Originally posted by seer
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In the stories of a lot of people who have converted from Christianity or Islam to atheism, I often see them talking about a sense of freedom that it gained for them in terms of a great weight of a judgmental-deity lifted off their shoulders. Since I was a liberal Christian, I always viewed God as more forgiving than judgmental, so that was never something that worried me personally.
I wouldn't say my own conversion from Christianity to atheism has had any big effects on my life. I think the biggest downside has been the social loss of losing regular church attendance as a tool for meeting new people and making new friends. The biggest upside is I no longer have the constant worrying about "what if God doesn't really exist" and "why doesn't he seem to ever speak to me?", and also that I don't waste any financial resources and fewer time resources on religion.
If there turns out to be some sort of afterlife and there exists a judgmental God in it, then I assume that if he's rational he will give out rewards based on how rational people were during their lives and/or how nice they were to others. If he's an irrational judge, then who knows, probably everyone who didn't worship him in his manifestation as Ganesha the Elephant God will be stuffed and will get reincarnated as mice rather than elephants.
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