Are there any substitutes for having inner peace?

Dear mikehager; Yes I am guilty of the most annoying form of arrogance, that of being right, don't you just hate that kind. Yes I agree that even atheists can have inner peace, of a basic sort. In talking about inner peace, and true inner peace, I am talking about degrees of peace and types of inner peace. The basic kind is just being at peace with yourself, a deeper inner peace would be being at peace with yourself and with God while true or real inner peace in the perfect sense would be the peace that comes from God by the holy spirit. That is the kind of peace Jehovah's Witnesses displayed in the concentration camps, that degree of inner peace can only come from God. The difference is important, for the basic kind is fine when you are "fat and happy" but when you are not, you need something more. The peace found in human philosophy fails when confronted with harsh realties like death and other horrors we find in this world.The fact that your peace comes from friends & family, indicates that your peace is dependant on them, that if you were to lose them you would lose your peace as well. In truly bad times, you would have nothing to carry you through. A true inner peace is not dependant on such things, and gives one a strength to deal with difficulties that you can't even imagine. For any coming storm, you are unprepared to deal with it. Human ideals are fine good times, but when the bad times come, they fall short. You should rethink your approach to life, for one thing I have learned, you can count on trouble coming your way soon or later. It pays to be ready for it.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

that was very dull and this whole thread seems to be a excuse to preach your version of god.I'm far happier now I've settled in my own mind that god doesn't exist. I have many friends who were Witnesses who are much happier now they are not banging on doors on a sunday morning trying to hawk the watch tower.Our inner peace seems to suit us just fine.

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You should rethink your approach to life, for one thing I have learned, you can count on trouble coming your way soon or later.

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That's projection and incorrect - I know many many good people who have has horrible lifes and many bad bad people who have had a great time. it's totally random. When my grandfather died, he commented on how trouble free his life was (and also that we should chuck the corpse on a skip and spend the money on a party).

How on earth can the fact of death strengthen your inner peace?The only way I can see it is if you tell yourself, "Oh, well, at least I know that whatever I do or don't do really doesn't matter one way or another. A few months after my death I will be of no more significance to the world than of some dog that died in a ditch."

Thanks so much, WmScott. At least you give a Goddamn about others, which is more than I can say for some people I know. I think I am rather skeptical in temperament.

I am literally stunned by this rant. Get to you did I? You, with your inane diatribe, have amply proven my claims. You are painfully, stupidly arrogant. You actually do think that your way is the only way, and that's just sad.I called you arrogant, but I made that determination form the content of your post and explained why. You have claimed that I would wilt before the difficulties of life, along with other spurious claims, simply based on a baseless assesment coming from what can only be a large pool of unfounded opinions about atheists. All of your assertions are without weight. Mine are, as I said, proven.Rest assured that I am quite beyond needing your aid in any way. I am unsuited to your brand of Christianity even more then others. I simply don't have the needed hubris. Do not bother replying to this, unless you have some need for the last word. You are not worth my time.

Sir, Your Grandfather seems to have been a man worth knowing.

Hi all, I have read this forum for a long time but not really felt the need to post (other made my arguments much better than I could), but I really feel the need to say something here.How can you claim that inner peace through god is better than inner peace through acceptance? Unless you have been in both situations and can compare? And then that only counts for you. What you are saying is purely subjective. I believe that the inner peace I have found (after many years of struggle) by accepting the world as is, is at least as good as yours found through god. I have no troubles accepting that I will die, it is all part of nature, it does not mean fatalism. It is a way of looking at the world and deciding that you should live it the best you can, make the world a better place, there is no after life so all you decisions have a far greater personal impact as the highest judge in this world is yourself. Once I accepted the world as is it helped me a lot (I stopped suffering from depression for a start) now it has been commented that I am one of the most grounded and calm people that my friends know, not through god but through acceptance that there is one life and you must do the best you can with it.edited for grammer and spellingThis message has been edited by Fragallrocks, 07-08-2005 08:12 AM

Who said anything about god? Not me.What I said was not "subjective." It was quite reasonable. I was summarizing the inevitability of the fate of all individuals.

