What is the future of humanity according to an Atheist?

Hi I'm new here and I found this forum after searing the web for a while. To give anyone reading this an idea of where I am coming from when I post this is that I was raised a Roman Catholic until I entered High School. I became an Atheist and remained so for approximately 3 years. I was absolutely convinced of my belief that there was no God. You may question my resolved in that belief as I continue, however I assure you that I was indeed an Atheist. When I entered college I was introduced to a man who would later become and remain a good friend. He is a Christian and after many heated debates between us I finnally relented and went to a bible study to see what the "Christian" view of Jesus Christ presented. I do believe and know that there are many differences between Catholicism and Christianity, at least according to my experience. Anyway, long story short I became a born again Christian believer and have remained so for approximately 7 years. Although Christian, I do still have doubts about God, the afterlife, the soul and so forth. I can see and relate to anyone who says that they believe that there is no god or afterlife and my intent in posting this is not to debate these facts. My question is this,

As to my understanding, all of existence will eventually come to an end. There are many theories as to what will happen to the universe billions of years from now. Will there be a big crunch or a big freeze? Who really knows? Anyway according to an atheist what,if any,is the point to living our lives as we do now if there is no long term future for humanity?Why do I bother going to work and providing for my family if one day they will die and cease to exist. What is the point of being a productive member of society if Human Civilization cannot survive the Big Crunch or the Big Freeze? If even stars cannot live forever how can we evolve to point that we would be able to? As I see it, every human in the world will one day be dead and cease to exist. This for me is a truly terrifying thought and it keeps me up at night. So I ask what is the point? Why should anyone live trying to have pleasure in family, career, love, wealth, fame when EVERYTHING will be dust in the end.

Thanks,
-Seeking the truth

Originally Posted by ManSeekingTruth

As to my understanding, all of existence will eventually come to an end. There are many theories as to what will happen to the universe billions of years from now. Will there be a big crunch or a big freeze? Who really knows? Anyway according to an atheist what,if any,is the point to living our lives as we do now if there is no long term future for humanity?Why do I bother going to work and providing for my family if one day they will die and cease to exist. What is the point of being a productive member of society if Human Civilization cannot survive the Big Crunch or the Big Freeze? If even stars cannot live forever how can we evolve to point that we would be able to? As I see it, every human in the world will one day be dead and cease to exist. This for me is a truly terrifying thought and it keeps me up at night. So I ask what is the point? Why should anyone live trying to have pleasure in family, career, love, wealth, fame when EVERYTHING will be dust in the end.

Why do you think that something has to be eternal to be important?

And I think that mainstream Christian theology creates just as much of a problem with futility of action as you describe. I assume you believe in the Second Coming and all that, right? Well, think about its implications:

- if you spend all your days helping the needy, defending the defenseless and generally being as good as humanly possible, Jesus will come down from Heaven and make everything perfect.

- if you spend your days murdering, raping, pillaging, kicking puppies and generally inflicting as much suffering as you can, Jesus will come down from Heaven and make everything perfect.

Either way, your actions make absolutely no difference in the final outcome.

The Christian worldview basically presents reality as the ultimate "flight simulator": no matter how badly you mess up or how well you do, ultimately, your actions won't affect the fate of anyone other than yourself. God is always there to make things right either way.

So... it seems like you're in the same boat as the rest of us. Moreso, maybe.

Thanks everyone for the kind responses, I know that discussion on these matters can get quite heated. I can promise you my only purpose in posting is evident in the name I chose for myself.

Kiefer,
I'll try to make a short story longer for you When I considered myself an atheist I was convinced that the human mind had created religion and God to help him cope with his own uncertain future. Humanity thousands of years ago was faced with a lot more uncertainty then we do now. They faced questions, similar to us today, like...Why do we die? Where do we go? Of course we have a better understanding now thanks to science about disease, cancer, ect and are able to at least answer the first question I presented. But when it came down to it I believed faith, God, afterlife were a coping mechanism to help man to deal with the fact that he was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it.

I believed this, but like you mention, it made me severly depressed. I wanted there to be a God because I feared ceasing to exist. A guy I met at the first bible study I went to asked me to pray to God and ask Him to show Himself to me so that I could believe. I took up the challenge and prayed, and prayed again and never really got a 'physical' answer. I heard no voice and saw no vision, but I begin to question my atheism. I guess you could say this is where a seed of 'faith' took root in me.

The questions I had asked about my original Roman Catholic Faith I began to ask about my atheist worldview. There were some questions that I could simply not explain and science today can still not answer for me. For example, how did the Big Bang create all that we see in the universe? How could all of that matter and space and time come from a single point without influence? If everything in a universe has a beggining then where did it come from? I know that some people would say that the answer to that question is "it doesnt matter" because time and space did not exist before then, but that wasn't good enough for me. For me I could see 'intelligent design' in our universe. I could see structure from the basest of elements to the larger super clusters of galaxies. I also could see all of these things controlled by the 'physical laws' of the universe like gravity ect and could not explain how they could have occured without influence. For me I just coudnt believe that these realities, even us, were formed and made through a "random" occurence.

I think that it is interesting in some articles I've read recently suggest that intelligent life, ie human civilization, might not be as common as orignally supposed. They suggest that life outside of our solar system is surely probable given the large amount of planets in our known universe, however "intelligent life", life that is able to create art, religion, science, imagination might be a one in a trillion likelyhood. They suggest this because if the premise of evolution is true then why is homo sapien the only intelligent life to have existed on this planet given the vast number of species that have existed in earths biological history.

