What bothers me in retrospect is the philosophical level of the matter, not necessarily the psychological level, because part of what triggered him to do this happened after a few months in which he had already *decided* he was an atheist. More than a year before that he was also doubtful about religion, and on YouTube, as is well known, most of the videos are atheists mocking religious people or debates. And indeed in the end he became an openly declared atheist.

I didn’t understand how the suffering of his relatives can serve as an argument if he doesn’t believe in morality. And moreover, his relatives are the ones who brought him into life, so maybe they’re to blame for that…

—
In any case, for a young man who grew up in a very closed society whose whole purpose is to prevent him from going out into “free” life outside, it’s almost impossible. Because even though they know he’s not much of a believer anymore, they still jam him into the system, give him just enough help to live a minimal life—food, laundry, a place to sleep, visiting the family once every two days, etc. But if he makes some declarative step outward, then I think they’ll stop providing everything. As long as he’s neither here nor there, fine, they can help him, but not let him into the house too much so that, God forbid, he won’t corrupt those around him (which in fact he did a little, despite his short stay at home for a week).
That is completely evil.
So then what will he be—on the street or at Hillel? He doesn’t have the discipline to sit and study, he can’t even hold a job for more than a month straight, maybe at age 27 he’ll start being able to do something like that. He has no ideals or anything…
Anyway, this isn’t something concrete, because today as far as I know him (though we’re no longer in daily contact like before) he doesn’t think about it anymore, and he’s maturing by lying in bed and watching YouTube. In a few years maybe he’ll be able to go work.
—
As for Elitzur, yes, he has an article with psychological arguments and step-by-step guidance as far as I remember. But I didn’t know it that night.
So I’m interested in what one can say on the essential level to such a person.

There are organizations that help people like this (not only Hillel. There are more moderate ones). If he wants, let him contact me.

I’d be glad to respond.

Hey. I didn’t understand what justifies pinning all this on religion in such a distorted way of thinking. As though your life rests on a few writings that give you this or that outlook. Morality has nothing to do with religion; it existed before religion and it will always exist after religion. Religion is a historical aid for morality. You are moral because, beyond the fact that you choose it, by doing so you uphold and encourage life. The fact is that we are here, alive and existing, because that is the “will” of being, if we were to say there is a “will.” Love of God in the sense of nature is precisely the choice of life. No matter what your life looks like, you’re alive—is there anything better than that that has happened to you in life? Why be a stupid person beaten by fate? Why not think of solutions for changing things? Humility is a major key here, because the pretension of thinking you understand everything is the height of stupidity. Science is still primitive compared to reality, and we still have so much to investigate and discover. And even if we go in the direction of religious conceptions, it could be that there is also duality and reincarnation of souls, and that has nothing to do with religion; maybe there is a totally different “God” from what people imagine; maybe there is a completely different aspect to reality than how religions conceive it. There’s no shortage of things to read and no shortage of information. Just to get out of narrow thinking a little.

? I didn’t understand.
I laid out here a few conceptions that are okay, not necessarily religious in the sense of some particular religion, but they don’t fit an atheist outlook, and that’s enough for me regarding that guy in retrospect. And some of them here are indeed religious conceptions.
I didn’t understand all this rambling around the edges… Sir knows all the religions and all the arguments that have existed and will exist…

That’s exactly the point: I gave here a perspective unrelated to religion. So what if he’s an atheist? I too stand in that place with a question mark, and my life has been dozens of times more unlucky than his, even without knowing him. And there’s no need to go into details. And there was no rambling here at all; what was written here is absolutely spot on. If you want to point to something, you’re welcome to.

Then those too were given by one shepherd, so if that’s how you think, you’re not an atheist
:).
In any case, as someone whose life is dozens of times more unlucky than his, and yet you don’t believe in any supernatural power of any sort, and yes, you are a materialist atheist—you’re invited to write the reasons for and against that caused you to choose life. (And the reason you mentioned was already included above, if you’ll notice.)

I remember a saying by Epicurus or someone else from the Greek period that the moment his finger got stuck on a stone he would stop living—because his life had so little meaning.

