Judging how hard a person's life is is one of the things I consider taboo, so I feel bad about the next sentences I'm going to write, but I write it anyway! All the people who ever asked me this silly but common question -- "Isn't it depressing to not look forward to an afterlife" -- always made me wonder. Why is it so depressing? The implication seems to be that you need to look forward to an afterlife because this life sucks so friggin' much. And then I wonder further: do you, question-asker, have such a hard life? Every time I actually knew a bit about the asker -- since it was often some friend in high school or college -- I felt an independent judge would deem that my life had been more difficult. Specifically, it was often rich, pretty kids that fell prey to the teenage need to feel deep angst about god-knows-what. The fact that the question almost always revolved around my dead sister make the fact even clearly -- yeah, I was the one still mourning over a person who was taken from me to soon, but I was still the one who was comfortable with the idea of no afterlife, hmm?

The thing is, I feel sorry for *them.*

The other night there was a TV show on; I won't dignify it by naming it. But a big group of young ladies finds out one of their members is an atheist, and several of then respond with shocked silenece or pity. I feel so sorry for her! Exactly the things Ephant is stating above; the thing about it being depressing to not believe in an afterlife. They also added stuff like, "How do you decide what's right and wrong?" I believe the implication was, "How do you keep yourself from screwing every boy that passes under your nose?" But seriously, who would you feel sorry for? I feel sorry for the girls who can't figure out for themselves what's right or wrong or healthy or unhealthy and why without having a book/church/priest/god to tell them. It seems rather nice to me that I consider myself smart enough and capable enough to decide for myself.

-Tildy