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All atheists are depressed

c4ts

Philosopher
C
Joined
Jul 17, 2002
Messages
8,420
From what I understand, the argument goes something like this:

1. Belief in god is a part of human nature
2. (scene missing)
3. Therefore, if you don't believe in god, you must be depressed

From what I've been able to determine, 2 is supposed to be "If you are missing a part of human nature, you must be depressed," which on some level, can make sense. My counter:

1. Warfare is a part of human nature
2. If you are missing a part of human nature, you must be depressed
3. Therefore, if you never go to war, you must be depressed

Although I can't be sure of it. Nobody mentions step 2, which is frustrating, especially when others expect me to be convinced by a missing argument (or, for that matter, convinced of my own depression and its singular cause). What's the entire argument? How did psychology get into this in the first place?
 
I never even heard of this argument. I'm supposed to be depressed?

I'm certainly depressed that I'm making bad grades this semester, but that has nothing to do with faith.

What, no Christians are depressed? None of them have Chronic Depression?
 
I'm depressed. Who wouldn't be when the world is full of religious weirdos suppressing the advancement of civilization as hard as they can possibly manage?
 
I'm depressed! :D

Let's see:

  1. I'm an atheist.
  2. I'm depressed.
  3. Therefore, atheism causes depression.

Don't like that one? Try:

  1. I'm depressed.
  2. I'm an atheist.
  3. Therefore, depression causes atheism.

How about:

  1. Women are a part of nature.
  2. Not being a woman, I'm missing part of nature.
  3. Missing part of nature causes depression.
  4. Therefore, I'm depressed.

I think this one is more likely:

  1. Women are a part of nature.
  2. I miss women.
  3. Missing a part of nature causes depression.
  4. Therefore, I'm depressed.
 
I'm feeling depressed. I think to myself "If only I believed in god, I'd feel so much better." ...

...

... No matter how long I wait, the belief doesn't materialize and fix the depression.

~~ Paul
 
Lonewulf said:
I never even heard of this argument. I'm supposed to be depressed?

I'm certainly depressed that I'm making bad grades this semester, but that has nothing to do with faith.

What, no Christians are depressed? None of them have Chronic Depression?
Click to expand...
On the subway this morning, some woman was preaching a load of the usual nonsense to no one in particular. She made the claim that non-believers get sick and have to go to the hospital.

Since I long ago gave up harrassing lunatics in public, I was left to ponder the question: Does this person not know anyone personally who has the true faith and also has been laid up in the hospital? Of course she does (I'll assume). The cogdiss is blaring, earth-shattering. Why do people believingly make statements that, on the surface, are blatantly impossible? How do they accommodate these ideas?

Look, I'm not saying this about belief in general (at least not right now). For instance, many believers would never say anything as absurd as "if you don't believe, you'll get sick." They know from direct experience that faith has little to do with health or appearance of health.
 
#1) Belief in "God" is not a part of human nature.

The majority of civilizations in human history had no or little god beliefs. They often had beliefs in spirits or demons or some form of magic, but belief in "gods" is below average.

Belief in "GOD", is even more rare, as not even the Jews had belief in "GOD", they worshiped THEIR "god", whom they called "God", but even to them it was not THE ONLY GOD, it was just THEIR god.

"GOD", really comes from Greek philosophy, hence when the Jewish belief system integrated with the Greek belief systems via Christianity, the Greek and Roman theologians, who came from an already Greek pantheistic or monotheistic background, couldn't abide the general sloppiness of the Jewish religion as compared to Greek Stoicism, etc., and they converted the Jewish anthropomorphic god, basically just a lone Zeus, into the Stoic "prime mover", who was omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, we see this with Augustine, etc.

So, to claim that the Christian concept of "God" is "natural" couldn't be farther from the truth. That concept developed over thousands of years through a combination of traditional tribalism and high level philosophy, it certainly isn't a concept that pops into people's heads automatically. If it were, then it would have been more common, but instead this concept only arise within the Roman Empire.

Most of the tribal cultures of the world had no real gods, they just had spirits, etc., and of the cultures that developed gods, almost none were monotheistic or pantheistic, so that should tell you something.

Plus, several tribes were noted in the 18th and 19th century that had no concept of gods at all. No words for gods, no idols, no ceremonies, no religion of any kind. Of course, they were quickly killed or converted to Christianity.
 
I was felling pretty good about myself until I read this thread. :(




Thanks c4ts.
 
God, these christians must think we're REALLY stupid!

Of course atheists are depressed! How could we not be? We have no purpose in life, no meaning and no chance of going to heaven. We hate god, thanks to having been disappointed by him in the past. We are all secret servants of Satan and undoubtedly possessed by evil spirits. We all take mind-altering drugs to keep us happy since we miss getting "high on Jesus".

