Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all,
Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
Thanks all.

The Comfort of Woo - what do we replace it with?

Options
2»

Comments

  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    I thought the whole thing about being an atheist is you are too smart/badass to need such things.

    Person writes a post after the death of their father.
    Other person responds with above.

    All I can say I'll take a badass atheist over an unempathetic believer in an afterlife any day.

    Not that I mentioned afterlifes, my post was specifically about the time when death was imminent.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,420 ✭✭✭splinter65


    Well I'd hope that's now the case :)

    My incident was in late 2005, it probably didn't help that the only bed they could find for me (then aged 34, broken leg) was in a geriatric ward. I wasn't alone though, the guy opposite me was 21 :)

    I told yer man politely to go away but he still insisted on laying his hand on me (over the covers, thankfully) and muttering his mumbo-jumbo.

    I should've rung the patient assistance bell and had that cnut run out of there.

    15 years ago.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,420 ✭✭✭splinter65


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Person writes a post after the death of their father.
    Other person responds with above.

    All I can say I'll take a badass atheist over an unempathetic believer in an afterlife any day.

    Not that I mentioned afterlifes, my post was specifically about the time when death was imminent.

    Sorry you’ve lost your father. So many things left unsaid. So many things you wish you hadn’t said. It will get better. It’s a comfort to you that he left peacefully, in the end, no matter how that peace came about.


  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 14,465 Mod ✭✭✭✭johnnyskeleton


    Sorry for your loss Bannashide, glad to hear he had some comfort in the end.

    As to whether its because of programming or just the comfort of the ritual, its hard to say. I guess its no coincidence that religions are usually all over lifes great moments of happiness, sadness and confusion. I like to think its because people needed religion in these times and so religion filled the vaccuum, rather than the other way around. But certainly people feel comfort knowing that things are happening "as they should be", and the fact that these things almost become routine for priests maybe makes their manner businesslike and calming.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,976 ✭✭✭✭NIMAN


    Sorry for your loss OP, but I do think that for many the ritual is important and will help them die more peacefully.

    The believers would often say that come the time of your death, many non-believers might get a change of heart. Who knows, hopefully my time is a long way off to worry about that!

    But I do know from family experience that the presence of a priest can help a lot. I have seen a very distressed granny who was totally inconsolable and in deep pain following the death of a child go from screaming the house down for an hour to sitting and chatting rationally on the sofa once a priest appeared. In the great scheme of things, the arrival of the priest changed nothing, except her attitude to her loss.

    I would totally agree though about people leaving this life in a distressed way. I do hope that by the time I get to the end, we will have laws in place that allow me to die without pain if that is my choice.

    Again, sorry for your loss and I hope you are getting on ok since.


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Mod:
    I thought the whole thing about being an atheist is you are too smart/badass to need such things. Can't have it both ways man, you just gotta face death alone if you don't have faith.
    Your splendidly insensitive comment reminds me of an elderly lady within my own extended family who, from time to time, reminds us all that she has no fear of death because she has hope, mind you. Hope. HOPE. That's HOPE in the future and Trust in the Risen Lord and none of you lot have HOPE and how can you face the day without HOPE? There's some world-class projection going on there and I don't think I've met anybody more scared of death than her. Out of respect for her delusions, we leave her ramble on, secure in the knowledge that if she had to face her life without her religious crutches, she'd collapse in a heap.

    The forum charter has nothing to say about insensitive posts, though basic human civility and your friendly forum moderators suggest that, in the future, you might like to think twice before posting something similarly tactless to what you posted above.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    And I thought to myself how powerful this woo is.
    Religious has innumerable years to hone and polish itself as the best kind of end to all kinds of beginnings, the door through which the faithful good must pass, the narrow path to the summit. The truth is simpler, as it's just one group of people selling the prospect of avoiding death to a different group who fear it. As sales pitches go, it's not an especially hard sell.

