Comment Re:In lost the will to live ... (Score 5, Interesting) 795
I have a sense of rightness that derives from empathy.
The irony of my own atheism is that not believing I have a sky daddy on my side has left me inclined to turn the other cheek, to be kind to other people, and so on like that. I can't, in good conscience, just dump the fat 45 year old wife who bores me intellectually and sexually, and consumes ravenous quantities of my income in ways that are of no benefit to myself. I can't even put down this wretched old dog who will just stand there looking you in the eye while taking a shit in the living room, who has been limping along in poor health for years, but still has a happy enough life. The dog is 20 years old, the same as the marriage, and I've been waiting for both of them to die of natural causes for the longest time now. I can't bring myself to put either one out of my misery, even though the misery is considerable, and the only real consolation I have is that I'm doing the right thing in martyring myself this way. Somehow the idea of allowing my own happiness to be a priority is a concept that never made its way into my atheistic ethos.
In contrast, one of my best friends is a deeply religious true believer who can attest, with no irony at all, that "every word in the Bible is the literal truth." I've thrown the full weight of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible at him, and he has an answer, an explanation, a dodge, or an excuse for absolutely every last line item. I couldn't believe the things he does if I wanted to, but it certainly has led to a sharply contrasting life. I suppose I keep him around in order to live vicariously through him. When you have Sky Daddy on your side, you can do anything and call it moral. He used to own a brothel in Mexico, and he was involved in sex trafficking operations whereby rural farm girls were lured to the city under false pretenses, and forced to work off their debt in the brothel. He dumped his old fat wife for a fresh young third world farm girl who worships him like a king, and is genuinely happy to do so. That's the hell of it right there. I've talked to his wife plenty of times. I know quite a lot about misery and abuse, and I see none present in her. She's really happy, beautiful, and servile. The only time I've seen her unhappy was when my friend forgot to let her perform some minor service or other for him, and did it himself instead.
The contrast between our lives is amazing. We have the same job and work the same 70 hours a week. He gets worshiped as a king, and I get walked on by a fat woman and then come home to clean up dog shit every day. If I could just suspend my disbelief and embrace this goofy Sky Daddy stuff, then I could become a sociopath too, and as a sociopath, I could be happy to shoot the dog, divorce the wife, and get me one of those servile young slave women from abroad. What man wouldn't want to come home to dinner and a blowjob seven nights a week? Me, apparently. I'd rather let a fat woman walk all over me, spend all my money, and keep me on an eternal debt treadmill, because it's kind thing to do, and the kind thing is always the right thing. That's what my atheist mother taught me; a fat woman who did the same thing to my poor meek father.
Sigh.