What is the meaning of life for an atheist?
Hello, dear Ladies and Gentlemen!Many people do not think about the meaning of life. Others attach great importance to this issue. It happens that a person who has not found an answer to this question, gets drunk or takes his own life.But in what does everyone find the meaning of existence for themselves? Some try to build a paradise on earth and devote their lives to it. Others try to solve some specific tasks (to earn money, put their children on their feet, pass on their inheritance, and, as they say, live as long as you live).Believers associate the meaning of life with God, with the attainment of Truth and eternal bliss. And how do atheists solve the problem for themselves? What do they live for? From the point of view of believers, life without God is meaningless. Death is the end of everything, and what are all the efforts on this earth worth if, as Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov said, then only a burdock grows on the grave? Better, my father went on, to go straight to the coffin. But atheists live! So, they are afraid of something, Father Dmitry concluded.I understand that an atheist has nothing to do with the priest's words. But still, how can you say for yourself why you live, if there is only one life, then death-and that's it, the end?Thank you all for participating in the discussion.
Everything is much simpler. Atheism is the belief that there is no God. Believers live by faith, and so do atheists. Do not have an afterlife, rebirth, etc.: washed away in faith disappears. So believers just believe in a convenient version of reality, and atheists believe in reason, and reason is a tool of knowledge.
And the meaning of life for both of them is simple and the same – it is a struggle with death, an attempt to live life. The main thing here is what the priest said about fear. There is nothing worse than fear, so this priest is a servant of the devil, who sincerely hates people.
There is no point, just to live. We are all biological robots.
And all the religious nonsense, dreams are the internal memory of a person, a kind of bug. There is also an external one, on the basis of which the perception of the external world is built. Both types of memory can interact with each other, which would better be unacceptable, also a bug.
Some people were infected with viruses of God, the devil and other garbage.
All in fact there is one big bug.
The answer for me has changed over the course of my life.
Until the age of 21, I lived to help humanity. At 21, I became not only an atheist, but also a nihilist. From 21 to 24, I lived so as not to upset my parents. From 24 to today (now I'm 26) I live simply because I enjoy it. And, oddly enough, I get the greatest pleasure from a job well done. I'm also just interested in living. Previously, I was interested in playing computer games – but they are not played for anything specific, but simply because it is interesting and exciting. Now I'm also interested in life, and it also captures me. Half a year ago, I made a discovery that you can meet girls just on the street – and it's damn interesting and exciting-to overcome your fear, get acquainted, and also have a great time. A week ago, I had a conflict with my supervisor – and I was interested in it, it's something between a game of chess and a card fool, only everything is real, and instead of the rules book of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Last week, I ran my code on a cluster of thousands of computers, and this attraction turned out to be not just free for me – my employer pays me money for it! Today my nephews came to visit me, and we played hide-and-seek and “the floor is lava”with them. We didn't play for the sake of humanity or going to heaven, but simply because it's fun. 2 years ago, I sent letters to three scientists in my field – one of them answered me – I was shocked, and only one question: “What, was it possible to do that??!!”. And then we did something with her and her colleagues that was impossible before. It was a wild thrill, to realize that you can reach the limit of scientific progress, and move it a little. When I did it, I didn't care if it was going to do any good or not, I was just thrilled that I could do it at all. Tomorrow I will wake up and wonder how it is that my more experienced colleagues can complete tasks 5 times faster than me? How would I learn to do my job just as quickly? I will also think about how to improve object detection based on lidar data – it's like a puzzle, some parts of which are scattered in the scientific literature, and some parts need to be invented by myself, and at the same time I am limited not by the imagination of the puzzle author, but only by my own imagination, and the limitations of nature. And it's interesting!
A person was born. He learns, begins to get to know his parents and other people. Learns to walk, talk, and communicate. Begins to explore the world. He learns to understand his place in life, learns to understand himself in the society of people. Learning relationships. Learning to create something. Learning to be creative. Studying art. Finds something new and interesting all the time. It is developing. Finally, she gives birth to children, raises them, teaches them the wisdom of life. Gets a new experience.
Isn't that enough?