“If that’s how.” Don’t tell me what you think you know about me. Only I know what I think. If I’m an atheist then I’m a materialist anyway. But no, I don’t have a label. I’m someone who thinks, and with appropriate humility says: I don’t know. As I wrote, a stupid person beaten by fate will choose to take his own life. True, if you are clear-eyed and intelligent, you see the aspect of vanity in life. But just as you see that, if you are really wise, you also find solutions to get out of it. That doesn’t sum up life. There is much to learn and discover. And you are always a student in this life. I don’t remember Epicurus saying such a thing, but he was in favor of life. And Kohelet too, who saw only vanity and was called the ‘wisest of all men,’ chose life.

Have you ever seen a cow depressed about its life? In every generation all human beings share one thing in common: longing and attraction to the stars. Human beings are drawn to the sublime, to a high God, to the unattainable. As Pythagoras said: the purpose of life is to contemplate the heavens. That is, the purpose of life is the unattainable, imagination—the striving toward the unattainable. And that is why human beings never know satiety.

To an atheist on the roof you can say that there’s an atheist woman waiting for him one floor below…

And more seriously…
There is no advantage to someone not committing suicide out of fear of hell. In that case he lives both in fear and in suffering.

The main direction I see is the issue of selfishness versus helping others. The suicidal person thinks about himself and his own suffering; you need to remind or explain to him that he doesn’t live alone and that he can help others.

And if he really is someone who doesn’t care at all about others and isn’t interested in helping, then he’s not such a great loss, and it’s doubtful whether this is suicide or punishment from Heaven…

The Last Decisor, for a split second I debated whether you’re a complete idiot or a complete fool. The stupidity you display is so great that for a split second I didn’t notice there’s no difference.

Not convincing. A single moment isn’t enough for a full deliberation. So a split second certainly isn’t. Meaning: you didn’t deliberate. You knew it beforehand.

Now all that remains is for you to explain what you found in what I wrote that was foolish.

To “A.”:
I really don’t think you’re a materialist, based on what you wrote: “if you are really wise, you also find solutions to get out of it.”
But the question is, why? After all, we’re speaking here about a person who suffers, and for him such help is only finding subjective meaning in a world that has no objective meaning.
Kohelet was a religious man… and according to your words, so was Pythagoras. Maybe not religious in the type you call that, but you get the point.
Albert Camus, who also posed this question, did not have a religious worldview, and wrote this:
“The only really serious philosophical problem is suicide.”

To “The Last Decisor”:
Indeed, I agree that probably an atheist woman would have helped him get out of it very easily.
The moment you bring in the argument from selfishness, you’re already assuming in advance that he isn’t an atheist, because otherwise why should he care about that? There is nothing right about helping others or not. As Rabbi Michi said regarding Teresa.

With God's help, 2 Sivan 5780

I fear that learned philosophical discussions won’t help someone sunk in despair; perhaps specifically a cheerful tune from Fiddler on the Roof would breathe the hope of life back into the despairing? And one can also learn from Tevye the dairyman, that with all the suffering he endured—from his poverty and the persecutions of the wicked czar, and from his seven daughters and their rebellions—his spirit did not fall and his faith was not lost, and he remained an “atheist,” in the sense of “with me,” believing in the good that “comes and goes,” that comes upon us for the good, and even if it delays, it will surely come 🙂

With the blessing of peace unto you,
Chaim Topol

Mr. Tevye,
As you apparently didn’t notice, you too fell into the philosophical trap and are proposing to turn the atheist into an ethic-ist who believes in the good and walks in it.
But here maybe specifically through playing special songs that would shatter all the assumptions people have about the arbitrariness of life—and not through gloomy and depressing intellectual arguments.

So I’d be happy for another idea 🙂 and this time let’s not try to convince the little atheist that he’s really an ethic-ist by whatever means.
And the rest—go and learn.

