Dear Stranger,
Well I asked a long time ago, but here goes again, I am told atheism is just blah blah blah, but if I go on to the interweb, I can usually find some atheist foaming at the mouth, telling us about the evils of religion, the question is this, in your daily life, your thoughts and the way you view the world does your atheism affect this.
Here is an example, I am all for a day of rest for the whole world, a day when we shut down, a day for quiet contemplation, a day when we stick two fingers up at consumerism and yes I know it is pie in the sky stuff, I know we could never fully achieve this but a move towards this sort of thing would be nice, good for the planet, but when this question is raised on this forum the atheists are all over it, they talk of rights and going shopping 24/7 is a great thing.
Now I don't want to debate the above but is it a small sample of how your atheism affects your daily life?
Gonnagle.
I don't really know if this is of any help, but I'll try.
I know that you'll have to take my word for it, but my wife is a very caring lady. She has two brothers, one of whom has cerebral palsy. He is my age, and my wife has always been very close to him, and has time and again shown a fierce and loyal protection towards him. We see him every week without fail, even though he is now unable to use his legs at all. He has carers 3 times a day, and can only be moved around by using a hoist. On occasions he has had some very pretty horrendous problems(e.g. 3 years ago he had pneumonia, and he was in danger of drowning from the build up of liquid in his lungs). My wife has always been there for him, and, on the times he has been in hospital, we have regularly visited him(sometimes all day) and, my wife, being a former nurse, has shown a practical quality which I could never attain. She has also helped two very old neighbours over quite a long period of time(indeed, as I write this, she has just finished shopping, and is going to have a cup of tea with one of the old ladies).
Now the point about this is that my wife is an atheist, in that she has no belief in any god at all. She simply doesn't have the need for one, and, unless the idea of god was mentioned, she would never even think on those lines. How does atheism affect her life? I would say very little as there are far more important things in her life to consider than the idea of a god.
That doesn't stop her having criticisms of religions however, when she sees some of the glaring discepancies in the deeds and thoughts of some religionists(her words would be'these stupid people').
She lives a reasonably fulfilling and satisfying life, she is practical and she is caring. Also, about 15 years ago, she delivered a dissertation to a study group on whether the modern world is in crisis, and she made some very salient points. We both attend a local humanist group monthly, the latest of which was on the subject of modern day slavery, and, again, she was not afraid to speak up and produced some eminently practical and compassionate points on how to alleviate the situation.
So, you ask how atheism affects your daily life. In her case it doesn't really. She simply can't be bothered with the idea of god and religion at all because she has no such beliefs. Why should she?
