortality, by simply telling the believer that death is not really death, everything continues, and if you are good, you will be immortal and happy.
If you take that away, you are left with the world as it is, your life as it is, and you must grapple with a reality that you are finite, in duration and capacity.
…
Its funny you bring up other ancient traditions.
The ancient Greek gods were said to envy mortals.
They found the limited lifespans of mortals made their every action and thought more meaningful, more consequential, more tragic when thrown away, more beautiful when they accomplished great deeds.
Never found the idea of god particularly comforting
Especially a petty, vindictive, narcissistic one who will torture you forever if you don’t kiss his ass. No wonder “Chrisitians” love Trump. They were brainwashed as children to think that is normal.
“When I’m dead, just throw me in the trash” - Frank Reynolds
All of the depression I have, has been caused by the people who believe in all that.
Sorry but nothing has been proven. There is so much about this universe that is way beyond our understanding.
also I’m an atheist but I don’t think it’s because science has “proven there’s no god”
I doubt underlying depression rates are any higher today than in the past. It’s just not pushed under the rug anymore.
An afterlife was created by humans natural survival instinct. Before science, I’m 100% sure that it was a coping mechanism to deal with our knowledge of impending death.
Now that we understand more of the universe, most still can’t shake that need.
Belief is a feature that humans have that can give you confidence both in proven outcomes and in the unknown. It stems from our prefrontal cortex survival capabilities to remember past experiences and simulate future experiences. Aka imagination. We can believe in anything we choose to.
Yes belief is psychologically comforting. Certainly a lot more than worrying about the unknown. It’s even more comforting if the belief is shared by a social group, reinforcing it to each other.
Other aspects of religion make life easier too. Rituals, traditions, stories and social ties.
Those things can help with depression, but depression is a cognitive-affective response to a body that isn’t living the way our bodies were evolved to live. Socializing, getting the right nutrients, sleeping well, getting enough exercise and sunlight.
No man. I am so happy that for what i did now have no consequences after i die. So i live as i see fit.
You can’t disprove something like that. You can make convincing arguments, but only to people that don’t really believe in the first place; it’s just arguments if their faith is good.
Seriously, you can’t prove an invisible, undetectable phenomenon doesn’t exist. You can only prove that it doesn’t give any measurable affects. And that’s measurable so you just go right back to arguing to a wall if the faith is there.
But, no, the rest of the premise is flawed too. There are plenty of secular humanists that aren’t depressed, and plenty of people in religions, including christianity (since that’s the bias the question has) are.
Besides, who says the idea of an afterlife is comforting? Or that any given afterlife would be if you accept all of them as possible? The idea is absolutely horrifying to some because you’re stuck with whatever it is forever. Eternity, stuck in some religion’s heaven or hell, and neither is exactly as rosy an outlook as you’d think before looking into what is canonical about the various heavens.
But even reincarnation is horrifying. Doing this shit over and over and over until you get lucky and get the right life to figure out how to escape the cycle? Fuck that noise.
Joining a universal consciousness? Just as bad. Stuck in that state, watching the horrors of the universe play out? Not even if I don’t have to remember being human, tyvm.
Life was absolutely not better when christianity was even more dominant and using whatever sick ideology of the afterlife they cooked up as a threat to obey.
Hell, just the idea that people weren’t just as depressed 100 years ago is bullshit. They just didn’t talk about it. But I had the opportunity to sit with people born in the 19th century, and can tell you that faith in an afterlife did not make them less depressed. It may have, on an individual level, helped them process grief, but that’s a different thing, and I can promise you that nothing tests faith like grief.
If depression is more common now (rather than being more reported and discussed, and I don’t know which it might be, or if it’s a combination), have you looked at the world lately? You don’t have to go looking for missing faith as a reason for depression when the absolute shit storm brewing currently is there.
And the younger folks? The kids and very young adults I know, their anxiety is very much linked to the world trying to be shittier instead of improving. Maybe that won’t happen, but I don’t know anyone under 21 that isn’t dealing with some degree of anxiety post covid. Hell, I don’t know many adults that aren’t.
Keep the afterlife lol.
I think probably more influential is the accessibility to global knowledge, so now it’s really easy to see how shitty everything is, and also find more things to worry about
I am depressed because we are living in an ecological disaster wrapped in social disorder with a side dish of war.
No, we’re depressed because of rampant enshittification.
Because the rights our parents and grandparents fought for are being eroded at an accelerating rate in the name of short term profits, religion, and other forms of irrationality.
Because we’ve fucked up the world to the point of it being too damn hot to survive in and we’re not only not doing anything to fix it, but we’re doing everything possible to make it worse.
Because we can no longer have any rational hope for a better future and can only irrationally hope for an ever more unlikely revolution to fix it, and even that probably wouldn’t make it any better in our lifetimes, or even our children’s lifetimes.
Because we can see civilisation collapsing around us, and we know that this time there’s probably no coming back, since we’ve squandered any and all resources a future civilization would require to reach the heights we’ve reached.
Because we murdered the future, and now we, and our children, and our children’s children, have to try and survive in its rotting corpse.
That’s why we’re depressed.
After I die I’m dead who gives a fuck there’s no after life I certainly won’t I’ll be dead
weaponG@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Modern science didn’t have to prove to me that unicorns, elves, and fairies don’t actually exist. Somehow, I figured that out on my own and moved on.
Dirk@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
A horned horse to me makes more sense than the concept that is usually called “god”.
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Especially makes more sense than narwhals.
Successful_Try543@feddit.org 4 months ago
“I figured that out on my own” -> science
Archpawn@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Figuring it out on your own is science, but I have a feeling OP didn’t actually personally search the world for one-horned horses or pointy eared-people with long lifespans. I bet they didn’t even work out how biology changes with scale and how evolution works to show that there can’t be tiny winged people.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Somebody did their own research.
snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If you take the right things, you will see fairies and so much more