… certainly this is not a philosophical problem. Nor is it a wondering about the meaning of life.
This is a state of ongoing suffering that stems from a mismatch between a person’s demands and his environment.
The correct solution would be to examine what the demands are, whether they are realistic, and so on. This isn’t a matter for philosophy and other mental nonsense.

If you look at what I wrote above: because of the naturalistic fallacy, one cannot condemn any value-choice regarding his own head.
So I agree that after the guy in question fixed for himself which parameters would cause him to live (and you can put into that square whatever fact he wants—for example that he’ll have a million shekels, or that there’s life on Mars, or that his father really loves him, since none of these actually creates the norm, just as he could decide to keep commandments even without belief in God),
then I could get him out of tunnel vision and show that indeed the reasonable conclusion is that there is life on Mars or that his father loves him, so he has a reasonable chance that the parameters exist 🙂

But my whole question here is trying to avoid that role—not to be Google or a prophet about his future.
Rather: how to enable him to choose other values—the “right” values, or specific ones—even without belief in them.
To me this sounds like a gap that cannot be bridged. And therefore I wanted to consult you.

Three points.

You’re not reading correctly what I’m writing, or what? You assume as though there is no meaning—but how do you know? What does he really know? He’s just another pebble in the gravel of knowledge. Wittgenstein saw philosophy as an illness, and he understood that the search for meaning starts the sickness. Kohelet was not religious, and Pythagoras was religious only up to a certain stage. Yes, I know Albert Camus, and his end was indeed absurd—he crashed into a tree and died. And what do you think—that he was in favor of suicide? He too spoke of a happy Sisyphus, and that if so-and-so commits suicide now, he kills his future self. Gurdjieff: there is no one “I,” but countless “I”s.

And no, there is no gap at all. That’s a distorted perception they put into you as a religious person. Morality has no connection to whether one is religious or atheist; there is a religious person who serves “Satan” and an atheist who serves “God.”

Gurdjieff said*

“Value” is nonsense. There is no such thing. Don’t use that word in this context, which all kinds of charlatans invented. Money has value. And that indicates how important something is to a person. So there’s no such thing as values. There are things that matter to a person, and therefore they have value for him.

The question should be about goals in life. You need to find some goal that interests him to pursue, and let him pursue it.

The problem is that you can’t always know in advance what interests you until you taste it. That’s why I spoke about helping others, like volunteering and the like. That way he’ll see that he has a positive effect in the world.
And it also depends a lot on mood. A trip to a new place can help.

To “A.”:
In retrospect, about how to conduct oneself at the time of the event, I tend to think you need to come wearing two hats: also as a friend, on his terms, and also as an external “authorized” person.
But all this—I’m asking what can be said *on his terms*! Not trying to persuade him by other methods of striving for the sublime or increasing the inner potential hidden within him by listening to some spiritual teacher… after all there are quite a few people in Europe and the U.S. who hold atheism; it can’t be that they have no arguments at all about the importance of life and meaning (even if subjective)!!!
And I didn’t understand the examples that followed—how are they relevant to the case? Do you want to argue that he is in a state of doubt? But some say that the height of faith is precisely subjective resolution amidst objective uncertainty—in the act of his wager, and that person wagered the whole pot on being an atheist. So again I’m speaking on his terms, about the atheist-materialist system. Anything that isn’t that, for the moment let’s put aside and avoid carrying out the philosophical conversion therapy you’re proposing, even though it seems you’re not aware of it.

To “The Last Decisor”:
And how do you know what matters to a person? By how much he is willing to pay for it? But how much he is willing to pay for it is because it matters to him. So you want to say it’s an arbitrary beginning that could fit his outlook 🙂
And therefore if it’s arbitrary, you suggest that human nature will decide for him in that very arbitrary decision, in something he’ll see as important (like paying for the atheist woman you suggested above). But it still feels problematic to me, because as long as every act remains arbitrary on the objective level, then you won’t be able to persuade him to get to a state where he wants to live as long as he remains in his current approach; the reasonable possibility for getting him to change approach is probably by using mild physical force to scrape him off the roof until he himself changes his position in an arbitrary way, of course.