    Calling in the priest was certainly the right thing to do and when Popette's time comes - should any of the family be there - I trust that they'll remember to call a priest as you did.

    I'm sorry for your loss, but the journey from card-carrying allegiant member to a badge-carrying supporter of marriage equality suggests that in the end, he did the right thing and the right thing for which he'll be remembered.

    Good on him.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Can't have it both ways man, you just gotta face death alone if you don't have faith.

    Speak for yourself I guess, as so far everyone I have ever known who has died has done so not alone, but surrounded in friends, family and other loved ones. It sounds like this thread is no different in this. Quite the opposite in fact.

    You might want to do it alone, I don't know, but I am not seeing why anyone else "gotta".
    I do find it interesting that so many people who have had near death experiences, from different countries, even children who would never had heard of a near death experience, report seeing and hearing similar things.

    I do not find that too interesting at all. Despite how individual we like to think ourselves as being, the fact is that "under the hood" we all function pretty much the same with not that many differences.

    So it does not surprise me at all that people undergoing relatively similar experiences would report relatively similar effects from those experiences, even on opposite sides of the world.

    What would be interesting and surprising is if this was NOT the case, and the experiences were massively diverse.

    And that is BEFORE you factor in many things like "interviewer bias" and "cultural experience expression" and so forth which would then further unify such experiences.

    Also I urge caution before basing any premise on a mere assumption on what a child might or might not have heard of.
    To me these experiences suggest there is some sort of afterlife.

    Why? They were NEAR death experiences. That is....the person did not at all die. How is that relative to an afterlife? An NDE is about as much an experience of the after life as walking up to a plane but not boarding it is an experience of a sun holiday away in Spain.
    Our narrow short existence suffering on this daft lump of rock being all there is seems doubtful. And disappointing.

    Doubtful because it is disappointing? Or doubtful because of some reason you have yet to offer? Because nothing you said in THIS post gives any reasons to find it doubtful.

    IF you find it doubtful because you do not personally like the implications of it however.... then that is not grounds for doubt. It is grounds for evaluating your own biases. Because all you are saying in that case is you think there is an afterlife because you do not like the idea of "suffering on this daft lump of rock being all there is".


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,812 ✭✭✭✭sbsquarepants


    I do not find that too interesting at all. Despite how individual we like to think ourselves as being, the fact is that "under the hood" we all function pretty much the same with not that many differences.

    So it does not surprise me at all that people undergoing relatively similar experiences would report relatively similar effects from those experiences, even on opposite sides of the world.

    You see a very similar thing with the use of psychedelic drugs. People all over the world report very similar hallucinations, some even go so far as to call them beings. I've even met one or two of these beings myself - i don't really see it as any evidence of a hidden world of spirit beings, although i can definitiely understand why some would take that view. I see it as more evidence of the similarity in our brain function. Fire up pathway x and get result y kind of thing.



    Doubtful because it is disappointing? Or doubtful because of some reason you have yet to offer? Because nothing you said in THIS post gives any reasons to find it doubtful.

    IF you find it doubtful because you do not personally like the implications of it however.... then that is not grounds for doubt. It is grounds for evaluating your own biases. Because all you are saying in that case is you think there is an afterlife because you do not like the idea of "suffering on this daft lump of rock being all there is".

    I can't get this either -

    "there just has to be something more to life"
    "Why?
    "eh, just cos"

    I can absolutely understand the appeal of an afterlife, but i can't wrap my head around why people would think it even remotely probable - i can't even begin to fathom the thought processes of the ones who find it likely, or a racing certainty.