To put it simply I came to the conclusion that in all likelyness there had to be a 'creator' or God to this universe. Now to answer how I came to believe that Christanity and the God of the bible is in fact this 'creator' was far simpler. I saw that every religion that I know of gives its followers guidelines, rules, commandments to live by in order to please "God" or "gods" and earn favor. For some this favor includes eternal life (Heaven). But Christianity is the only religion that says humanity can never do enought "good" to inherit eternal life and earn Gods favor. If God is powerful enough to create this universe He would have to be close to perfect, or as perfect can be defined by human logic, and supremely powerful. Christianity teaches that only "faith" (belief) in Christ and his sacrifice can merit salvation and can please God because according to Christian belief Christ was God in human form, ie perfect. By Christ's sacrifice on the cross and our faith and belief in that sacrifice we are made perfect. God no longer sees our "works" or actions but the work of Christ on the cross. For me I saw that Christianity stood out amongst all other religions according to its fundamental docrtine. To make it a simple equation - God is perfect. Man is not. Man cannot please God with his work. Man must have an atonement in order to be made perfect so that he/she can be in the presence of God. This atonement comes through faith in God's perfect son Jesus Christ and not human will or effort.

Simply, Christanity was the most logical for me according my understanind of the universe. I know thats a long answer but I couldn't make it any shorter.

I was hoping that some of you guys could tell me how you came to your atheistic understanding and maybe "turn" me round aback again
Seeking truth always...

To answer your question Penguin:

"Why do you think that something has to be eternal to be important?"

I think that there are levels of importance given to certain things. I think that if I were to compare somthing "eternal", an example for 'me' would be a human 'soul', (which is not tangible) to that of a mountain, which is somthing physical and that I can see. I would say that the mountain is important in its context. The mountain is a habitat and part of an ecosystem that helps sustain life for that area. However, since mountains erode over time and according to my belief will one day be burned away, it does not hold the same importance to me as a human soul which I believe will remain for eternity.

You stated -" if you spend all your days helping the needy, defending the defenseless and generally being as good as humanly possible, Jesus will come down from Heaven and make everything perfect.

- if you spend your days murdering, raping, pillaging, kicking puppies and generally inflicting as much suffering as you can, Jesus will come down from Heaven and make everything perfect.

Either way, your actions make absolutely no difference in the final outcome."

According to that statement I would say you are correct in a sense if coming from a Christian world view. My actions dont make a difference in the "big picture" of Christian escathology. However, my actions do play a part in the final outcome for my soul personally and where my final destination will be. And to me that affects how I live and what actions I choose to make.

Originally Posted by ManSeekingTruth

To answer your question Penguin:

"Why do you think that something has to be eternal to be important?"

I think that there are levels of importance given to certain things. I think that if I were to compare somthing "eternal", an example for 'me' would be a human 'soul', (which is not tangible) to that of a mountain, which is somthing physical and that I can see. I would say that the mountain is important in its context. The mountain is a habitat and part of an ecosystem that helps sustain life for that area. However, since mountains erode over time and according to my belief will one day be burned away, it does not hold the same importance to me as a human soul which I believe will remain for eternity.

You didn't really answer the question. You came in here with (as I read it, anyhow) a built-in assumption that there's nothing to value in the natural world because everything natural is temporary. Your question in the OP didn't assume some hierarchy where naturalistic things could have value but "the eternal" had even greater value; your OP assumed that "non-eternal" things had no value at all... didn't it?

Originally Posted by ManSeekingTruth

You stated -" if you spend all your days helping the needy, defending the defenseless and generally being as good as humanly possible, Jesus will come down from Heaven and make everything perfect.

- if you spend your days murdering, raping, pillaging, kicking puppies and generally inflicting as much suffering as you can, Jesus will come down from Heaven and make everything perfect.

Either way, your actions make absolutely no difference in the final outcome."

According to that statement I would say you are correct in a sense if coming from a Christian world view. My actions dont make a difference in the "big picture" of Christian escathology. However, my actions do play a part in the final outcome for my soul personally and where my final destination will be. And to me that affects how I live and what actions I choose to make.

IOW, under Christian theology, your choices and actions only have meaning in the purpose that you decide for yourself. Outside the ramifications for you and how you view them, your actions have no intrinsic meaning or purpose.

Eternally speaking, the only thing that's in your power and control in any way is whether your butt will end up in Heaven or Hell. In the model you present, only selfishly-motivated actions are meaningful. And that's assuming you're not a Calvinist. In their version, where your soul ends up is pre-ordained and you're completely powerless to make any permanent impact on the world whatsoever.

At least atheists can have the hope that their actions will, in some small part, have an impact on human society as long as human society exists. You don't even have that much.

Originally Posted by Penguin

You didn't really answer the question. You came in here with (as I read it, anyhow) a built-in assumption that there's nothing to value in the natural world because everything natural is temporary. Your question in the OP didn't assume some hierarchy where naturalistic things could have value but "the eternal" had even greater value; your OP assumed that "non-eternal" things had no value at all... didn't it?

BTW - if I was wrong in my assessment here, then you've already got the answer to your question in the OP: even though (most) atheists don't believe in eternal souls and the like, they do recognize that things we do and experience have value. Maybe not as much value as some hypothetical super-duper "forever version" of the same things, but still value. We can derive "the point" from that.