It’s personal, not arbitrary. Different things matter to different people. And it also changes at different times. (A simple example: when you’re hungry, eating matters to you.)
He needs to discover, to find, what he wants to do in life. Some know this from a young age. Others take more time to discover it. Some don’t care.
The fact that someone is an atheist is completely irrelevant to the issue. Even according to Torah there are situations where it is preferable to commit suicide: “It is better for a person to throw himself into a fiery furnace than to publicly shame his fellow.”

Not “human nature will decide,” but his own nature will decide. Who he is. What he can connect to. What goal he can pursue. And so on. And that will give him taste and interest in life.

In my opinion, in that state a difficult, adventurous trip could have helped.
There is no arbitrariness here at all. And it isn’t correct to say that he doesn’t want to live. The fact is that he lives. He wants the suffering to stop. And there are ways to do that.

No, no, my dear fellow. You’re the one who’s unaware here—of what you’re writing and of basic reading comprehension, which you don’t have. If you haven’t understood by this point what I wrote, there’s nothing more to add. I’d suggest he find a different friend to talk to in this extreme situation.

To The Decisor:
I didn’t understand why this isn’t arbitrary; I’d be happy if you clarified. The Torah example is certainly not the point, since there we are speaking within a value-framework about the severity of shaming someone publicly… And the fact that he is alive is because he was born—“against your will you live”… but that doesn’t obligate its continuation, as Yeshayahu Leibowitz pointed out about this matter.

To A.:
Indeed, I didn’t understand why I’m mistaken, when I addressed all your points and you evade with ad hominem.
But by the way, I really did try very hard to get him other friends. It’s just not always simple for everyone…

Sometimes you need to explain with ad hominem toward someone who responds to you with ad hominem. You’re welcome to go back and read everything I wrote here four times, and then maybe you’ll understand why I gave tools here, in sharp and pointed words, for the case at hand.

I didn’t find any tool other than the claim of why he thinks he knows everything. But that is philosophical conversion therapy meant to get him to change philosophical approach or at least to become more humble; that is not help within his own outlook.
And that is what I’m looking for: how one can help such a person on his own terms!!!

… you’re again getting dragged into all sorts of nonsense about values and necessities. All of that is meaningless.
The real problem is the suffering. And suffering is not arbitrary; it stems from a certain state of affairs of a certain person with a certain psychic structure. It is always personal.
At root, in most cases, emotional suffering stems from conflict—between different drives, or between drives and reality.
In certain cases, talking and persuasion won’t help. Actions will. For example, I suggested going on a trip.

Three points.
I told you to go back four times, and not for nothing, because this response proves it. There’s no conversion here; there’s thinking here. There’s a broader perspective on things, and that is absolutely his own outlook. And as I wrote, morality exists with religion and a personal God and without them. Reality could have been and could also not have been; both are logically equivalent. And we see that there is reality and there is life. Meaning that if we were to say that being has a will, we would say that it wants life. Therefore you uphold morality, because without morality there is no life.

Again, “The Last Decisor,” do you agree that there is no rational basis at all for an atheist as to why to live when he is suffering—or even at all? It sounds strange, but you are simply suggesting throwing away the intellect and living in existential experiences.
I think that if Rabbi Michi were taking that approach, we’d be getting a lot more juicy questions here in the responsa from you…

To “A.”, okay, so you agree that you’re proposing a change in outlook (not a thought-conversion, God forbid),
but the point is that a materialist doesn’t think that being has a will. And the naturalistic fallacy would tell you that even if it has a will, there is nothing there that obligates us. Maybe you’ll also say that according to being, the strong survive, so the goal in the world is to kill the weak and eat their corpses.
The fact that reality could have not been doesn’t mean that it decided to be, because if it decided to be, then it existed before that too—but if so, it already was… rather atheists will say it is a meaningless, wild cause. But that belongs to the other notebook on this site.

I wrote “if” — that’s the key word. Darwin said it isn’t the strongest that survives, but the one that responds best to change. Morality is imprinted in you by nature, to distinguish between bad and good. The good sustains life, and we see its exponential development.

