Atheist strike me as not only ignorant but arrogant, that there is "nothing" because of our small understanding of this existence. I've also noted from personal experience atheist tend to be self-absorbed in this concept as it plays a central theme in their life.
I'd say every perspective yields that, just replace "nothing" with whatever their bender is about.
It sounds more like you dislike Atheism because you think it's arrogant enough to think it knows something at all (spoiler alert: that's most if not arguably all faiths).You do a spoiler alert, just to rephrase my own words. I've addressed the implied arrogance of faith already. And yes it strikes me as very arrogant to think you have even an accurate opinion on the creation of existence itself.
How zealous do you imagine most who practice faith are (including atheism as faith, even though for many it's marked by the belief that others make no sense)? A person can suppose that something works a certain way, figure that they have the most likely answer, without being as full of themselves as to say it could be no other way.
Arrogance comes in all flavors, even Agnostic. I'm sure you've met your share of Agnostics that lord it over others how dumb they are for thinking that they know all the answers, which really translates to the Agnostic thinking that they know the answer by "knowing" it is unknowable.
In the end it's the same ego expressions regardless, showing it's not about what faith is prescribed to, but rather what attitude they take with it.
There are Atheists who are essentially waiting for that moment when something can prove it wrong, who instead of presuming "to know", they'd presume "to guess" until shown otherwise as their understanding of an Occam's Razor perspective.
You will always have members of every group that are tiptoeing onto another.
How is an Atheist that isn't full of itself tiptoeing into other groups? This isn't even what I explained above.
I am addressing the points the title they identify with represents.
Which are what, stuff like how it's a "gateway to Nihilism" (and Depression)?
The Nihilism tends to precede the Atheism. Even former religious sorts converting to Atheism tend to be in the bouts of a Nihilistic spiral ("What's the point of _____ if _____ isn't the case?") before swapping labels. Personally I'd attribute most of that to a culture backlash more so than atheism itself.
You ought to be attacking whatever's making for the Nihilism instead of the Atheism, as while Atheism is itself often a symptom of Nihilism, Nihilism is usually a symptom of something more psychological in nature.
Nihilism and depression are central themes in all 5 I have known well.Should something not be believed simply because it's "depressing and nihilistic" to them? Who's to say them being depressing and nihilistic wasn't how they found atheism instead of the other way around? If it's the actual case as well, since to one it certainly feels real anyway, what kind of person would then turn away from the truth as they know it simply because it's too painful to handle?
Also while Atheism is a gateway to Nihilism, the two handle pretty different areas (religion and philosophy respectively). A Nihilist for instance could still believe in God and simply recognize no value or purpose in Him. While a happy nihilist is rarer and generally less authentic, happy atheists aren't as difficult to come by.
Nihilism is largely regarded as poisonous for it having no real drive or zeal behind it, but Atheism can be quite motivated and think life has purpose without it having to come from something external (Penn Jillette, Ricky Gervais, etc), and the ego arrogance I'd say has equal room to be present in all walks of life, demotivating or not.There is a very strong theme with nihilism and depression, and a very strong correlation from atheism to nihilism.
The implication that a person needs God(s) and/or religion to not be depressed and nihilistic is a bit insane. A lot of what has you judging Atheists in this light are how loud the squeaky wheels are being as a backlash response towards a culture that once endorsed religion a little too strongly, and as time goes on those areligious fags will fade into obscurity in favor of a more neutral variant that didn't have to think about it as much.
Nihilism in most cases isn't a painful truth to handle, it is the easy way out. Literally an excuse to not care, not to work or to aspire because nothing matters.
You'd probably kill yourself if everything felt meaningless to you, judging how often you go on about zeal and purpose and junk. I think your distaste towards "Nothing Means Anything" more so comes from how strongly it contrasts the themes of your goals and ideals. You'd be halfway into throwing yourself into some sort of epic war more so for the adrenal zeal of it than anything else, which is the polar opposite of someone who instead recognizes a purposelessness in everything.
Dude, within Nihilism, there is accepting not just that nothing means anything, but also that you, the follower of Nihilism, are just as meaningless. How is accepting one's own meaninglessness supposed to be an easy task when we, by human nature, are supposed to be seeing ourselves as the centers of our own universes?
You've been around here long enough, you've seen how much the "I don't care" and the "I don't feel anything" types actually do care/feel. The fact that they have to narrate how much they don't care tends to be a reveal of the opposite. It likely isn't an easy thing for them to face as much as their public face might not be flinching, otherwise why would Nihilists even seem so depressed (if we're ignoring the Anti-Nihilist trope anyway)?
There is a reason it's correlated to overweight basement dwellers, psuedo-intellectuals as well as the socially inept because it gives them a favorable outlook on life. Why change your life when nothing matters?
Also calling something you don't understand "pseudo-intellectual" isn't really too good when it comes to broadening your own horizons.
