If there's no afterlife, why shouldn't I do whatever I want?

Blaise www

Morality is defined by your mind, not the existence (or not) of an afterlife. If you do good in hopes of a reward, are you actually being good?

Even if you define “good” as being whatever gets you your desired reward, why would that reward have to be an afterlife, or nothing at all? Wouldn’t the adulation of your peers do? Or perhaps the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you do something good?

Conversely, couldn’t you be motivated to “good” by the desire to avoid negative consequences? For example, the fear that if you do something bad, society will reject/imprison/exterminate you?

Akusai www

Short answer to a long question, if I may: because it’s a dick move, that’s why.

If you really feel you need a “deeper” or “more profound” or “wiser” answer to the question “Why should I not be totally freakin’ evil if there is no afterlife?” then you’re massively overcomplicating a very simple issue.

brian thomson www

Why should we tell you what to think? I can tell you what I think – all the following is my opinion, not representative of anyone else’s.

Atheism is related to Naturalism, and a quick way of describing my attitude is: I start by dealing with what is. The Earth is. The sky is. Nature is. Anything I might wish or feel or want has meaning to me, and to other people in my life, but it has no meaning in the universe beyond the world of people.

So, I am not going to tell you that there is no afterlife. I have no objective reasons to believe that there is an afterlife, or gods, or spirits – so I have to work on the assumption that they are not real. I do not need to be certain about this: small minds demand certainty where it is not warranted. We understand these concepts based on the stories we have been told, but that doesn’t make them real or unreal: stories are just stories.

When I read something like “the only way my existence can have meaning- and therefore my life be a success- is to have my own children, and pass on my DNA”, I almost throw up. Where did that come from? Is your DNA special, somehow, that you have to pass it on? Would you love an adopted child any less, just because he or she doesn’t have your DNA? I don’t think so: the products of sexual reproduction have lives of their own, totally separate from the process that brought them along. You can leave that “bloodline” crap to the Middle Ages.

I would argue that sex and procreation are the least humanly meaningful aspects of our lives, since we differ very little (if at all) from animals in that process. Animals do not ascribe meaning to it – but we do, because we can, at the risk of over-analysing the whole thing. (Woody Allen understands this, as evidenced by films such as Annie Hall and Manhattan.)

Life is to be lived and enjoyed. We are past the stage of evolution where we must have children, and this planet is filling up rapidly. That is not to say that children are a bad thing, but I strongly feel that, if you’re going to have them, you have to do a good job of it. Children are a rational choice, a vocation entered into out of joy and hope for the future – not an obligation to be carried out. If you don’t have hope for the future now, perhaps children might offer you some, but what about them? Brought in to this world to work on your neuroses? Gee, Thanks, Dad!

As Denis Leary put it: Life sucks. Get a f-ing helmet. Are you angry at what happened to you? If so, good! Take that anger and do something with it. Write a book about it. Study the causes, and how you can stop that happening to other people. You can still make a difference. Further education can offer you a way forward, and a real chance to make a difference. Why not talk to a local community college or university? (Not a Bible University, obviously!) The disciplines of study and research can do wonders for your state of mind. 8)

logicel

You are unhappy with your life. You also suffer from an anxiety disorder. Thank you for giving us that very important information. As a fellow sufferer from a long line of familial members who endure/ed panic attacks, I know having an anxiety disorder is no picnic. It is hard to think clearly and productively when you feel like you are trapped inside a burning building which is how a panic attack can feel.

Some anxiety states, including a chronic level, and not just the acute versions, can incorporate manic thinking—the thoughts just keep on racing and racing and racing, dragging you along for the ride like: time is running out, you have done nothing (despite being a goody two-shoes), you will do nothing, nothing is worse than nothing, I must do something, anything, right now.

You are doing your best to self medicate yourself. And I applaud you for that. I regard how atheists handle the concept of no afterlife as the least of your problems.

Even in America, there are ways for you to cope with your hardships. And know that there is at least one other person in the world who knows what you are up against. That’s me and I am rooting for you. You sound intelligent and tough. You got this far and nothing is written in stone, even your self-medicating scenario that by age fifty you will have little to live for.

Focus on living as well as possible with an anxiety disorder. Search the net for a support group by you. Use that intelligence and passion to help yourself become more content/accepting with who you are.

SmartLX

You don’t have to cure cancer or be a celebrity to impact the world. Not everyone on the planet has to be aware of your legacy for you to have one.

What you leave behind is mostly held by other people; those you’ve loved, those you’ve raised and/or taught and more commonly those you’ve simply helped. There is a great deal you can do to help others despite your misfortunes, even because of them. Why wait until you die to pass on the lessons you’ve learned? Volunteer for charity or social work, and teach the living.

If you go full sociopath and do whatever you want, regardless of your reward or lack thereof after death, your life will quickly be destroyed on a level beyond what you think has already happened. You will forfeit future opportunities to do anything meaningful which might occur to you.

Even if you take the perspective that no afterlife means that only you matter, which very few people actually do, it is no reason to become completely selfish and uncaring. Why not? Because being good to others can be rewarding in its own right, and it encourages people to treat you better in return.

Altruism has a sound pragmatic basis in this vein without even considering the afterlife. That’s why altruistic instincts have been reinforced by natural selection ever since our ancestors became social animals. If these instincts weren’t materially beneficial, they would have been bred out of the gene pool.

Atheism holds that there is only one life, but that life isn’t over until it’s over. Throwing all ethics out the window in a world full of other people is essentially suicide, which is a more final matter in such a context. If you intend to live longer than a week or so, supreme selfishness will simply not help you get the most out of life.