    I don't know what it is, maybe to quote lady gaga you just have to be born that way! Either way, i just can't do it. I see zero reason to even suspect that there would be anything more than decomposition waiting for us after death.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,970 ✭✭✭Odhinn


    The father died in his own bed in june last year. He had rapidly detiorated over a period of days, and both myself and one of his brothers were in two minds as to whether we should keep him at home or send him into hospital. In an echo of his many brothers end he saw his mother at the end of the bed, and he began to talk exclusively in Irish (all his family had to be taught english), as well as wanting to cut a suit (his father was originally a tailor). He expressed no desire for a priest and past away in his own bed, peacefully, at the age of 86.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 945 ✭✭✭Always Tired


    robindch wrote: »
    Mod:Your splendidly insensitive comment reminds me of an elderly lady within my own extended family who, from time to time, reminds us all that she has no fear of death because she has hope, mind you. Hope. HOPE. That's HOPE in the future and Trust in the Risen Lord and none of you lot have HOPE and how can you face the day without HOPE? There's some world-class projection going on there and I don't think I've met anybody more scared of death than her. Out of respect for her delusions, we leave her ramble on, secure in the knowledge that if she had to face her life without her religious crutches, she'd collapse in a heap.

    The forum charter has nothing to say about insensitive posts, though basic human civility and your friendly forum moderators suggest that, in the future, you might like to think twice before posting something similarly tactless to what you posted above.

    The post seemed to be about the philosophical question of whether the comfort of faith at the end of life had value and how atheists can handle not having that 'crutch'or whatever you want to call it.

    So I gave my opinion on that, and skipped the boilerplate condolences. Because I don't see them as having much meaning when they are from strangers on an anonymous internet forum.

    I addressed the question, didnt realize I was required to offer condolences too. But I find it funny how you're up on your high horse flexing your mod muscle about that while you simultaneously call an elderly relation a rambling delusional coward.

    I also didn't realize the forum is a battleground with 'believers' on one side fighting the atheists. And that if people on one side think you are on the other they just want to attack you instead of discussing the issue in the OP. So that's good to know, though it's disappointing.

    I'm not actually in either camp, I was just saying that in the matter of death, an atheist simply won't have the comfort of faith and they should just be comfortable with that, as like yourself they go through life smugly calling faith a crutch and generally are completely sure that they are right about there not being any afterlife or God or whatever. So if you believe there's nothing else then you just have to face death on those terms. Why is that offensive?

    It's not like I said you will go to Hell or something I literally said that I don't think it will matter either way, either there's no God/afterlife and you'll have been right or along, or if there is one I doubt being a nonbeliever would exclude a person from whatever it is, if God required everyone to blindly believe in him/her than he/she was pretty stupid to give humans free will and a brain to question things, and also a bit ridiculously optimistic considering he doesn't even bother to say hello to us to let us know he's knocking about.

    I think you have me pegged as some 'believer' so you went on the attack. Tbh I thought atheists would be a little more objective, but what I'm finding here is the same type of aggro you get from bible thumping Christians. Wild.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 945 ✭✭✭Always Tired


    IF you find it doubtful because you do not personally like the implications of it however.... then that is not grounds for doubt. It is grounds for evaluating your own biases. Because all you are saying in that case is you think there is an afterlife because you do not like the idea of "suffering on this daft lump of rock being all there is".

    Hang on, anything that can't be proven or disproven would be a breeding ground for doubt, wouldn't it? I mean isn't that kind of one of the foundations of atheism?

    Again, you can't have it both ways. Atheists say they doubt the existence of God because of lack of evidence and things like children dying of cancer. Which is fine by me, I can totally understand feeling that way. But just like you said that all I am saying is that I don't like the idea of this existence being all there is, all you are saying is you don't like the idea of there being a God who allows children to die of cancer.

    Yeah I do doubt that our existence on this rock is all there is because it would seem pretty pointless. Some people's lives only last minutes. And if that is really the sum total of that individuals existence that seems a lot crueller and stranger than there being a God that allows child cancer, as awful as that situation is. But I'm not going to say it's not possible, there's no way to know for sure, but I can base my belief or theories on whatever I want just as you can. I believe there is an afterlife and I believe in reincarnation because I think human lives are very short and narrow and it would make sense TO ME that there be more.

