Anonymous wrote:Barack Obama said tonight the way to look at the massacre is from an eternal perspective.

How do atheists process his words of comfort and hope?

Well, he quoted some scripture that said that. He probably had to quote scripture, given it was a religious service. Not only do I think 22:54 stated it beautifully, I think Obama's an atheist and would agree with him/her.

But I know heaven, the afterlife, doesn't exist.

How do you KNOW?

The idea I have seen making the rounds among my religious friends - the suggestion that a loving God would abandon a bunch of six year olds to being shot to death because of political correctness in schools or a phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance is.... repugnant. Jaw droppingly reprehensible.

If that is your God I want no part of him.

Your religious friends have a misunderstanding about God.

Anonymous wrote:There is no comfort to be found in this. Either there is a God and he failed those children or their isn't a God and the children are dead and that is it. I don't know what side of the fence I fall on, to be honest. I think it all sucks.

Agreed.

Anonymous wrote:Barack Obama said tonight the way to look at the massacre is from an eternal perspective.

How do atheists process his words of comfort and hope?

I believe that we are all part of one big circle of life. The atoms that are in me now, were in a tree , a river, a stone, a different animal or human before.

But there is not heaven or hell, there is no afterlife. We are only conscious and alive for the time we are alive. ANd yes, that means that when someone dies, they are truly, properly dead, and they are not longer conscious. THey are not souls, somewhere alive and looking down at us. And yes, that means there is no comfort when a loved one dies, or in thinking about my own death. There is no thinking that "She's up there in heaven, looking down at me. I will meet her again soon or someday."

This means that I focus everything on the living. THis is our life, it is all we have; make it meaningful, make in joyful and in service to other people. No one can have a miserable life right now, because there is no hereafter for them to get their just rewards. There is no better place. Make the world the better place.

Those poor children and teachers who were massacred are not in a better place now. Their better place was their homes. Their better place was with their families. That life was cruelly taken away from them by a man with an automatic rifle. I wish I could believe there was a heaven for them. I don't blame anyone for desperately wanting to believe that this heaven exists. Or for imagining that it does. If you imagine hard enough, it will seem real to you, and you can have faith in it, and then it becomes real, to you. I don't blame people for inventing heaven. I would like to imagine them there too.

But I know heaven, the afterlife, doesn't exist.

What does exist is the world we can make for the children still living. There is my hope and comfort, that people will not ignore yet another shooting and say "Well, what can we do? We cannot outspend the NRA...." That these children will not have died in vain, but that their deaths and the deaths of the adults with them will not be forgotten.

The president also said, "And in that way we come to realize that we bear responsibility for every child, because we’re counting on everybody else to help look after ours, that we’re all parents, that they are all our children." That to me is our heaven, or could be, here on earth. IT is the only heaven I believe we can have. If we care for one another.

Anonymous wrote:Barack Obama said tonight the way to look at the massacre is from an eternal perspective.

An eternal perspective? Like the Westboro Baptist Church for example who "explains" the massacre by saying it is part of God's plan? Sorry -- I would rather take a human perspective.

There is no comfort to be found in this. Either there is a God and he failed those children or their isn't a God and the children are dead and that is it. I don't know what side of the fence I fall on, to be honest. I think it all sucks.

Anonymous wrote:Barack Obama said tonight the way to look at the massacre is from an eternal perspective.

How do atheists process his words of comfort and hope?

I don't think they can.

Barack Obama said tonight the way to look at the massacre is from an eternal perspective.

How do atheists process his words of comfort and hope?

There is nobody to save you. you are on your own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The only meaning in the world is the meaning that we create. The only legacy we have is how people remember us.

Hitler's meaning was ugly and caused great suffering. Hitler's legacy was one of horror and ugliness and tragedy.

Why would any sane atheist chose that?

And there is no justice, in your terms. Only sadness and grief in the fact of someone's monsterous behavior. If we want justice in the world, we should work for it. If we want to avoid this kind of sadness and grief, we have to reach the broken and heal them before they cause such terrible harm.

You live in a terrible world if that is what you believe about humans. I believe that most humans are good, compassionate people. The goodness that they ascribe to their belief in God comes from inside them. Most will act with love and compassion.

If there is no eternal justice, that is only your opinion. And your opinion does not count, if you are on the wrong side of the concentration camp fence.

If there is eternal justice, it does not matter what anyone's opinion is, because the truth remains the same.

To even have a sense of "monstrous behavior" is to appeal to a higher authority than any human being. Otherwise, what you consider monstrous is what someone else considers rational or efficient, and whoever is more powerful is "right."

That's not true. Our country has laws which enshrine principles based on Locke and the other thinkers who believed in the social contract. That social contract is not just mere opinion. You join a society, you agree to adhere to its principles and its laws.

And if your society is overtaken by a more powerful totalitarian society, you social contract means nothing.

Unless there is Someone, a Lawgiver, who transcends any human society.

My brother is a priest at St. Rose of Lima parish in Newtown. He was a first responder. He has been ministering to the families and the community ceaselessly. Their memorial mass last night was overflowing.

While reading the news coverage of the vigil, I see countless comments by strident atheists mocking everything about faith and God, from MSNBC to CNN to Huffington Post...everywhere. Who are these people? Why are they spending their time in the wake of this tragedy smugly proclaiming people of faith to be fools?

I even saw one article slamming an elderly priest who was interviewed immediately after tending to families at the fire station for "laughing inappropriately," insinuating he thought this devastation was funny, when it was clearly a hysterical, sobbing reaction to trauma.

My small request to anyone who is tempted to proclaim the atheist gospel to give it a rest for now. Show some respect. If you have no words of comfort, just don't say anything at all.

Nice try. Bringing in the personal to shut down opinions that you don't agree with and represent in the most extreme terms possible.

Sorry, you don't get to control the dialogue. If you don't like the posts, don't click the threads.

Where was Owen Meany?

The point is that it's important not to have concentration camps or allow for genocides because this world matters. I'm not sure who is blaming victims.

Anyway - I think I'm going to bow out of this conversation now. I just hope that OP and the others understand that atheists aren't evil people who don't think that murder matters.

It's just we think murder matters because of the consequences in this world, not because of the consequences in eternity. That's all.

Anonymous wrote:

The only meaning in the world is the meaning that we create. The only legacy we have is how people remember us.

Hitler's meaning was ugly and caused great suffering. Hitler's legacy was one of horror and ugliness and tragedy.

Why would any sane atheist chose that?

And there is no justice, in your terms. Only sadness and grief in the fact of someone's monsterous behavior. If we want justice in the world, we should work for it. If we want to avoid this kind of sadness and grief, we have to reach the broken and heal them before they cause such terrible harm.

You live in a terrible world if that is what you believe about humans. I believe that most humans are good, compassionate people. The goodness that they ascribe to their belief in God comes from inside them. Most will act with love and compassion.

If there is no eternal justice, that is only your opinion. And your opinion does not count, if you are on the wrong side of the concentration camp fence.

If there is eternal justice, it does not matter what anyone's opinion is, because the truth remains the same.

To even have a sense of "monstrous behavior" is to appeal to a higher authority than any human being. Otherwise, what you consider monstrous is what someone else considers rational or efficient, and whoever is more powerful is "right."

That's not true. Our country has laws which enshrine principles based on Locke and the other thinkers who believed in the social contract. That social contract is not just mere opinion. You join a society, you agree to adhere to its principles and its laws.