Mr. Justin commented on the previous post. Comments have a word limit. I do not like these. Here is his comment and my obtuse response...
"[What you value is] Significance then. Besides that you could choose from:
Security, Variety, Love/Connection
Growth, or Contribution. Try to find at least one more that resonates with you.
Despite what you've said about athiesm being motivating, I'm convinced that a more eternal perspective has greater potential for generating motivation. It, at least, adds more weight to those last two factors in the list above.
I'm about to make a sweeping generatization here, but I get the impression that those who consciously adapt atheism have a pessimism overshadowing everything that they do (especially if they once held a religious/spiritual view), that isn't helpful for motivation. Any motivation they have seems to be self-focused.
If you can somehow get a motive that extends beyond yourself, that is bigger than yourself, and is constructive... then it's likely that your motivation will be stronger and more satisfying."
Security, Variety, Love/Connection
Growth, or Contribution. Try to find at least one more that resonates with you.
Despite what you've said about athiesm being motivating, I'm convinced that a more eternal perspective has greater potential for generating motivation. It, at least, adds more weight to those last two factors in the list above.
I'm about to make a sweeping generatization here, but I get the impression that those who consciously adapt atheism have a pessimism overshadowing everything that they do (especially if they once held a religious/spiritual view), that isn't helpful for motivation. Any motivation they have seems to be self-focused.
If you can somehow get a motive that extends beyond yourself, that is bigger than yourself, and is constructive... then it's likely that your motivation will be stronger and more satisfying."
Are you going all Tony Robbins on me or is it Covey? I can't remember who's material that is. Genuine moment: thanks for the advice though. Anyways, I'm not sure about the accuracy of your conclusion. How many ex-mormon atheists do you really know? Sure there are a few bloggers that I link to here, but I'm not sure that any of them agree with my, shall we say, unique perspective about the world. All I see is good people trying to do the best they can with what they have. These are blogs though, you can't read too much into them. Besides I haven't come out officially until this very moment, but here goes, I am no longer atheist, more of a zen nihilist really, sometimes a chaos magician, but always pessimistic.
Some psychological research (see Happiness, the thinking person's guide) indicates that we all develop a default point of happiness that we naturally gravitate to in spite of external circumstances. If you're a curmudgeon before you win the lottery, chances are you'll still be a curmudgeon after you win (this is not to say that you can't change, just that change is very hard and takes a long time). I was an emo before I left the church, make no mistake about it, and surprisingly I'm still an emo from time to time now. So with this in mind, extrapolating from my writings the general outlook of an entire cross-section of the population is probably unwise.
I like to think that the sky is falling (time for me to throw out some stereotyping blankets now). This should be familiar territory for any self-respecting millennially minded individual. The sky has been falling for the last 2000 years or so. In fact the world is fallen already, governed by "principalities powers and the rulers of darkness." I mean it is very easy to argue that a Christian world view is excessively negative and unnecessarily cynical about human nature. I have heard the assertion that without a law giver there can be no law. On this point I agree. The law like most things is made up. However, this does not require that any and every godless heathen on the flying spaghetti monster's green earth begin raping and pillaging on the assumption that god is dead. Atheists are probably the most under represented minority group in prisons the world over (heard it from Sam Harris). The idea that the only thing holding our (assumed) depraved natural tendencies from bursting forth and fucking everyone up is the knowledge that some divine despot is spying on our every move is just sad(stole this from Dawkins).
Let's not focus on whose god can beat up whoever's non-god though or vice versa. That has proven unproductive thus far. You assert that an eternal perspective motivates better than an atheist view point. This says nothing of the truth of claim of said perspective. For some I have no doubt that it is a great motivating factor. Fine. There's an old saying: when a man knows he's going to be hanged in a fortnight, it focuses his mind wonderfully. Perhaps death in the end is what invests life with meaning. I win again. Just kidding. I have no problem with what gets you or anyone else out of bed in the morning. To me though, it looks like you're making an argument from utility (I'm a fan of this argument). This world view works the best for me so this is how I will be. However when people start making universal truth claims about metaphysical ideas/entities that are essentially unprovable, well each to their own...
We've both lived in the world on different sides of the faith (in a god) spectrum and have ultimately come to different conclusions. I think the world would be a far less interesting place if we all thought the same way. I'm not saying this is the final word and please don't engage me in friendly debate anymore. As usual I'm not sure exactly what it is that I'm saying. I think though, that we agree on one thing: you have to find a world view that motivates you to live well. Otherwise what's the point? The world is a big, crazy, scary, exciting place and we're all just trying to make sense of it. As long as I can find ways to keep growing, extending and transcending myself, then I'll be a happy camper. I just have a funny way of expressing that happiness. Remember Eeyore was a person too. There's room in the forest for all of god's ;) creatures.
