Child: Daddy? Is Mommy dead?
Atheist Dad: Yes son.
Child: But she will go to heaven right?
Atheist Dad: Sorry son, but heaven does not exist.
Child: What happens when people die?
Atheist Dad: Nothing. They just don't exist anymore.
Child: (sobbing) No! I love Mommy! I want her back!
Atheist Dad: Wishful thinking isn't gonna get you anywhere son.
Child: (crying heartbroken)
Atheist Dad: It's the truth. She's not gonna come back. She is gone forever. Now let's go and do what makes us happy.
(Child falls into depression and becomes less happy and more bitter. He then commits suicide a few weeks later.)
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That's pretty much spot on. Remember we are talking to a child. While the general message is correct, it will probably be softened a bit. We remember the ones we love and the love they had for us, but when they die they are gone. There was a time when people had a much better understanding of death and dying. Grandparents died at home and farm animals died regularly. People were much more familiar and accepting of death and dying. It is unfortunate that the process of death has been so far removed from Western culture that we no longer experience its reality. One of the great benefits of giving children pets is that when the pets die, we can talk to them about death. No one has ever returned from death. The easy answer to this is that we do not want out children to grow up delusional and be unhappy like you.
I am delusional how?
A cursory review of the things you said you learned from this website might be a good start.
You're right. I am delusional. Now I and thinking about committing suicide.
"I am delusional how?"
adjective
characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.
The real question is why religious beliefs are not considered a pathology.
Cognostic, your comment has now inspired me to kill myself. I am sure all of my friends and family will always remember me. That's all that matters now. I will no longer exist since the world would be a much better place without me.
Michael! You need to stop blaming atheists for your lack of self esteem! You need to seek emergency psychiatric assistance. Your threat of suicide may be a ploy, but I am asking you to PM with your address and telephone number. I will contact your local authorities and have them check up on you.
I am following Cognostics words. I will die someday anyways. I accept the fact that I die by planning to kill myself someday.
I am reporting you for threats of harm. Read the rules.
I did. I am only following what Cognostic told me.
I tried to help you but you are now on my permanent ignore list. Adios!
Ahhh Anomi in action.
Anomie, also spelled anomy, in societies or individuals, a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals. (Émile Durkheim)
There are 3 types of suicide:
Egoistic Suicide:
I'll show you. I'm going to kill myself and then you will be sorry. You can call this one manipulative suicide. "I'm just doing what Cognostic said." Please reference the source... you will find nothing like that at all in anything I said.
Altruistic Suicide:
But if excessive individuation thus leads to suicide, so does insufficient individuation: thus, among primitive peoples, we find several categories of suicide -- men on the threshold of old age, women upon the deaths of their husbands, followers and servants upon the deaths of their chiefs -- in which the person kills himself because it is his duty. Such a sacrifice, Durkheim argued, is imposed by society for social purposes; and for society to be able to do this, the individual personality must have little value, a state Durkheim called altruism, and whose corresponding mode of self-inflicted death was called obligatory altruistic suicide.
Anomic Suicide:
Egoistic and altruistic suicide, as we have seen, are the respective consequences of the individual's insufficient or excessive integration within the society to which he belongs. This third area involves a lack of mental boundaries. A breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals. A sense of normlessness.
You should probably call a suicide hotline. Generally people who talk about it do not do it but that is not always the case. Sometimes people who do it to prove a point are only trying to get sympathy and then accidentally succeed. Be careful less you succeed. You need to get some professional help.
United Kingdom: 08457909090
USA: 1 800 273-8255
@Michael
Re: OP
On the other hand:
Child: Daddy? Is Mommy dead?
Theist Dad: Yes son.
Child: But she will go to heaven right?
Theist Dad: Oh yes! She's already in Heaven right now, keeping an eye on you.
Child: (sobbing) No! I want her here, with me, now!
Theist Dad: You'll be with Mommy again, one day, I promise- you just have to wait.