Hopefully, all the good christians will go home and pray for us.
 
c4ts said:
From what I understand, the argument goes something like this:

1. Belief in god is a part of human nature
2. (scene missing)
3. Therefore, if you don't believe in god, you must be depressed
Click to expand...

its more like this:

1. belief in god is part of human nature
2. if you dont believe in god, you must be depressed
3. ????????
4. PROFIT.

hey it makes about the same amount of sense :D
 
Wasn't there some study that said pessimists had a more realistic view of their situations than optimists? So maybe people who are realists are more likely to be depressed and vice versa, and realists are more likely to see the flaws in belief, so they are more likely to be atheists.

(There are many ways to look at this, but whatever, I'm stuck with Paul's dilemma. I think I'd be a lot more cheerful if I believed in eternal life for me and the people I love, and I would be happier if I thought an all-powerful being cared about me and was paying attention to my every thought. Less lonely. less frightening. But dang, I'm stuck on the believing part - it just doesn't work for me. No placebo effect either. I'm stuck with gloom.)
 
flume said:
(There are many ways to look at this, but whatever, I'm stuck with Paul's dilemma. I think I'd be a lot more cheerful if I believed in eternal life for me and the people I love, and I would be happier if I thought an all-powerful being cared about me and was paying attention to my every thought. Less lonely. less frightening. But dang, I'm stuck on the believing part - it just doesn't work for me. No placebo effect either. I'm stuck with gloom.)
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be cheerful. I'd be outright frightened that there was some guy up there playing a chess game with us as pawns, with the killed pawns going to be TORTURED for ALL ETERNITY.

I mean, really. TORTURED. FOR ALL ETERNITY.

Yet, we don't want our own government to resort to torture or abuse.

Yet it's okay if God does it.

FOR ALL ETERNITY.
 
I think a certain degree of ignorance of one variety or another can help one breeze through what is often an otherwise harsh and difficult existence. As Woody Allen put it:

You know it's easy to be happy if your one concern in life is figuring out how much saliva to dribble.
Click to expand...

Obviously that's an extreme, but I think the more one thinks about and analyses the difficulties and injustices in life, many of which can't be blamed on anything in particular, the more likely one is to succumb to a measure of depression. I'm sure that's true of many atheists, and many Christians alike. The ones that aren't dribbling, that is.
 
I'm agnostic and I'm depressed. Since I am pretty sure that I'll go nowhere when I die, I think about death all the time. And it terrifies me that I'll suddenly stop existing.

Rather burn in hell than cease to exist.

(Sorry, I said I was depressed.)
 
I've always been depressed, ever since I can remember. Most of that time, I was a Fundie. Now, I'm atheist. My depression has deepened recently (I know--no one could tell), and frankly, I blame a lot of it on religion.

But I'm not depressed there's no afterlife. Frankly, I've always been certain of going to hell, so the non-existence of same is actually cheering.

Just not cheering enough. Nothing is cheering enough when you're depressed and cannot secure any relief.
 
c4ts said:
From what I understand, the argument goes something like this:

1. Belief in god is a part of human nature
2. (scene missing)
3. Therefore, if you don't believe in god, you must be depressed
Click to expand...

So in other words....
  1. Underpants.
  2. ???
  3. Profit.
Damn it I see nails beat me to that joke.

I've dealt with life-long depression. Hell I deal with it every day. However my emotional problems started long before I became an atheist. I got a feeling some decent psych drugs may do me far more good than wasting a Sunday morning in church.
 
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This reminds me of part of a John Hagee sermon I heard a few years ago. I was only watching for the unintentional humor aspect, and he rarely disappoints in that department.

Anyway, he said he hates it when a Christian says he is unhappy, and he hates it when a non-Christian says he is happy, because both are a lie.

Apparently in his twisted little world, a Christian is by definition happy, and a non-Christian is by definition unhappy. I'm not surprised someone extended it to "all atheists are depressed".
 
Lonewulf said:
I wouldn't be cheerful. I'd be outright frightened that there was some guy up there playing a chess game with us as pawns, with the killed pawns going to be TORTURED for ALL ETERNITY.

I mean, really. TORTURED. FOR ALL ETERNITY.

Yet, we don't want our own government to resort to torture or abuse.

Yet it's okay if God does it.

FOR ALL ETERNITY.
Click to expand...


Not to get political, but that's what always confounded me about conservatives, some libertarians, and other proponents of "limited government" who embrace religion. If tyrannical governments--or even just intrusive government--are so evil (and, as an atheist small-l-libertarian, I agree it is), then why do you worship a being that makes Hitler look like a boy scout, makes demand ridiculous that infringe upon your individual rights, and horrendously punishes you if step out of line?

Isn't God just the ultimate form of "big government" that you claim to despise so much?
 
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