    I am not trying to convince anyone that I'm right about that, if you believe that this human existence is all we got, it's fine by me. And not sure why you're saying it makes ME uncomfortable to consider that may be the truth, when it seems to be making the atheists uncomfortable, in fact that is what the OP is saying! And it is certainly a terrifying, depressing, bewildering idea, to think that, for example, a baby who dies right after birth has no type of existence besides those few breaths. But the atheists seem to always be proud of the fact that they are brave enough to accept that, so just be brave then and don't be longing for the comfort of woo. Stick with your non belief and leave those who believe to our delusional ramblings.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Hang on, anything that can't be proven or disproven would be a breeding ground for doubt, wouldn't it? I mean isn't that kind of one of the foundations of atheism?

    Not really. I do not think things that "can not be proven" and "can not be disproven" are on the kind of equal footing a sentence like yours implies. In fact I would avoid the word "prove" entirely for a variety of reasons.

    I could make up literally anything right now on the spot. I will have no evidence for it at all. But it is entirely unlikely you will be capable of DISproving it. That failing on your part would lend absolutely ZERO credence of any kind to the thing I just made up however. And I suspect you would not find yourself plagued with much doubt about "but MAYBE what he said is true". Are you plagued which much doubt that Obama is in fact a lizard alien in a human disguise for example?

    So no, I do not find doubt breeding on the grounds of things people appear to have just made up and have offered not a shred of substantiation for. Doubt for me is reserved for things for which there exists SOME substantiation but that substantiation is far from conclusive. There doubt is warranted.

    I do not, as you put it "doubt the existence of God because of lack of evidence" because that would, as I described above, suggest there has been SOME substantiation offered upon which doubt could breed.

    More accurately therefore my position on the question is I have zero arguments, evidence, data or reasoning to hand upon which to find the concept there is a god even remotely credible. "Doubt" is not the right word here. I lack any basis for belief OR doubt really. The hypothesis is FUNCTIONALLY non-existent to me.
    But just like you said that all I am saying is that I don't like the idea of this existence being all there is, all you are saying is you don't like the idea of there being a God who allows children to die of cancer.

    But have not said any such thing at all :confused::confused: I suspect in your rush to reply to my post you have mistaken me for someone else entirely in the thread.
    Yeah I do doubt that our existence on this rock is all there is because it would seem pretty pointless.

    And that is emotional bias and nothing more. And is therefore nothing more than white noise to me. "I believe/disbelieve X because I do not like the implications" is not a rational or coherent thought process to me.

    Live, reality and everything does not OWE you a "point" or a reason for being. I fear it is human hubris that acts like it does.
    I believe there is an afterlife and I believe in reincarnation

    I suspected you do alright. But until you or anyone else can offer a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning to suggest either of those things is a reality.... again it is just white noise to me. I have little interest in WHAT you believe. My interest in discourse stems from an interest in WHY you believe it.

    So far the "why" appears to be little more than "coz it gives me the feelz I wantz". And if that is so, more power to you. But it holds no interest for me.
    And it is certainly a terrifying, depressing, bewildering idea, to think that, for example, a baby who dies right after birth has no type of existence besides those few breaths.

    I do not think it is terrifying, depressing or bewildering at all. Nor do I think it "brave" to believe otherwise. Who these "atheists" are you refer to numerous times in your post is not clear. But I suggest you take it up with them, if you find them, and not me. To be honest while I am happy to be called an atheist by other people, I do not actively reject the term, it is however a term I almost never describe MYSELF with. Again, for various reasons.

    Rather than finding it brave to be of the opposite stand point, I just find it unfortunate that the former stand point exists at all. I do not find that the reality is at all "terrifying, depressing, bewildering". Rather I think we as a species have MADE it that way. For no good reason.

    And part of the fault of that lies in this need we seem to have to "comfort" ourselves from reality rather than face it. We spend so much time and effort in running away from reality, and hiding it behind lies and stories and platitudes.... that the o nly reason things become "terrifying, depressing, bewildering" is because eventually reality wins and gets through our shields.

