First, I sympathise! And I don’t think your sadness is a mistake; I grew up with quite fuzzy religious beliefs and moved away from them gradually, but if I had been a true believer I think I would have felt a great sense of loss. And I’ve certainly felt (and sometimes continue to feel) a range of negative existential emotions that could have been comforted or completely obviated by religious belief. But I don’t think your new worldview has the ramifications you’re implying it does.
Why should anything matter if we’re just arbitrary self-reinforcing arrangements of chemicals?
We’re not “just” that, unless you’re taking for granted that “arbitrary self-reinforcing arrangements of chemicals” have the capacity for joy, suffering, love, creativity, kindness, and so on and so on. And if you are taking that for granted, well, the question almost answers itself! If someone’s suffering and you comfort them, or if you have a family and you love them, why on earth shouldn’t that matter?
It matters to those other people, and I’m guessing that, at least at some level, it also still matters to you. I think you can choose to embrace that, rather than talking yourself out of it just because there’s probably no divine third party who also cares.
First, I sympathise! And I don’t think your sadness is a mistake; I grew up with quite fuzzy religious beliefs and moved away from them gradually, but if I had been a true believer I think I would have felt a great sense of loss. And I’ve certainly felt (and sometimes continue to feel) a range of negative existential emotions that could have been comforted or completely obviated by religious belief. But I don’t think your new worldview has the ramifications you’re implying it does.
We’re not “just” that, unless you’re taking for granted that “arbitrary self-reinforcing arrangements of chemicals” have the capacity for joy, suffering, love, creativity, kindness, and so on and so on. And if you are taking that for granted, well, the question almost answers itself! If someone’s suffering and you comfort them, or if you have a family and you love them, why on earth shouldn’t that matter?
It matters to those other people, and I’m guessing that, at least at some level, it also still matters to you. I think you can choose to embrace that, rather than talking yourself out of it just because there’s probably no divine third party who also cares.