Atheists of lemmy, what is your coping strategy when things goes downhill?

I am at an accepting stage that not everything that happens in your life is in your control. When things goes really bad and you dont have much control on it, I would assume a person who believes in god or religious figures has their belief system as a coping mechanism. For example praying to the god and so on.

I passed that stage where you believe a single entity has a complete control of each and everything happens in this entire universe. So falling back to god and thinking it is all according to the plan and he will find out some solution is not really an option for me. At the sametime I also acknowlede that there are some gray areas where science can’t provide a logical explanation so as to why this is happening to some of the life events.

So to atheists of lemmy, how do you cope up with shits that happens in your life that you can’t explain logically and you really don’t have much control?

echodot,

Can you provide an example where science cannot explain a situation, because I can’t honestly think of any.

If you get sick then that’s biology.
If your boiler bursts and your house floods that’s an engineering problem.
If lightning strikes your house and your home burns down then that’s just physics.

Just because it sucks doesn’t mean science can’t explain it, and it doesn’t mean that it’s inexplainable.

Ultimately everything is either physics or politics, both of which are very easy to understand at a basic level. Especially politics.

darcy,
@darcy@sh.itjust.works avatar

you see johnny, your mum dying is actually just a demonstration of biology, quite marvelous. and your sadness is actually just psychology. isnt science wonderful

echodot,

Yeah. Science isn’t another religion. It’s just the universe existing. Sometimes crap stuff happens, that doesn’t mean atheism is invalid just because it would be nice if something else existed. Wanting it doesn’t make it exist, sorry.

lolan,

Examples are like losing the loved ones in your life, or someone getting a disease at a young age and not able to live a proper life and so on. You could argue that as per the science that is how life works. Like if you are born you must age and die eventually. Or as per the science you can diagonse the disease and come up with an explanation on how things happens and what lead to it. My why question was more of why this is happening at the first place and absurd randomness of it. Or on philosophical level, I can’t comprehend the meaning of certain events. For example you dont even learn or improve anything from such events. And my original question was not to solve any of this for the entire universe, but how people are dealing with with such situations…

dustyData,

There is no why. The Universe has no inherent purpose or meaning. Nothing happens for any particular intentional reason. There was no plan. There is no plan. It can’t be absurd because absurd implies there is some way things are supposed to be like, but there isn’t a right, just or correct way for things to exists. Things aren’t random though, everything in the universe is intricately interrelated and everything affects everything else at some level on some minuscule way and what ends up happening is the result of a million million years of causal collision of particles and forces interacting.

The nice part of this all is that meaning and purpose can be anything you want it to be. They’re human concepts and thus humans can mold them freely. You only have one life, savor the bittersweet, elate on the joy, for it all will pass. We are just the accumulative force of carbon combining in a futile attempt to stave off entropy, resulting in an data flow that makes the universe experience itself. And that I find to be wonderfully delightful.

Now sit down and eat your breakfast.

Kerfuffle,

Can you provide an example where science cannot explain a situation, because I can’t honestly think of any.

Not OP, but there is some stuff. One big example is qualia. How does matter give rise to actual feelings, experiences of things? This isn’t something we can measure directly and it actually seems like it won’t be something we ever can measure. Might also be able to use something like “what was there before the big bang?” and that kind of thing.

Of course, the fact that science can’t explain something doesn’t really justify falling back on magic as an explanation though. Some stuff just may not have an answer.

amio,

At the sametime I also acknowlede that there are some gray areas where science can’t provide a logical explanation so as to why this is happening to some of the life events.

What do you mean? Why does that matter, what would that explanation do for you?

So to atheists of lemmy, how do you cope up with shits that happens in your life that you can’t explain logically and you really don’t have much control?

I can explain most things logically, that is not the problem. The problem is that the logical explanation still usually sucks. Being religious would only provide an explanation - that can't really be true, let alone helpful. Presumably I'd rationalize everything with how an infinitely loving, powerful and all-knowing God needed me to have a shit time, for reasons, because that makes a lot of sense. That belief wouldn't change much, other than potentially leading me to make profoundly irrational choices. I can manage that perfectly fine on my own, thanks all the same.