    An ongoing, open, iterative engagement and discourse with ourselves, others, and the reality around us seems..... at least to me and others I have observed it in..... not to help stop reality from being "terrifying, depressing, bewildering" or helps us cope with it being "terrifying, depressing, bewildering"..... but rather never allows us to fabricate that narrative about it at all in the first place.

    The question often comes to us as atheists.... "If you remove god/religion/faith what do you replace it with?". I think it the wrong question to ask first. The right first question to my mind is to ask should they be replaced at all, and do they in fact need replacing. When the stabilisers come off the bike of a child, they rarely ask what you intend to replace them with. They are all too keen to proceed without them, free. If we are to remove the stabilisers of the woo and myth and fantasy of the childhood of our species.... why replace it with anything at all?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,707 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    The question often comes to us as atheists.... "If you remove god/religion/faith what do you replace it with?". I think it the wrong question to ask first. The right first question to my mind is to ask should they be replaced at all, and do they in fact need replacing. When the stabilisers come off the bike of a child, they rarely ask what you intend to replace them with. They are all too keen to proceed without them, free. If we are to remove the stabilisers of the woo and myth and fantasy of the childhood of our species.... why replace it with anything at all?

    Interesting perhaps, but if you go over to the cycling forum, you'll quickly find out that putting stabilisers on a bicycle actually inhibits a child from learning how to cycle both in terms of learning balancing and introducing a fear of falling over. Bikes are a two wheeled form of transport and modern bikes for tots have neither stabilisers or pedals, so rather than adding something unnecessary and potentially harmful, you remove something not yet necessary.

    As a life long atheist I think the analogy to religion here is surprisingly apt. My opinion is that introducing the notion of a potential afterlife at a young age heightens the fear of death which of course plays into the hands of organised religion. It is a control mechanism, plain and simple.
    Yeah I do doubt that our existence on this rock is all there is because it would seem pretty pointless. Some people's lives only last minutes. And if that is really the sum total of that individuals existence that seems a lot crueller and stranger than there being a God that allows child cancer, as awful as that situation is. But I'm not going to say it's not possible, there's no way to know for sure, but I can base my belief or theories on whatever I want just as you can. I believe there is an afterlife and I believe in reincarnation because I think human lives are very short and narrow and it would make sense TO ME that there be more.

    Surely you see that something making sense because you desperately want it to be true has more to do with fear and desire than rational thought? If you're looking for a point and you'll excuse naval gazing song lyrics over main stream philosophy I like how Kimya Dawson puts it, "we all become important when we realise our goal is to figure out our role in the context of the whole". More simply perhaps by Kate Tempest, "live, love if you can, pass it on". The risk with a less than totally convinced belief in an afterlife, i.e. agnosticism, is that you'll waste the one life you definitely do have for another that might never happen.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,707 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    I addressed the question, didnt realize I was required to offer condolences too. But I find it funny how you're up on your high horse flexing your mod muscle about that while you simultaneously call an elderly relation a rambling delusional coward.
    ;
    ;
    ;
    I think you have me pegged as some 'believer' so you went on the attack. Tbh I thought atheists would be a little more objective, but what I'm finding here is the same type of aggro you get from bible thumping Christians. Wild.

    Mod: If you have any questions, complaints or suggestions for the running of this board we have a feedback thread here.

    If you read through the posts on this thread you'll realise that you're the one causing the agro here, so I'd suggest toning it down. Thanks for your attention.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,336 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    smacl wrote: »
    Interesting perhaps, but if you go over to the cycling forum, you'll quickly find out that putting stabilisers on a bicycle actually inhibits a child from learning how to cycle both in terms of learning balancing and introducing a fear of falling over.

    Good point, you are working better with my own analogy than I was myself.