There are so many interesting things around the world. interesting and unknown things. The point is not to stop. develop constantly. move-move-move, learn, learn, observe, enjoy, solve questions, overcome obstacles and difficulties.
And religion and faith in God arise either from cowardice that all this can end, or from a passive attitude to life-the desire to have something that takes a person by the hand and shows everything, protects them, explains what is “good” and what is “sin”. The desire to wait for rewards and punishments. But, people, religion is the position of a small person, a slave, who is afraid to take a step without approval. So they came up with a “search for the meaning of life” to somehow justify their passivity.
The life of an atheist is the life of a free man. He is not enslaved to any false Abrahamic religion.
And stop trying to figure yourself out at the expense of others.
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The question of life is based on the system of being, that is, vital activity, so there is “no point” in searching for the meaning of life. The meaning of life is in the very “life, which as you spend, so it will pass” (O. Khayyam)
There are many answers to the question of the meaning of being and they carry the philosophy of generalizing self-consciousness. For this reason, people's opinions differ on subjective ideas, objective knowledge and absolute understanding of the essence of the phenomenon of “Being”.
Since the function of thinking is based on antinomic arguments from being and consciousness, the subject of thinking must understand the subject of the phenomenon and consider the question from the standpoint of mediating “divine” and “undivine” consciousness. In other words, the meaning of humanity's existence is predetermined by the fact that man is a consciousness that Nature (the Deity) uses to satisfy a “cosmic need.”
It is necessary to distinguish the subjects of the biological mind according to the level of self-consciousness, and not to divide people into believers and atheists, because both of them believe and do not understand the meaning of faith given to a person a priori by birth, which stimulates the neophyte of life to set goals and achieve them. Faith drives the practice of realizing expediency, and the meaning of being lies in mediating activity itself.
The meaning of life is in life itself. Not in death, not in God, but in life itself!
The universe exists not because it makes any sense, but because it can exist. So all living things live not because there is some great meaning in it, but simply because they are alive!
But a person keeps trying to come up with a meaning, according to the type of plants needed so that people can eat, and people that would believe in God…
Every person, regardless of their religion and attitude to religion, has their own meaning of life.
After forty years, I have a desire to understand the true meaning of my own life. I regularly made attempts to find what I should come to, realizing that time and life are passing, and I do not understand why I am here and what is the true meaning of my stay in this world.
It wasn't until a few years later, shortly before traveling to Tibet to “places of power” on Mount Kailash, that I came to the true intention of knowing myself; knowing who and what I am; being who I am; being myself.
To understand and reach the true goal of one's life is the work of one's entire life, or even of a much longer period.
Russian reality is characterized by a lack of understanding of the meaning of people's lives. For neither the atheism that prevailed in our country, nor the perverted religious ideas can clearly explain why we live here and what we should do here-from a philosophical point of view. And that is why people who are deprived of spirit, including children, are massively and irrevocably plunged into drunkenness and other drug addictions (because of new sensations), into crime, which turns into a normal, habitual way of life for them. At the same time, practice shows that no calls for a “healthy lifestyle” can create a sustainable perspective for the masses of people — if there are no solutions to the main question of philosophy: the question of the meaning of our stay on Earth.
Can I help them? Yes: by introducing true knowledge about the meaning of our lives — starting with school curricula!
I can say that stable success in finding balance and true happiness in life cannot be achieved without embracing God in your Worldview.
Many people around us suffer from their failures in the material world, from diseases … The result is depression, neurosis and other mental disorders… Many of these people get drunk, become addicted to drugs, take the path of crime, commit suicide…
There are two main reasons for this: first, a lack of understanding of the meaning of our lives and, second, a lack of knowledge about how to change ourselves-in order to successfully face the difficulties that we inevitably face while living on Earth.
Most “believers” are quite satisfied in their religiosity with references to the word God in one or another human language. But God — in reality-is not just a symbol, but He is a fully living Organism on a universal scale! And true faith should lead to the desire to know Him, to fulfill His Commandments on how to improve ourselves, to an intense desire to serve Him and merge with Him in love!
And-people should learn to understand what is meant by the word – GOD.
The word God refers primarily to the Primordial Universal Consciousness that exists in the deepest, most primordial, subtlest layer of multidimensional space. The Primordial Consciousness is God the Father,
This Primordial Consciousness is one for the entire universe and, accordingly, for all its living creatures, including all people on planet Earth.