Child: (crying heartbroken)
Theist Dad: It's the truth. We'll all be together forever in Heaven- God says so. Now let's go and do what makes us happy.
(Child misses his mother more and more. He falls into depression and commits suicide a few weeks later, to be with his mother.)
Think it through logically, Michael. A child who misses his mother desperately and has an expectation of being reunited with her after death is more likely to suicide to achieve that end than one who has no such expectation.
i remember what matt dillahunty shared a story in his show..."the atheist experience"
its about a kid, he misses his father so much that he literally took the pastors words of how his father is in heaven now. so the kid committed suicide, hoping that they will meet in heaven.
i know you've already heard it, the note is short..its something like she was saying goodbye to her mother. and apologizing for killing her self. and she just really miss her father so much...
sorry if i can't exactly put same words as were used by matt..
Atheism simply represents a lack of belief in the existence of gods. It does not represent anything else. It does not tell you how to raise children either.
@Michael: "Summation of Atheism, (I corrected grammar and typo) and other posts made
Michael, at least with atheism we would be honest and truthful not only with our children, but ourselves. Could you live with yourself by out-rightly lying to your children? I never could. That is why my wife and I told our daughters that, as far as we were concerned, they had the right to believe in whatsoever they wished to believe, even if it was Santa Claus. In fact, that is one of My Ten Commandments. We also told them that they had the right to also seek the answers for themselves. We told them they could go to church with their friends. Sometimes, my wife and I would go with them and sit through the nauseating filth they would spew. In the end, our daughters thought the same thing my wife and I did, "Are they really that stupid?" They decided they wanted to be like mom and dad and be rational.
That said, and along with all your other posts, I am with the others here. You do need to seek psychiatric help. Doing so is not an admittance of weakness. Rather it is a realization of strength. Believe me. I have been through the worst possible happenstance of shitty luck as any person can endure. And I survived facing up to the fact that I did need some help. And that help led me to the information I needed to be "forewarned is forearmed" against what was haunting and terrifying me. And it still does to this day. And it shall until the day I am recycled into the great infinity known as the universe.
And always remember this, nothing truly dies. It is simply transformed into something else. Thus, that is from whence comes immortality. I know when I die, I shall be transformed (recycled) into something else thus shall continue living for eternity. My mind, or if you prefer, my soul, shall not continue. But the very infinitesimally small impact I have had on the universe shall continue. Perhaps completely unrecognized by others, but it shall continue until the universe itself ends.
My physical being is immortal. My mental, my emotional being, weelll... not so much. But that in itself is a welcomed relief. Who would want to exist for eternity. Even I would become so bored, I would go completely wonko until I would actually start doing evil things just to break the damned boredom. I mean, after billions, trillions, quadrillions of years of perpetual existence, you would come to a point that there is LITERALLY nothing left to do since you have already done everything, seen everything, had every possible combination of conversation with others, and there is LITERALLY nothing left to do. Except as I said earlier, start doing evil things just to break the boredom. Also, think Q, especially John De Lancie's Q. Also watch Star Trek: Voyager, Season 2, Episode 18, "Death Wish". A very good episode on why living for eternity would truly suck ass and swallow.
rmfr
Is this unpleasant attack an example of what our hysterical attention seeking troll meant by it's important to be nice, I wonder?
Another irony over load.
Why do religious apologists think telling a child their parent is being mercilessly tortured forever is a preferable delusion to the reality of loss?
I'm with Sheldon and I have not bothered to read the post. I am fairly certain Sheldon is on target. I don't need to wade through Michael's drivel.
Children can be fragile, so we protect them. When they are very young, it makes sense to protect them from the harsh realities of life. That is where "heaven", "Santa", and the Easter Bunny exist. But eventually they have to learn that Santa is not real. Then you do not drop a harsh and cruel surprise on them, you carefully and with sensitivity explain the realities of life.
Doing it as Michael laid out is bad and cruel parenting. Just plain sadistic, in fact.
No wonder he's suicidal.
Michael, I also suggest you seek out medical help, immediately.