Omega_Jimes,

Epictitus suggested that the world consists of two things, those you can assert control over and those you cannot. In order to lead a good life, you shouldn’t spend energy on the things you have no control over. I’ve had a couple real bad stretches, but when things turn pear shaped, I take account of the things I have control over and what I don’t.

shneancy,

absurdism! “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” is what keeps me going

thelsim,
@thelsim@sh.itjust.works avatar

🎶 Here’s a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don’t worry
Be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don’t worry
Be happy, don’t worry, be happy now 🎶

Works for me most of the time :)
On a more serious note, I learned to accept that not everything will always go my way. But not every bad thing is as bad as it might appear at first, and sometimes by rolling with the punches you can come out on top. Or at least end up in a better position than you started out in.
Of course I’ve never had to deal with truly catastrophic life events, so take that advice with a grain of salt.

arbitrary_sarcasm,

I don’t remember where I originally heard this from, but the Serenity Prayer has helped me get through some tough times

“Oh God, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what can not be helped, and insight to know the one from the other”

I know it begins with “God”, but I found it applicable to my life without requesting anything from God.

silencioso,

If I’m still breathing, I’m fine.

railsdev,

Kind of a weird question. You just have to deal with the problem or consequences of your actions. Usually when I feel down I’ll snap out of it and figure out what I can do to improve the situation. I don’t feel a need to do anything specific to cope.

corsicanguppy,

, how do you cope up with shits that happens in your life that you can’t explain logically and you really don’t have much control?

You get back to work.

foo,

Antidepressants and industrial-strength denial.

kometes,

I make things better in ways that I can.

WeLoveCastingSpellz, (edited )

I call one of my friends and talk to them

owatnext,
@owatnext@lemmy.world avatar

I just remind myself of a few key principles:

  • My job can’t be soul-crushing; there is no scientific proof souls exist. (Basically, if I am upset, I may need to adjust my outlook.)
  • The universe may not care about me, but there are people in it who do.
  • Sometimes it’s gonna hurt, but so far there hasn’t been a time where the hurt hasn’t dulled and gone away. I always come upon something that makes it better/worth it.

Just gotta find what keeps you going. It’s different for everyone.

lolan,

The universe may not care about me, but there are people in it who do

These are really striking words for me. Thank you !!

AdmiralShat,

Constantly contemplate suicide until the idea of suicide is boring

SkyNTP, (edited )

some gray areas where science can’t provide a logical explanation so as to why this is happening to some of the life events.

Not really sure about this one. Science doesn’t have answers for really big questions, like why does the universe exist. But for stuff smaller than that, like “why do I have some disease”, or “why did I lose a loved one” … or just “why did I lose 200$ dollars at the casino” well science tells us a lot about how it’s all one giant lottery we have been playing involuntarily, and we are all really bad at it.

We take chances just by existing. It’s literally called a genetic lottery. We take a chance by getting in a car or stepping out onto the street to go to the market. Just by loving people we take the chance that something could take them away. Life deals you a hand. You win some, you lose some. You don’t get to decide what your odds are. The best you can do is play the hand you’ve got. Which to be honest, is a lot less control than we tend to think we have. And even then, most of us don’t play our hand all that great, cause we are thrust into the game of life without a practice round. And we are often too young and arrogant to listen to those who have come before us who already learned the hard way. Worse yet, we see few of our peer’s mistakes, so we have a poor sense of what success and failure really looks like.

Science tells us about the gambler’s fallacy, the human bias towards falsely thinking that the universe tends towards some kind of fairness or equilibrium which is patently false (consider how little the gambler expects “good luck” to turn bad, therefore why gamble at all if it always equalizes?). Karma doesn’t mean the universe owes you exactly what you put in. Life doesn’t hand out exact change.

Science also tells us about how we (humans) don’t truly understand randomness. In nature, successive repetitions of some outcome of luck are vastly more common than we tend to think they are. We see a series of bad luck outcomes and say “that’s not natural, this can’t be real” when in fact it is often the natural laws of the universe on full display.

Despite it all, even if the game of life makes no promises to you at all, it sure as hell is better than not playing the game at all. Regarding karma, the only thing you can be sure of–and forgive me for using a dead meme but it is apt–is that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Edit for the pedants: gambler’s fallacy actually means that past results of independent events do not predict future outcomes, but that’s basically what I just said.

lolan,

That is a lot of wisdom in a single comment. I am re-reading it a lot… Yay! Thanks for sharing

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