In different earthly languages, people call Him differently: God the Father, Jehovah, Allah, Ishvara, Tao, etc. He is the God of the Jewish prophets, of Jesus Christ, of Muhammad, of the faithful in China, India, and other countries where there is a correct understanding of Him. And only human ignorance leads to the opinion that, since the “names” are different,then the Gods are different…
The statement that there is only ONE God is true. The Divine Teachers in the Abode of the Creator are mutually integrated components of a Single Primordial Consciousness. The criterion of evaluation here is that Their Abode is precisely the primordial spatial dimension, called the Abode of the Creator; from it, Each of Them proceeds into the world of Creation only as a part of Himself, remaining consubstantial with the Creator.
It is necessary to learn well that God the Father is both an Integral Consciousness and a set of former human Consciousnesses that have merged into It, because these individual Consciousnesses that have reached Perfection in the past remain in the Abode of the Father in a state of mutual dissolution, forming a single Whole ( and each person will have to reach the same Perfection-this is the Life and Evolution of the Creator).
…Speaking in general terms, this Path begins, first of all, with the acceptance and fulfillment of ethical principles (the growth of emotions of love and getting rid of aggressive ones – through self — analysis and penitential work; including-in creative love-service to other people. The service of the people who are helping them in their positive evolution — this is the service of God; the refinement itself – through harmonious interaction with nature, through the development of compassion and love for animals, with help in refining the works of different art movements, gentle, affectionate communication with loved ones — all this contributes to the improvement of the shower, closer to Perfection.).
This is followed by the stages of cleansing the body of bioenergetic pollutants (switching to a no-kill diet, with the emotion of compassion developed by this time, giving up bad habits, starting with smoking) and developing yourself as a Spiritual Heart (this practice was in hesychasm and was called the “Jesus Prayer”).
Here is a short path to God.
Developed love should fill the whole life, all aspects of life.
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Addition.
Why do we live on Earth? What is the meaning of our lives?
In the history of philosophy, we know a number of unsuccessful attempts to find answers to these questions.
For example, the founders of existentialism argued that the life of each of us on Earth is just a ridiculous accident; moreover, none of us gave anyone our permission, consent — to live. They lamented this and saw only suicide as a worthy solution to this “ridiculous situation”.
They were atheists.
And many modern believers in the existence of God do not ask themselves this question at all. They… only dream of earthly well-being and escaping hell after the death of the body… and what do you have to do for this? – it turns out to participate in various “religious” rites, repent of true and imaginary sins, and also “pray”, that is, first of all, beg for “salvation” from hell — from God or from the “gods” and “saints”invented by representatives of these confessions.
And this absurdity has always been actively promoted by the priests of such religious trends. They instilled in their “flock” the idea of God — as an evil Bogeyman who only does what punishes, and therefore it is necessary to be afraid of Him! And we, they say, the priests-we are your intercessors before Him: we “pray” for you and teach you how to “pray”correctly…
Why do I call this form of pseudo-religion absurd? But because, in fact, we, according to the Will of God, should PERFECT OURSELVES (as souls) in accordance with His Teaching-and not cry out to Him about our sinfulness! And not to beg before Him for “earthly” goods — but to strive to become “perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect,” in the words of Jesus Christ!
And another thing: does fear help bring someone closer to someone else? No! – love! And it is not for nothing that Jesus and all the other Divine Teachers teach us not to fear, not to hate — but to LOVE!
THERE is no DESCRIPTION OF GOD IN the entire Bible. And, accordingly, there is not even an indication of where to look for It in order to realize that very consubstantiality with It …
Part 2.
The Creator (or God the Father, Primordial Consciousness, Ishvara, Tao, Allah — and so on, no matter in which of the human languages we call Him) is the subtlest Part of the Universe, and it is the MAIN Part of It — INFINITE in size and ALWAYS existing.
It is a Layer of the most subtle energies — it is God in the aspect of the Creator. It looks like an endless stretch of pure Light, similar to the light of the gentle and warm morning sun. There are no forms in it. Once in It, all forms immediately dissolve.
