How I answered a Stump an Atheist Question

You can find this at Stump an Atheist.com. The following is how I answered, ""So what do you believe happens when you die if there is no God? You don't believe in any afterlife AT ALL?! If so…doesn't that bother you?"

 

I hate to make it sound like the atheist was stumped, but I feel the uncontrollable urge to comment and re-direct. The question was, "Doesn't the idea of no afterlife bother you at all?" It once did. Very much.

Back when I was a believer, I contemplated the afterlife all the time. What heaven would be like, who I would meet, where I would go, etc. I even contemplated hell, and the torture the people there deserved. Since I was Catholic, I also considered limbo and purgatory. As apostasy became inevitable, the afterlife became an obsession.

It bothered me that my path was paved in reason, guided by logic, and led to hell. It bothered me that I still WANTED to believe, but if I wanted evidence, I could not. It bothered me that I could not unlearn or undiscover what it meant to unleash logic and reason onto my religious faith. It bothered me that the only advice I got from clergy and teachers and friends was to pray.

It bothered me that I can easily see how our flawed human system of justice has multiple layers of punishment, and an all-just, all-loving god has but one. It bothered me that even Star Wars knew that only Sith think in black and white and the Jedi understood the world is grey. It bothered me that the people around me didn't seem to be bothered at all.

Now I focus my attention on living. I fear not death or what it brings. My life is what is important, not my death. How I live is more important that how I die. I guess for most atheists, we just don't consider the afterlife to be worth worrying about anymore. We're too busy living to be bothered with it.