wmscott, you are indeed guilty of the most annoying form of arrogance - deciding you are right and that everyone else is wrong, just because you said so.You have a certain belief system. You are entitled to it. You BELIEVE it to be the Truth, but by no means does your belief require anyone else to accept it as such. Quantify your "degrees of peace." How does one measure such a subjective concept? It is impossible. You cannot logically state that the amount of "inner peace" you feel that you attribute to your religion is any more or less than that felt by an atheist. A person can feel at peace from such mundane things as being an honorable, trustworthy, moral person. A person can feel at peace by raising children to be good and productive members of society. A person can be at peace by accepting the things they cannot change, and working to change those they can for the better. None of these things require a belief in God. These sources of inner peace can also not be destroyed - if you take away the child, the parent still knows that they raised a good and decent person. If you take away a persons ability to change the world, they still have the knowledge that they tried to leave the world a better place than it was before. God does not have a monopoly on the concept of Hope. God is not the sole source of a sense of self-worth.The question you asked in your original post was "What do atheists replace it with?" This question speaks volumes about your opinion of the beliefs of others. Atheists don't "replace" inner peace with anything. They don't have to. Anyone, atheist or not, can have a sense of inner peace. The fact that you believe that God gives a greater sense of peace does not make it true for anyone else. Prove it. Countless atheists and people of other faiths around the world live through greater deprivation and horror than you or I could ever dream of without losing hope, without giving up, and without losing their inner peace. Without the Judeo-Christian God. Again, prove it. You seem to subscribe to the old saying "there are no atheists in foxholes." I suggest you look to the number of atheists currently active in the US armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, facing greater horrors than you or I will ever be forced to, surrounded on all sides by people who want to convert or kill them, and yet still remain strong and do what they need to do.You're right - sooner or later something will happen in life. It does pay to be prepared for it. God does not have a monopoly on physical, mental, or emotional preparedness.

How many atheists are currently active in the US armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan? You have data on that?

Dear GDR; The reason for that is simple, you have not received the peace of God. The peace of God or true inner peace, is a comforting power that protects you from stress and helps you cope with things. (Philippians 4:7) "the peace of God that excels all thought will guard YOUR hearts and YOUR mental powers by means of Christ Jesus." It is not dependant on personality or the comfort level of your lifestyle, what it is dependant on is really believing and practicing what we believe in our lives.(Romans 8:6-7) "but the minding of the spirit means life and peace; because the minding of the flesh means enmity" It doesn't matter what you believe if you don't live it in your life.We must also have faith to receive peace from God.
(Romans 5:1) "Therefore, now that we have been declared righteous as a result of faith, let us enjoy peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,"
(Romans 15:13) "May the God who gives hope fill YOU with all joy and peace by YOUR believing, that YOU may abound in hope with power of holy spirit."But even the most ardent followers of many christian religions will not receive the gift of peace from God.
(2 Timothy 3:1-5) "But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be . . . having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power;"
The reason is that their form of devotion is without power or God's approval, because they have turned away from following the Truth in God's Word. It is necessary to worship God in truth, following the biblical teachings found in scriptures, to receive peace from God. (Philippians 4:9) "The things that YOU learned as well as accepted and heard and saw in connection with me, practice these; and the God of peace will be with you."By learning more about God and what he wants of us, and living by that knowledge, that we come in line to receive peace from God. Even once we have found the Truth, we can deepen our inner peace from God by learning more about God and drawing ever closer to him.
(2 Peter 1:2) "May undeserved kindness and peace be increased to YOU by an accurate knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,"Once you have peace from God, there is nothing that can take it away from you, as long as you remain faithful, God's peace will always be with you to carry you through whatever the world may throw at you.
(2 John 2-3) "because of the truth that remains in us, and it will be with us forever. There will be with us undeserved kindness, mercy [and] peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, with truth and love."I urge you to look for the peace of God, for without it, you have not yet found the kingdom of God. (Romans 14:17) "For the kingdom of God does not mean eating and drinking, but [means] righteousness and peace"I would like to help you to receive God's peace. Please feel free to E-mail me, my address is in my profile, or we can talk on the board too.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