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The task of incarnating souls (that is, including each of us) is to advance in their development to the Original Consciousness, to the Creator.
In the end, Souls who have reached Perfection flow into the Creator, enriching Him with Themselves. Having settled forever in the Abode of the Creator, now living in Fusion with Him, becoming His integral components, They continue to work, helping other evolving souls. In the world of incarnate beings, They now manifest Themselves as Representatives of the Creator, also called Holy Spirits (or, collectively, the Holy Spirit).
This is the meaning of the existence of all Creation, as well as the meaning of our existence and the existence of all beings here!
Well, the lot of those who do not go this Way, who, on the contrary, develop rudeness, malice, cruelty — their lot is hell.
What you are hearing now is not an “invention” of the speaker now. No: this is the knowledge that God has at his disposal, what the Divine Teachers — that is, the Messiahs and Holy Spirits-have always taught incarnate people and are teaching them now.
This was taught, among others, by Thoth-Atlantean (aka Hermes-Trismegistus in His next Divine Incarnation), and Pythagoras, and Krishna, and Gautama Buddha, and Jesus Christ, and the Divine Teachers of later epochs and our modern times. (This information is most fully presented in the book “Classics of Spiritual Philosophy and Modernity”).
part 3.
I will tell you about the fate of a famous scientist who was a stubborn, stubborn atheist. But he devoted his life to the Good, heroically, self-sacrificingly helping people with the highest knowledge and methods that he possessed. The premise of his atheism was that he, having the terrible brand of a Jew in Russia during the Brezhnev era, also lived here in the cruel era of” militant atheism”, and from religious concepts he was familiar only with the one that, as an intellectually highly developed person, could not satisfy him in any way.
He left his body in a feeble old age, suffering from it and realizing with heavy sadness that the “end ” was approaching.
And you can imagine how stunned he was later when he realized that there was no “end”!
Summing up his life, he said very sincerely: “After all, I have lived an honest life! I also gave my all to make people better!
He, living in Russia for those decades, suffered a lot of troubles. And of course, he could not accept the “Christianity” that managed to officially curse all Jews and has always treated them with varying degrees of hostility ever since… He endured everything humbly, never getting angry. Only marveling in silence at the savage moral primitivism that surrounds them… And he was right! His abode is now paradise!
But here is one of his closest colleagues, also a scientist and a Jew by nationality of the earth body, who did a lot in the last years of his earthly life to bring people to an understanding of the immortality of the soul, published a lot of publications on psychology, spent his life in endless fuss, made the main theme of his efforts to establish his name among other people at any cost, developed superliveness (even in the course of one conversation, he used to “lie”, exposing himself), insisted that” man is an autonomous, closed system”, who did not think of God and did not conform his life to His Being, who developed the “lower self” to the stage of “sticking out” in all directions of bright vices, who ended his earthly life from a brain disease — now, having disembodied, he is seen “distorted”, black and still deprived of rest. The hell he created for himself continues…
I say this with great sadness: this man helped so many people on Earth to start looking for true Freedom. But it turns out that he wasn't looking for her at all…
After all, a person remains in an out-of-body state exactly as he trained himself to be during his life in the body and as he was caught by the death of the body…
Everything has a beginning and an end, only the entire universe is infinite and, perhaps, then we will be reborn in a parallel reality. But this is unknown. Therefore, it is necessary to live here and now and not think about any special meanings.
Self-reproduction. We are part of this world. But believers refuse to reproduce themselves (monks, hermits and other rabble). So they don't even have that meaning in life. That's unfortunate.
an atheist is a person who denies all existing religions.a person who lives and exists only because of his ancestors mother and father grandfather and grandmother great grandfather and great grandmother and so on along the family line.a person who owes everything that he has to his ancestors because what they put in him with their genes turned out to be the output. these are potential rodnovers.they don't think about it but they worship only their ancestors remember them and honor their memory. they subconsciously do not recognize the imposed belief in a golden calf named Yahweh, which causes them to protest.and the meaning of life for an atheist, like Rodnover, is one continuation of the family .
