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?
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I know I’ve asked for more than a few things to please work out. Couldn’t tell you who I was asking though.
Ride the wave of chaos on your surfboard of acceptance and enjoy the ride, it’s all we’ve got.
The only time I truly feel alive
I’ve always found it easier to accept that the universe is fundamentally random and today is my turn in the barrel than wonder why God did this to me.
I accept the fact that I don’t understand everything, and I get high.
Identify which parts I do control and work on them to improve my situation, ask for help from others/professional services if thing go too far.
Just because your faith doesn’t work how you want it to doesn’t mean you are all alone and have to deal with everything alone.
What do you mean by “cope”? How do I explain it? Either shit happens because of bad luck (e.g. A bird shits on me) or because someone did something wrong (e.g. Somebody got distracted while driving and broke my side mirror). It’s not supernatural entity, it’s just statistical probability.
How do I cope mentally? Tv, videogames, a beer o two and a nice meal. Talk to my wife. Remember to play with my kids.
If I can’t have control over shit happening, then I just don’t care.
I think it was Další Lama who said: “If a problem has a solution, there is no reason to worry. If there is no solution, worrying will not help.”
I’m not a control freak, I know that most things in life are outside my control, and I’m generally fine with it. And when those things outside my control are bad for me, I just… accept them while doing whatever I can to make them less bad?
Two people here mentioned media and booze. For me they’re refreshment; they distract me from the problem that I can’t solve, but they won’t help directly. (Sometimes you do need a refreshment.) Same deal with cooking or talking with my pets.
Honestly, I think we have it a lot easier than the theists in that regard. If someone dings my car, I find that my dog has cancer, or I lose my job, I don’t have to address the problem of evil. I don’t need to figure out how to square the idea of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god with misfortune. I don’t need to wonder if I am being punished or tested, and I don’t have to worry about prayers that aren’t being answered.
There are multiple non-theistic philosophies and religions that offer a framework for understanding and coping with negative events. Neither Buddhism nor Taoism have an explicit dependency on anything supernatural, especially in the schools and forms most popular in the West. The general idea is that we need to be less attached to certain outcomes and that our suffering arises more from our wanting the world to be how it isn’t.
There’s also a large number of non-theistic schools in Western philosophy that have taken their own various approaches to questions ranging from the meaning of life and the meaning of suffering to how to identify and pursue the good. There’s multiple schools of existentialism, of course, but I would even think that writings on the nature of justice (eg John Rawls, Michael Sandel, Peter Singer), the nature of the ego and human experience (eg Thomas Metzinger), and even works of film and literature can help approach an understanding, which is itself perhaps the best coping mechanism.
Can you elaborate what you mean by things that science can’t explain?
Everything came from randomness and is mostly narrated by it, and there’s no escape from it. You may hit the lottery or end up with a rare fatal disease any time, your life will be changed and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not about god granting you awards or punishing you, it just happens. From this POV getting depressed because I went through x feels like getting depressed because water flows.
Life is painful, also joyful, beautiful and really ugly, gross and amazing. You’re supposed to fall, get hurt and then get up and run a bit more until you can’t anymore. Every good and bad thing will pass in time
I was talking about the same randomness , as in why it was happening. As you mentioned for example having a rare disease or an accident, you could well explain it with diagnosis and reports on how it formed and what leads to it and so on. But why this is happening to certain people is not really have any control. I mean It is that randomness that we cant explain or atleast I do not understand.
I like your take on the life and how you are accepting all the aspects like pain and joy at the sametime. This to shall pass… Yay!!
It sounds like you’re coming at science from a religious or philosophical standing, and blurring the lines.
Science can explain and account for everything in life, whether you understand it or not.
There are plenty of things that we as humans do not yet understand, but it’s all still science.
The question of ‘why did this have to happen to me/them’ is completely null and void; it’s a question stemming from a belief system, not a scientific system.
Person X got cancer because they were genetically predisposed to it, or they encountered a environmental occurance that caused it. Person Y had a heart attack at 50 and died because they had a preexisting heart condition, or they were unhealthy, or an environmental incident occurred that initied it.
The philosophy of it is not scientific, it’s philosophical and has no valid place in a scientific explanation.
Discussing philosophy can be thought provoking, entertaining, enraging, and enlightening all at the same time, but it’s totally different to discussing science.
As for coping strategies, accepting that some things are simply out of your control is a good place to start. Easier said than done at times, I know. We as humans gravitate towards belief, we’ve likely evolved to do that. But again, that’s science. Know your limits, understand that you won’t always have control, and accept things that are beyond your reach. Life won’t always be fun, but you’re the only person in charge of your own thoughts and feelings. Use that to your advantage whenever you can.
Look at Stoicism. It is a very interesting philosophy from the Greeks , you can learn more here : https://youtu.be/EFkyxzJtiv4?si=ZQSdcIz58lnfl-Og
This is the best secular world view I’ve found. Since leaving religious thinking behind, I wondered abit between nihilism and the world is what you make it. The Dichotomy of Control really resonated with me. Funny enough, I started rereading Epictetus’ Enchiridion
The book, How to be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci is good to. I found it more accessible. Here is a video with him https://youtu.be/qjz5a8X9LjU?si=0OsptyOS7MvHiYw0
Thank you!! It is really an intersting perspective. I will research more in this.
Looks like the stoics found a life raft from reddit
Sorry English is not my first language, what you mean by life raft? Like you mean stoics found a way out of Reddit?
“It is what it is.”
This + the occasional LAN party with the boys has gotten me through just about anything
Radical acceptance. And then to follow, build a core of self supporting psychology structures to live by, which sounds complex, but it’s just things like
Emotional regulation tools. Distress tolerance. Self support concepts.
Let me know if you want me to expand on anything.
This is really good advice.
When things happen you can either control the outcome or not. If you can, and things go sideways, you simply made the wrong decisions along the way and can learn. If you can’t, find out what small parts you CAN influence and do your best to make things turn out okay. If you are totally powerless, remind yourself that nothing lasts forever and you can wait it out until an opportunity presents itself or the situation changes.
Sometimes you will find yourself in a ruinous situation beyond your control. Lower your standards until you have something you can act on - even if it’s going to sleep to give your mind and body some rest. One step at a time, even if they’re small steps and you’re not quite sure where you’ll end up. Find any positive you can. That said, allow yourself to get angry, sad, or anything else you need to feel to vent the stress - but afterward, find a positive and hold it.
Religious people have a built in community around their place of worship or shared interests. If something bad happens, the good people in that community will do what they can to offer support - this is usually mistaken for “god is great, look how he sent you to help.” That’s just silly (and rather insulting).
Atheists don’t have that default support community, but hopefully we have friends and co-workers, people on our dart league, etc. who would jump at the chance to help out when things go sideways. Be social. Help others. Be part of a community of good people, regardless of their beliefs, and they can help steady you when life gets mean.
Soon I’ll be dead and then it won’t matter anyway.