    Yeah my kids used the bikes you describe over here too. Laufrad they are called, which I guess means "Running Bike". So one kid went straight to a normal bike and the other used stabilisers for the transition only briefly.

    I guess for the analogy the stabilisers (religion) already happened for our species. So it does not help to think too deeply we might have been better off without them at all in our development, and it likely hampered us.

    For me the question is just that when we take them off for our species, we need not replace them at all.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    The post seemed to be about the philosophical question of whether the comfort of faith at the end of life had value and how atheists can handle not having that 'crutch'or whatever you want to call it.

    So I gave my opinion on that, and skipped the boilerplate condolences. Because I don't see them as having much meaning when they are from strangers on an anonymous internet forum.

    I addressed the question, didnt realize I was required to offer condolences too. But I find it funny how you're up on your high horse flexing your mod muscle about that while you simultaneously call an elderly relation a rambling delusional coward.

    I also didn't realize the forum is a battleground with 'believers' on one side fighting the atheists. And that if people on one side think you are on the other they just want to attack you instead of discussing the issue in the OP. So that's good to know, though it's disappointing.

    I'm not actually in either camp, I was just saying that in the matter of death, an atheist simply won't have the comfort of faith and they should just be comfortable with that, as like yourself they go through life smugly calling faith a crutch and generally are completely sure that they are right about there not being any afterlife or God or whatever. So if you believe there's nothing else then you just have to face death on those terms. Why is that offensive?

    It's not like I said you will go to Hell or something I literally said that I don't think it will matter either way, either there's no God/afterlife and you'll have been right or along, or if there is one I doubt being a nonbeliever would exclude a person from whatever it is, if God required everyone to blindly believe in him/her than he/she was pretty stupid to give humans free will and a brain to question things, and also a bit ridiculously optimistic considering he doesn't even bother to say hello to us to let us know he's knocking about.

    I think you have me pegged as some 'believer' so you went on the attack. Tbh I thought atheists would be a little more objective, but what I'm finding here is the same type of aggro you get from bible thumping Christians. Wild.

    I am the OP and I do not require your 'boilerplate' condolences. However, I did find your opening sentence remarkably insensitive in the context of my original post and therefore not conducive to discussion.
    You came in all rude guns blazing and are now complaining about getting aggro? The irony.

    You then went on a tangent about the afterlife. The afterlife is not what this thread was about. It is clearly about how a dying man appeared to find solace from a religious ritual he was highly unlikely to have been aware of at any conscious level.
    I have a pretty good idea what it meant to him. That ritual - according to his belief system - granted him absolution for the fairly awful way he had behaved for most of his life. It gave him peace.

    I then posed the question what equivalent do non-believers have, if any. I made no mention of 'not being able to handle it' or needing a 'crutch'. A close friend of mine died last year, an atheist. Her last words were 'That's it. I'm dead' - she 'handled it' like a bad ass. But then she was not a person who behaved appallingly during her life so I doubt she felt she needed forgiveness for anything. And if she had regrets she dealt with them while alive.

    You did not address the topic.
    You misinterpreted the topic and went off on an irrelevant tangent.
    Your opening comment made me think 'this guy is being a bit of a dick' - which is against Boards policy across every forum even the bible thumping one. However, I did not report you, I did not sanction you - so obviously I am not the only person who found your opening salvo distasteful.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,707 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    I guess for the analogy the stabilisers (religion) already happened for our species. So it does not help to think too deeply we might have been better off without them at all in our development, and it likely hampered us.

    I think much like kids with balance bikes we're starting to see a new generation of atheists emerging with atheist parents who don't carry the religious baggage of previous generations. Even though many if not most of them in this country will have a certain amount of religion foisted upon them through the school system it is (in my opinion) highly unlikely to stick.

    With respect to the topic in hand, I wonder is the need for the comfort of woo in the first place a result of religious upbringing and the expectation of being judged post-mortem? Like Bannasidhe's friend, I'd hope not to need it.


Advertisement