Everything has an end, as well as a beginning. Here it is correctly noted that someone is striving for paradise in this life, someone is preparing it for their afterlife. So what is the difference between them? Some live all their lives in fear of the Almighty and the possibility of going to the so-called Hell if they behave badly, others go over their heads, trying to make themselves bliss during this life.
Many people are interested in the meaning of life, but it does not exist as such) The meaning of life is in life itself.
I am an atheist and I believe that the purpose of my life is to create something that will exist after me. It doesn't matter if it's a technical achievement or a work of art. It is important that people know and remember this, and it is also important that people feel good about it. If I succeed, my name will outlive me. Living in people's memories is also a form of immortality.
as it is said in some Japanese book-a samurai has no goal, he has a path. I don't know how to properly transfer it to a modern way, but I think it's clear enough
The meaning of life for any person is always only one-the one that he has found or invented for himself. What exactly it will turn out to be is a completely different question, it depends on the person himself, his culture, education, mindset, etc.
Then, yes, the end, but now there is life. And the answer to your question depends on what is meant by meaning, as they say, to ask a question correctly, you need to know most of the answer.
If something is on a universal scale , then there is no such meaning. The universe doesn't care if I die or not. And not just me, but the whole of humanity. This speck of dust is nothing to the universe. But from the point of view of a person, it makes sense. Which one, you might ask? Do you seriously expect to get a one-word, unambiguous answer? It won't be there. It will not be because it follows from the very definition of the word “meaning”. Meaning is the internal content of an object or phenomenon, perceived or brought by the mind. And the human mind, whether yours or mine, is not a motionless thing suspended in a vacuum. All decisions and conclusions are made by the mind on the basis of experience. But in life, everything changes. You get new information, meet new people, and are interested in new activities. How can you have one static and immobile meaning of life? Are you sitting in a box? Even an age-old hermit's experience is too diverse to be so one-sided.
Nothing. Whatever you think up for yourself-it will be like this. There is a lot to choose from. Career, business, politics, sports, art… In any activity, you can develop almost until death, there is no limit.
In fact, everything is simple: the believer does not live for himself or for the country, he lives to believe in the mythical supreme, he understands the origin of man very primitively, so it is convenient for him to identify everything with the machinations of divine intervention, sometimes this borders on terry fanaticism, in those cases when they say: God will punish, they will be judged at the top, etc. nonsense. It is much easier for an atheist to understand himself in the context of time and history. He lives to live, as strange as it may sound. The unbeliever does not see the point in lamenting and pleading with the Lord, because he understands the meaninglessness of the situation. When a person is hit by a car, it is not God who punished him, but human stupidity, which occurred for various reasons. No one would be in their right mind to take the place of chance and punishment from heaven, would they? If you are accidentally killed by an icicle from the house, it is not because you are a sinner, but because the manager of the house did not fulfill his duties and your personal inattention. The problem with believers is that they believe in myths. They do not know when Jesus was born, do not know how he died, only according to the rumors of witnesses, even worship the spear with which he was killed, which is no less strange. The difference between a believer and an unbeliever is one thing: the first person begins to pray at every problem that arises, and the unbeliever goes to solve the problem, no matter how overwhelming it may be. If a person is going to have a very difficult operation and survives, the believer thanks God, and the atheist thanks the surgeon. In this case, of course, the surgeon will be partly annoyed that the believer did not understand his merits. Don't impose your faith on anyone, it may be false.
The meaning of life is in life itself, and to spoil it with a meaningless belief in an afterlife fairy tale is stupid. The most valuable thing that a person has is freedom. Faith in God by self-determination is God's slavery in life and supposedly freedom after death. So the meaning of freedom in life. An atheist lives with a chickadee in his hands, and a believer follows a crane in the sky.
The expression: “For atheists, life is meaningless. Why live, if then only burdock on the grave will grow. It's better to go straight to the coffin then” is the result of narrow thinking. The meaning of life is different for everyone. Personally, I have the meaning of life to bring my point of view to the masses. And also to achieve any goals. I believe that every person should have a goal to strive for.
I don't see the point in entering into a long discussion with a “specialist in topics”, but I will say that I don't agree with his presentation of the philosophy of atheism, since due to the consideration of atheism in the framework of a religious paradigm, he deprives the content of the main accents and levels all the meanings to formalism – “how to eat right so as not to die from bloody diarrhea before the deadline”.
