The Day Atheism Saved My Life

[trotsky]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/09/17/the-day-atheism-saved-my-life/

A woman shares the heartbreaking story of losing her son, and the moment when she briefly considered suicide wondering if she could be with him again:

...One evening on my way home from work I found myself in a situation that put all my beliefs, or lack thereof, in sharp focus.

...I wouldn’t get to be with Jordan. There was no afterlife. There was no happy, sunny, flower-filled meadow where we would be reunited. No eternity. There was my life, a life without my son, or there was death.

If death is truly the end, if there is nothing after this life, then life is to be embraced, pain and all. I could never have my child back, but I could honor his memory by living my life. In a split second all my beliefs crystallized.

My foot went to the brake pedal, the car slowing as the semi finished its turn, and I went home to live my life.

[Heddi]

1. pale blue dot

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1816628-pale-blue-dot-a-vision-of-the-human-future-in-space

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

i love carl sagan

[trotsky]

2. In a way, the realization that life is objectively meaningless...

is the only thing that makes it truly priceless and worth living.

[Voltaire2]

3. Embrace the void.

[NeoGreen]

4. Here...here...

[NeoGreen]

5. I offer this...

We decide...

[guillaumeb]

6. Good that she reconsidered.

But atheism did not save her life, her reconsideration did.

[edhopper]

7. And you dismiss

why she reconsidered.

[guillaumeb]

8. I do not dismiss that she reconsidered.

Life is precious.

[Act_of_Reparation]

10. He didn't say you dismissed her reconsideration.

He said you dismissed why she reconsidered. Which why he used the word why. Words mean things.

[Lordquinton]

9. Do you correct everyone

who says "Christ saved my life?"

[guillaumeb]

12. If a person posted something like that here, I might.

[trotsky]

13. You can get started here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1218245436

[guillaumeb]

14. Do you like the song?

[trotsky]

15. I like pointing out hypocrisy. n/t

[guillaumeb]

16. Are you also a fan of self-examination?

[trotsky]

17. You first. n/t

[trotsky]

11. If you say so, g-man.

You clearly know what atheism is about better than any atheist does - you've made sure to point that out.