Existence

Do atheists hate believers? And other Myths

To all my millions of readers (lol) chomping at the bit (double lol), wondering what may have happened yesterday when you didn’t receive a daily missive of my preponderant wizdumb, I have an explanation and an announcement below my typical approach to composing my publications by posting answers to questions on Quora.

Today is a departure from my standard fare in three parts: an answer to a typical Sunday question, an explanation for my derelict behaviour, and a summary of my delusion.

Now, on with the question:

Is it possible that some atheists hate believers simply because they believe there’s a God? — posted on Quora at: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-that-some-atheists-hate-believers-simply-because-they-believe-theres-a-God/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1

Hate the sin, and love the sinner.

Do only believers believe this principle?

I don’t think so. I would argue that atheists uphold this principle better than believers.

Atheists don’t care what people believe because they value their right to disbelieve more than many believers value an atheist’s right to think differently than they do.

After all, believers perpetually impose their beliefs onto others and have been waging wars over beliefs in conflict with other believers for centuries.

Atheists, on the other hand, have had to survive in a world where they would be killed for disbelieving the beliefs held by believers.

Atheists generally find believers’ behaviours most intolerable because they are often intolerant of those who don’t share their beliefs.

If believers stopped trying to impose their beliefs on non-believers and those with different beliefs, there would be no reason for atheists to have difficulties with believers.

There is no point in hating people for what they believe. Hating a person for beliefs they hold is a myopic way of avoiding truths about doubts one is haunted by.

Values are another matter altogether, which warrants concern because they form a foundation for one’s beliefs and the actions they inspire.

Among the many reasons I began my daily routine of publishing long-form articles on Medium, Substack, Patreon, and WordPress was a realization I had about myself after reaching a milestone of about 18,000 answers to questions on Quora. There are a lot of words inside me itching to get out, and I can’t keep my mouth shut. I write because I must.

I didn’t think I could sustain a long-term effort, particularly not one that provides no compensation and likely not for a long time. It’s much easier to stick to a discipline when some extrinsic rewards accompany the intrinsic ones. Nonetheless, even though I have written almost daily for most of my life, I began my sustained writing journey for public consumption nearly a year ago because I wanted to establish that I could find enough inspiration to maintain a long-term writing vocation.

I joined Quora in 2014 to leverage the social media site as part of a marketing funnel for myself in a career as an Instructional Designer. Long story short, I couldn’t continue that particular career for reasons I won’t get into now. Still, I did find myself relying heavily on Quora and in answering questions I believed on some level to be helpful to others, while being a form of therapy for coping with a significantly traumatic experience I’ve been struggling through for much longer than I would have believed at the outset.

Ten years later, I realized I could package my writing into publications of sufficient length that might appeal to an audience, and so that became one of my goals. I also decided to commit to an entire year of daily publishing long-form answers. I managed to reach 314 consistent days on Friday. 

I’ve also been relying on Grammarly to save on efforts to clean up my grammatical sloppiness and have been receiving weekly reports of my performance. Since January 13th of 2017, Grammarly reports processing almost 80 million words I’ve written. I’m also less than 3 months away from a 200-week writing streak achievement badge. (woohoo)

Another reason I gained for continuing my daily publications about 50 weeks into my efforts was an article about someone who experienced new professional opportunities opening up for them on LinkedIn after one hundred days of daily publications. Since I was already halfway there, I figured if I held out long enough, I’d receive a touch of magic myself.

No such luck, but realizing I’ve been writing at a consistent volume of more than 9 million words per year, it eventually sunk into my thick skull that I’m producing enough volume to have written several books by now. Not only have I struggled to maintain my publication schedule while working on other writing projects, but I’ve also been somewhat disappointed by an issue of inconsistent quality in maintaining such a frequent publishing schedule.

I can do better by scaling back on publishing frequency, giving myself time to provide background research to support my content, and providing you, as a reader, with a much richer body of copy to engage your mind and stimulate your imagination.

…And since Saturday was my birthday, I used that as my lame excuse for taking a day off.

At any rate, I’m considering a three-day-per-week schedule — possibly Sundays, Tuesdays/Wednesdays, and Fridays from this point onward.

I intend to focus more in-depth on some ongoing topics, including elaborating on my personal experiences in ways that contribute to the public dialogues on issues of governance, UBI, and the “defunding the police” movement, and of course, including religiosity as I have each Sunday for several months and other topics I am moved by.

I hope you enjoy my more focused approach to long-form writing, and if you prefer shorter pieces, I will continue being an uncensored smartass on Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Antonio-Amaral-1/

I very much appreciate your support. Thank you.