And in the end, bottom line, what caused him to be up there on the roof were thoughts. So see what belief in thoughts causes. From here you can understand the power of inquiry and changing thought. Human beings commit suicide because of their consciousness.

In his personal case, what caused him to plan to go up on the roof was that he thought people didn’t love him enough, and he felt lonely and rejected and in pain and suffering. And he assumed he was an atheist, so naturally he also thought he had no future (after death), or hope (personal redemption), or dream. No meaning and no morality.
But here I’m asking how one can help that atheist for whom what troubles him is just the second part as such—the second part also troubled him separately, but at that time, as I imagine, it wasn’t really enough, if at all, to make him change theological approach and repent, or commit suicide, God forbid. It would only have left him living in mild depression until he found a job and forgot all the philosophy, to hell with it.
Therefore my question on this forum focuses on that ‘theoretical’ atheist, in Rabbi Michi’s sense about the forced readings in the Talmud. So that we can deal with his approach one cow at a time. By the way, as for dealing with the suffering and distracting him from it, I hope that as a good friend I did that sufficiently in retrospect, one way or another.
—-
As for your point,
I didn’t fully understand what you wrote—“understand the power of inquiry and changing thought”: do you mean philosophical change or existentialist change?
The assumption that morality is imprinted in us by nature does not mean that we ought to act according to it in an atheist approach, because of the naturalistic fallacy. Moreover, stars are also fixed in the sky, so does that mean we should put a star on our head? Just as you didn’t understand the second part, you also shouldn’t understand the first part. Because someone who doesn’t really understand what objective morality is (an atheist) can never make the jump over the fallacy. And for him the whole normative plane is one big nonsense.
From what you wrote I understand that you meant the first part, where you wrote: “The fact is that we are here, alive and existing, because that is the ‘will’ of being, if we were to say there is a ‘will.’ Love of God in the sense of nature is precisely the choice of life.”
But the point is that we do not say there is will in some material in the universe. Everything is cold and chilled, and you as a very religious person (apparently a hidden religious person who isn’t really aware of his religiosity) don’t understand that. Or at least I don’t understand why you don’t understand it 🙂
Think about that atheist—materialist, compatibilist, icy cold, who watches YouTube videos and devours them eagerly, who can barely make sense of the definition of his consciousness and maybe even denies his own consciousness in the height of foolishness in order to deny the hard problems of consciousness, etc.
So there is no “if”; from his perspective there simply is no will. Will is a dirty word.

First of all, I feel the need to retract my outburst about “he should find a different friend” in this case. I have a sharp tongue sometimes, and the intention here was to focus properly on the things I wrote, though that wasn’t right. Your very interest and your writing here testify to your friendship. Obviously behind the case here there is a broader story. Behind every case there is a story.
*
I meant more an existentialist change. Like Zen koans, vipassana, the dialogues of Socrates, different questions, psychological treatment like CBT that is supported by research, or even a path that gets labeled New Age, like Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is (in which I find wonderful sentences connected with changing thought).
*
Tell me, what is the difference between a commanding God and the being of nature? If someone pulls the strings of the world, does that obligate me to anything? And perhaps the opposite is true: there is more real freedom here than with a separate entity that creates pressure through the perfection of its separateness and undefinedness in our perception, which causes you feelings of tyranny, that one must be very careful of the one who operates all this. And all these are very mild words when you mix religion into the conception of that God. Objective: if you don’t uphold morality there is damage to the proper development of life—or there is no life.
*
I am not a religious person, let alone a very religious one. I am a thinking person and a skeptic, that’s all. As for the term “religious,” it’s true that in my past I was religious and I have religious feelings by nature, but to be religious as expressed in the writings? That is the complete opposite of my nature. And I don’t mean doing some strange act of putting black boxes on my head and arm, or rising like a lion every morning for the service of my Creator. I mean the very notion of “service,” or that I should be part of those who stone, or part of that God who caused so much suffering in His world—that utterly clashes with me.
*
I don’t need to think about that atheist-materialist. I myself went through periods of collapse in my worldview, from that specific outlook, and I promise you that in my case it was much broader, for all kinds of reasons. And I do not deny it. And it had unbearable consequences, especially with how it merged with what my life became after I left religion. But my movement is toward truth, at least that’s how it comes out. Regarding what you wrote about “consciousness,” there is nothing to deny there—it is a reality. The key word “if” comes to give you a broader outlook.