For atheism, the meaning of life is reduced not to dogmatics, but to its denial, and as a result, the search for truth arises. All humanistic, civic, intellectual, existential, and even hedonistic trends are nothing but the search for truth. The search for truth is the true happiness of an atheist. Translated into a religious language , this is ” the search for God.” But not the Christian God, since Christianity monopolized the right to truth, thereby alienating the right to search for truth. Therefore, there is a second point at once: “the search for a God who does not exist” – now you can leave the right to choose the truth for a person, and not a (religious) association (tautologically). Or, to return, “the search for truth(meaning) that does not exist” – this is the meaning of an atheist's life.
If we translate it back into the language of religion: active search for meaning is the main spiritual practice of an atheist.
I wonder what is the meaning of a believer's life? Obviously, for him, life is a preparation for paradise. Well, what's in paradise? I have friends who are believers. I asked them what they were going to do in paradise. None of them answered! That is, their life is meaningless. And I have a son, I want him to have a good life. I taught the students, and I hope that it was good for them. I am developing my own scientific theory, and I have defended my PhD thesis. My works are published, and I receive invitations to publish more, participate in international conferences. The meaning of an atheist's life is to make people's lives better, not to ensure eternal bliss in paradise!
Dmitry Smirnov is a somewhat inadequate person, to refer to him, in my opinion, is like referring to Napoleon from a mental hospital. As for the meaning of life, it is the same for everyone, both believers and non – believers-the reproduction and development of humanity.
I already wrote about the types of atheists here (well, as here, on the question) . Their meaning of life is extremely different for everyone.
1. Ancient ancient (pagan) philosophical atheism (Democritus, Epicurus) and so on. These atheists considered “rational enjoyment” or “civic virtue”to be the goal of life. That is, their goals in life were only this side, they set goals within the framework of life and considered death to be its end. Consequently, life (since it was, as they believed) one, must be lived most intelligently (in harmony) and in such a way that, at least through stupidity, one does not die from excessive eating, drunkenness, and so on.
2. Philosophical vulgar materialism of the Enlightenment (Holbach, La Mettrie, Vogt, Buchner, etc.). The main goal of their life was to spread scientific truth and fight against madness (they considered religion to be superstition).
3. Humanistic atheism by L. Feuerbach (and partly by O. Comte). The meaning of this atheism lies in the fulfillment of Christ's commandment to love one's neighbors, which Feuerbach considered the greatest achievement of moral thought. At the same time, Feirbach assumed that faith in God as faith in an imaginary being interferes with the love of one's neighbor and distracts a person from this, making his activities meaningless and even leads to fanaticism (harms the love of one's neighbor). O. Comte wanted to replace the “religion of God”, the “religion of man” (in this sense, Comte's humanism assumed for practical moral purposes “to deify humanity”).
4. Marxist atheism (K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, etc.) Marxist atheism saw the meaning of life in a transcendent-temporal goal-the achievement of planetary communism, which, according to Marxists, will achieve the goals of religion, but in an inalienable form (that is, without faith in God and paradise). In this sense, it is incorrect to assume that communism is a “paradise on Earth”, since communism was understood as an eternal movement towards the humanistic ideal. Marxist atheism can therefore be regarded as a step forward from humanistic atheism, since it is not a religious movement. if humanistic atheism simply says “love people”, Marxist atheism says “let's create a society in which it will be easier to love people, because we will get rid of a number of injustices.” But Marxist atheism has a disadvantage – it says well what should be done by collectives of people, but it does not address individuals in an ethical sense. The individual is called upon to “live for the triumph of communism”, i.e., in fact, he is still alienated from the ultimate goal of life (something for which Marxists criticized religion).
5. Atheism of the “philosophy of life” (F. Nietzsche, Nietzscheanism). The meaning of the life of such an atheist is to destroy all illusions, that is, to create values for oneself, to assign values to oneself. Nietzsche suggests overcoming alienation from oneself through culture and philosophy, making them the object of a sermon about overcoming the “too human”.
