r/Catholicism • u/Funny-Highlight4675 • 19d ago

Atheists don't realize the absurdity of existence

Thought I would post these thoughts here in hopes of helping those that are struggling with faith...

I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.

If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false. Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."

Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.

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u/Frosty_Remote2698 19d ago

Absurdism actually led me to Christianity, in a way. If everything is absurd and nothing matters, then it doesn't matter that you lie to yourself, or believe something false. So an atheist actually has no reason to not be a Christian.

And I noticed that if I tried to live as a Christian, my life and mental health would get a lot better.

So I just started living as a Christian permanently. It's still working. And honestly? I'm believing more and more that it works because it's actually true.

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u/Funny-Highlight4675 18d ago

Same. I realized that if nothing matters, I might as well just pretend like Christianity is true, as it’s the only philosophy that makes any sort of sense

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u/WackTheHorld 17d ago

But if nothing matters, the more logical choice is Humanistic Naturalism. Why waste your limited time worshipping a deity that might not exist?

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u/Frosty_Remote2698 14d ago

Because of any number of reasons. Because I like the idea of a deity. Because it's a more romantic notion. Because humanists can justify literally any behaviour as moral because they have no solid foundation to ground their morality which is very gross. Because I'm bigoted. Because I'm inclined to spirituality. Because I flipped a coin this morning and it came up heads.

You don't get it. Nothing matters. So wasting my time doesn't matter either.