Again, “The Last Decisor,” do you agree that there is no rational basis at all for an atheist as to why to live when he is suffering—or even at all? It sounds strange, but you are simply suggesting throwing away the intellect and living in existential experiences.
I think that if Rabbi Michi were taking that approach, we’d be getting a lot more juicy questions here in the responsa from you…

When a person is hungry, he eats not for reasons of rational foundations and other pseudo-philosophical babble, but for the same reason a cat eats.
And the same applies to the continuation of life. It isn’t a matter of rational foundations, but of emotional ones. If a person decides to commit suicide, he will use his intellect to carry out the plan. The decision is for the most part emotional.

I’m not suggesting anything. I’m describing what happens. Intellect has no weight here. Only emotion. If you can perform emotional manipulations through the intellect, that doesn’t mean it is because of the intellect, but only by making use of the intellect.

Your goal is to perform emotional manipulation on your friend so that he will want to go on living.

Dear friends!

When I went up to the roof in despair over life, I was sure nobody cared about me. I’m truly enchanted by the mobilization of the finest thinkers on the site to persuade me to stick with life.

It’s hard for me to follow all the learned discussions, but the great interest in me really gives me a lot of encouragement and strengthens in me the desire to live.

With thanks and blessings,,
the one sitting on the roof

P.S. Maybe you could organize a ladder for me to come down. It’s pleasant here on the roof, but it’s late and I’d like to get back to my warm bed 🙂

To A':
*
Actually, the “find a different friend” sounded reasonable to me. No need to apologize. I also made a few mistakes in helping him too much…
*
If the whole change is existentialist, but really on the ontological level there is no truth or substance to these things, don’t you feel a problem there? Let’s say that to me it sounds pretty far-fetched.
*
This isn’t the place to get into the argument from morality here, but if you see nature as a morally obligating factor, as I see you are a moral realist, then I understand your words.
But the average atheist is absolutely not a moral realist, but a moral relativist. And if so, everything you say does not go according to his outlook. And my whole question is according to his outlook (which is very common nowadays, by the way), not trying to swap it out for another outlook.
*
The point is that from talking to you, you are very religious—you were just burned by religious people so you think you’re not religious. But really you talk like a religious person. You’re not really secular or anything like that, even if you think you are. I assume you grew up in a pretty closed place if you write like this.
*
As for consciousness, indeed it’s a fact, but there are those who deny it…
Anyway, I’d be happy to understand how you make the jump to existentialist change without a rationalist basis… because if a religious person told you to throw away the intellect, you’d probably laugh too hard.

To “The Last Decisor”:
When a person gave his life for the sanctification of God’s name, was he behaving like a cat? Rather, we see that the factor of thought does indeed have influence on a person’s very life, and certainly on how he will live his life.
I think that if a person understands that he is completely meaningless on the philosophical-ontological level, then if he has some trigger (emotional or mental/thought-related, etc.) it is not far-fetched that he would take such a step.
Moreover, if the whole world were coherent in its outlooks, then there would even be many such people who would see, regarding that person who performed such an act, a step that is understandable and possible (even though on their atheist outlook no opinion can be expressed about one value-act or another).
And certainly they would not condemn him at all. As we gradually see in European countries the constant growth of the approach of lethal injections for the ill—what at first began with terminal patients with incurable diseases now applies to many more illnesses and pains.
Not long ago there was a story that an insurance company offered a person—because in his policy there wasn’t enough money for surgery, as I recall, but there was enough money to fund a lethal injection…

To “the one on the roof”:
Got it. We’re arranging you a ladder down. Situation back to routine.
All that remains is the theoretical discussion in cases like yours, and see the messages above. Right now we’re focusing only on the theoretical side: what can be said to a guy like you who has an atheist-materialist worldview and sees no essential meaning in his life, and why one can still persuade him to find subjective meaning in his life—if that is indeed the reasonable conclusion that comes out according to his outlook. And we’re continuing to look for additional approaches and more… We also thought of arranging a good atheist woman for you downstairs 😉
Wishing you a good life!