One might even say that the moral of Nietzscheanism can be expressed as ” love life and don't humiliate people with false feelings.” The only problem is that Nietzscheanism comes to the deification of the natural in man (and not just the cultural one), and here begins the preaching of “trampling on the weak”, “educating strength” and angry philippics addressed to Christianity for the fact that Christianity, they say, preached humility and mercy, and not strength and love of life. Nietzsche also came up with the” atheistic consolation ” that supposedly the history of mankind moves in a circle (eternal return) and, therefore, your individual life will also repeat itself an infinite number of times, so there is nothing to grieve about death.
6. Psychoanalytic atheism (Z. Freud, K. Jung, E. Fromm). Psychoanalytic atheism mainly sought the liberation of man from the forces of “enslavement” to instincts and the development of his mind (in this sense, it is closer to enlightenment atheism). From the point of view of psychoanalysis, the “fear of death” in a person is the result of not living. and it follows its fears, instinctive feelings. Freud's motto in general was ” Let the Id (unconscious) be replaced by the Ego (consciousness).” Hence, basically, the goal of life was seen as maximum awareness and freedom from mental disorders. It's funny, but the more psychoanalysis developed, the more the struggle against moral evil was visible in the analysis of mental disorders, so that, as one modern priest noted, the saints in Orthodoxy could tell Z. a lot. Freud about the nasty stuff trapped in the unconscious of the individual. In this sense, the same K. Horney in the description of neurotic development resorted to … Christian metaphors, saying that a neurotic person alienates himself, putting his own pride on a pedestal and literally “makes a deal with the devil of pride and this is followed by his own hell – the hell of self-abasement and self-hatred” (this is almost a Christian quote, again, I draw attention to the fact that hell for Horney exists also on Earth, as for the patristic teaching, the sinner punishes himself already on Earth). The difference, however, was this: all theorists and psychoanalysts, while not necessarily strongly negative about religion, put reason above religious knowledge about man. For them, a person must pull himself out of the hell of biological destructiveness by himself, as Munchausen pulled himself out of the swamp by the hair.
7. Existential atheism (J. P. Sartre, A. Camus). This atheism came entirely from a deep awareness of the fact of mortality. According to existential atheists, life as such consists in the struggle with death. Albert Camus emphasized that in the face of death, any life is absurd (hence the “philosophy of absurdity”), but any suicide is desertion (surrendering oneself to the enemy). Consequently, there was a theory of “moral courage”, so to speak, in which any life that spits in the face of death for as long as possible is justified, even immoral, as long as it does not give rise to illusions.
Well, there is of course the “atheism of the new atheists” – like Dawkins and so on, but they are basically the same vulgar materialists, nothing interesting.
So, as you can see, atheism itself has not created much. Atheism is simply a worldview based on the denial of the existence of God. When combined with certain theories (Marxism, psychoanalysis, philosophy of life, existentialism, humanism), atheism could be “fruitful” in appearance, but it was not atheism that was fruitful in them, but their philosophically positive content. Atheism itself is philosophically barren and empty. There is nothing in him except the denial of the existence of God, there is no purpose in life, and so on. Goals of atheism are set by external “guests” in the form of various types of philosophical theories. Take them away and there's almost nothing left. I'll even go further and give you some examples. It is quite possible to take away F. Nietzsche's atheism – and the doctrine of the superman, culture, and so on will remain-about 30% of his legacy will suffer. In general, atheism can be taken away from Karl Marx and about 1% of his legacy will suffer. У З. Freud can be taken away by atheism – and somewhere around 5-10% of the legacy will suffer. Only existential atheism, which consists of 80-90% belief in the “fact” of the “eternal death of the individual”, will suffer greatly (of all the types listed above). Well, existential atheism has brought almost nothing new to science (unlike Marx, Freud, etc.)
It is interesting, by the way, that “Soviet atheism” gave rise to a special type of worldview, since it was partly based on Marxism, and partly on the Russian traditional life of the lower classes. Hence, there was such an interesting idea that “a person continues to live in the memory of posterity” or “a person continues to live in what he did” and so on. These thoughts are generally not compatible with atheism, so V. V. Rozanov, an Orthodox philosopher and writer, wrote about the bodily “pseudo-immortality” in his descendants (and in him he saw a harbinger of eternal life of the individual).