Now, onto part 3, where I become an obtuse smartass once again with an answer to another question:

What are some common myths social media tells us?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-common-myths-social-media-tell-us/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1

Social media is an ecosystem, not an entity.

As such, social media is the chaos of billions of voices shouting at the universe.

If all of that were to consolidate into encapsulated messages or narratives in concise enough forms to be considered myths, then one would be that we are an ocean of rudderless beings all vying for some form of ascendence, whether individualistic or tribalistic.

We fear death as we revel in it through our rampant destruction of life, as we deny the finite nature of our existence and dream of immortality.

Social media reminds us of our insignificance as individuals on this Earth and as a species in this universe, as the cacophony of voices harmonizes into an anthem proclaiming our relevance.

A Dialogue on Existence

Today’s post is a slight shift in gears. Rather than the simple formula of posting an answer to a question, I’ve included a dialogue following a short answer given to a question, which, in its complete format, is, “If we died and stopped existing, how long would we have to wait to be born as a new animal? Would time fly? Would we recognize we had been dead for hundreds of years?”

The universe is at least thirteen billion years old. Do you have any awareness of anything outside your experience of life?

No, because you did not exist before existing now. You will not exist again.

When you die, you stop existing. There is no “waiting” for anything. There is no time. Death is not a timeout from life.

This finite period of existence is all there is.

Learn to appreciate it as much as possible because once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Commenter (CS): I think a lot of you are missing the point if you don’t exist the universal find a way for you to exist

AA: Nope… you are missing the point. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. Whatever it is that you think constitutes “you” is gone forever.

If something that you might speculate exists beyond the “you” that exists in physical reality is something which makes you “you” and that you are a part of, it is not “you”… it is something else. If something else you speculate exists beyond physical existence, the “spark” makes you you. It accomplishes that task through physical phenomena, resulting in epiphenomena known as “ego, superego, and id.

“You” are not that “eternal thing.” “You” are a temporary thing called “ego.” “You” are the flame on a match that disappears into nothing when the wood has burnt.

Accepting this truth is the broad lesson of humility all of humanity must learn to transcend this tentative existence.

Commenter (CS): I agree with you to a point we will be dead yes . but if something doesn’t exist something that exists in the future . will be atoms that once made us meaning we will live again but not as us I’m not talking about reincarnation I’m simply talking evolution atoms are the building blocks of life if we don’t exist the atoms will make us exist.

AA: No. Atoms merely form the physicality of our existence as conscious beings. If physicality is the limit of our existence as conscious beings, then that only reaffirms the argument that there is nothing more beyond this finite existence for any of us.

The religious take on existence is that we are part of something greater. Our latest investigations into the concept of consciousness indicate that something of that notion may be true. For example, “Integrated Information Theory” (IIT) posits that all of the universe’s physicality essentially is information that persists indefinitely, if not infinitely.

That means whatever constitutes a life persists long after that physical life is complete… like a library of documentaries. This begs the question of whether or not that library is accessible and accessed by something speculative.

Whatever the case may be, the fact is that the “you” which exists within this finite frame of spacetime exists only within this finite frame of spacetime. The two concepts in these two paragraphs also imply that the “you” experiencing your life is something else experiencing a “documentary,” and it ends when the “you” that you experience ends.

Commenter (CS): that’s a very good point but that’s still doesn’t explain when something decomposes and turns into nothing nothing can be made . before we were spam we came from nothing the atoms in the universe made us when we didn’t exist meaning over time after the bodies decomposed it will do the same possibly on a different planet where evolution is still new.

AA: There is no such thing as “nothing.” That’s a religious concept. Decomposition reduces physical materials into chemicals that are reintegrated into the environment. That’s a long way from “nothing.”

Molecular arrangements construct chemicals. Atomic arrangements build molecules. Quantum arrangements construct atoms.

Quantum bits of matter exist in flux between virtual and physical states. The virtual state exists in a theoretical state called “Quantum foam.” “Virtual particles” theorized to exist within “quantum foam” are described as potentialities because we can identify their physical state when manifested and extrapolate their “virtual existence” from behaviours we can observe.

The “state of quantum foam” exists “outside” the parameters we quantify as “spacetime.”

IOW. Reality “extends beyond” the physical universe.

Adding to that is the relatively recent discovery of microtubules in the human brain, which appear to interact with the universe on a quantum level.

This all suggests a connection between consciousness and whatever may exist outside the framework of our physical universe.

This implies human identity as a construct, not unlike a liquid, which takes the form of the mould into which it is poured.

IOW. “You,” as you experience “you,” exists only within the context of the mould you are poured into. Once that mould has deteriorated, there can be no more “you.”