I didn’t write that there is no truth or substance; those touch on essence.
*
I don’t understand this argument connected to culture and place. If moral means sustaining life, then that is always so. In every place and at every time.
*
I don’t know what I wrote that makes you think I’m “very religious.” And how do you know whether I was burned by religious people or not? What in my writing is religious? And why do you think I grew up in a pretty closed place? On the contrary. I grew up in an open place.
*
Deny in what sense? Where did you understand that I’m making a jump? I’m not throwing away any intellect; I’m reaching essence, the soul. These are tools for reaching emotional balance. The whole story of suffering begins and ends in our consciousness. The Buddhists already stood on this 2,500 years ago. It’s worth learning something from them. If someone wants to commit suicide because of a certain perception, does that seem okay to you?

*
As I said, your approach is not the atheist approach, even if you think it is. And therefore your advice is to try to convert him to another side, and have him adopt humility, or at least live in doubt in the sense of tunnel vision.
That is a very correct way, and I agree that it is meaningful. But it doesn’t fit my question here. I’m asking whether *on his own terms* one can help him. And as I said, this is not the approach of crazy people in our time; atheism is one of the most accepted approaches there is.
*
Relative to a person who is an atheist, your writing is very religious and comes from ancient sources, even if not Jewish ones. Today, as I understand it, there are two great wars, and the main one for the average Israeli is the war against atheism (whose practical difference is values and meaning); that is where the battle lies. Just as once the battle was against the Persian approach of Zoroaster. Therefore, from my point of view, anyone who is not in that approach has religious writing.
*
It doesn’t seem okay to me, but what I’m trying to say is that apparently it follows from an atheist worldview that this is a completely legitimate decision. And my question is how one can say even according to their outlook that it is not legitimate!

You’re welcome to point out where exactly I necessarily brought “God” into the picture. I spoke about nature, and if I did speak of “God,” it was in a different conceptual sense of the term “God.” Therefore everything I wrote here begins on his own terms. And what’s with “crazy people”?
*
I keep asking: where exactly is religiosity expressed in my writing? And what do you call “religious”? I don’t know where you got all this terminology about atheism. A-theism simply denies the existence of God, as does metaphysical naturalism. But anything within the framework of nature is no longer included in that. As for meaning—that is what a person makes of his life. And if I see morality as objective, does that mean I’m not called an atheist?
*
Here I truly don’t know where you got this perception from. To commit suicide because there is no God—yes. But if some God created you – against your will – and if you don’t go according to His laws, you’ll be sent to hell and eternal torment forever, all out of love—what is that? Think for a moment about that person in childhood: his life was okay then, right? He was happy and everything, until he came to some thought and… understood that because of this thought there is no point to life. Look at that for a moment. Beyond all that, I really don’t understand why you think this is legitimate.

You didn’t bring God into the picture, but the approach you’re presenting is not the standard atheist approach—what can you do…? I understand the word a-theism perfectly well in its literal sense, but that doesn’t mean that today the word hasn’t acquired broader additional meanings… If you don’t understand, then I’ll use the term extreme metaphysical naturalism. Indeed, if you see morality as something objective, then you are not from the ordinary stream of atheists, what can you do.

As I said, if you think the universe is “blind” and random, there are no values, no morality, no meaning, and nothing at all, and death is only absence—then what can I do? I do not see how one can condemn a person who lives by such an approach. After all, all condemnation begins from some conception of norms.
And as I mentioned above, in many places abroad they are beginning to permit people with pains that are no longer even so severe to put an end to their lives.
And my question is how, even according to their own outlook, this can be prevented.

Open the mind.

How do you do that with a saw?

Send me a message by email if you still want to keep going: ehud123414@walla.co.il