Dear Crashfrog; Doesn't surprise me, I feel so sorry for members of christian religions that don't follow what the Bible teaches. The harder they try to follow what they are taught, the more miserable their lives are. Finally they learn to say but not do, to avoid some of the hardship. These religions act like vast hypocrite factories, turning out huge numbers of people they have be taught to say one thing but in practice, to do another. Some people seeing all of this going on around them, just reject the whole horrible mess and become atheists, so no I am not surprised that you are more at peace now, then before. One of the purposes behind having counterfeit christianity is to turn people off from serving God or to convince them there is no God. After all, how could any God approve or even just tolerate what many christian religions have done. Most of this planet's wars and many of it's problems are caused by 'christian' religions.So I do agree with you on some things, of course I differ in that while we both agree about religions in general, I know that out of all the many religions out there, there is one that is the Truth. It is possible that the only important difference between us is that I found it and you haven't, yet.As for not needing to find God to find peace, yes of course for the basic kind of peace that is true, but I am talking about the Peace from God, true inner peace. That kind of peace comes only from God, the fact that we long for that kind of peace, argues for God's existence. See my post above to GDR if you want to learn more about what peace from God is. As humans we desperately want to be able to face life with a deep sense of serenity that can weather all the storms that can come our way. Being accepting about dying doesn't help much when you aren't the one that is dying, seeing loved ones die tends to blow any comfort from that kind of thinking away. All other kinds of inner peace have their limits, it is only the peace from God that will stand up under all tests.People who have peace from God are able to cope with extreme adversity, and are looked up to as being a worthy example of how to deal with life. Who doesn't admire people with that kind of character? When asked they will tell you that they owe their peace to God. The fact that they have this quality and those who don't wish they had it too, tells us something. The peace from God is like a missing component, we have an empty socket for it in our mind, we feel incomplete without it, those who don't have it try to use substitutions for it. Humans are incomplete without God, we need his guidance, we unsuccessfully try to fill the void with human philosophy. We were never designed to go it alone, we can't even govern ourselves well. Watching the human race is like watching squabbling children in a sandbox. Only the earth is our sandbox and the children have nuclear weapons and are destroying their sandbox at an ever increasing rate. It is inarguable that we have a real need for God. The need does imply existence, for how can you need something that never existed.Sincerely Yours; Wm Scott Anderson

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In February 1998, she founded the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF). Since then, MAAF has become an active Internet community. Running the rapidly developing organization entirely from her home, with no funding from membership dues and consequently no Internal Revenue Service entanglements, Johnson now lists more than 110 names on the MAAF roster...
...The group is now affiliated with the Campus Freethought Alliance--it counts among its number several cadets and midshipmen in ROTC and the service academies--and, hence, the Council for Secular Humanism. MAAF is also part of the secular Web online community run by Internet Infidels. As luck would have it, the president of Internet Infidels, Jeffrey Jay Lowder, was active-duty Air Force at the time of the club's inception and was one of the first to join.

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This is just what I found with a quick Google search. The fact is, my argument doesn't rest upon any specific number of atheists being active duty in the military, so long as the number of atheistic soldiers who posses an inner calm is greater than one. The fact that I know a few first Gulf War vets personally, some of whome are atheists and agnostics, is less provable via the internet.

I can agree that someone who does not believe in God cannot have peace that comes from God. What you have not proven, however, is that "God's peace" is greater or even any different at all than the inner peace people of other faiths and atheists can feel.Christians seem to find comfort and inner peace in "knowing" that their faith is the "correct" one, that God loves them, and that there is a heaven after death because their sins are forgiven. How is this differnt from a Hindu, for example, who "knows" that he will be reincarnated into a better caste some day? From a Buddhist meditating in a temple?Or from an Atheist who knows he has led a good life and brought happiness to others? It is true that faith in God can give a person the will and hope to carry on in extreme circumstances. What you have thus far failed to prove is that other religions and atheism can't give the same inner peace from a different source.