Humility and atheism
How do you all feel about humility? Do you think it's a virtue, as it used to be? Back in the 1700's or 1800's pretty much everyone would feel humble before God, it would be part of their thinking to be grateful to a creator, humble before him.
When you admit you're an atheist, some of those feelings drop away -- perhaps you no longer feel responsible, or quite so grateful or humble. Yet these things are positive mental attitudes that we need to feel every so often, I think.
How do you think atheism has altered your mental balance?
I think the humility of C18th C19th would fall to the masses and certainly not the ruling classes. Bear in mind that this is the dawn of The Enlightenment, The Age of Reason and the idea of a Magic Man in the sky is not holding against clinical observation. Certainly the gentry and the industrialists had more on their mind than soul saving or getting back to Eden. I don't know about in America at that time but certainly in England the clergyman role was not a vocation but the occupation that the third boy entered; the first born the heir to estate and the second the military. (I believe that's the order). I've never really suffered from humility so the effect on me is non-existent!
"Humble" before god. Yet this god loves you specifically, and created the whole world and the Universe for just mankind.
Versus seeing the scope of the Universe and realizing that we are an insignificantly small part of it, and the overwhelming majority of it has no indication we've ever existed at all, and likely never will.
The first is called humble, yet is pretty much the opposite.
Humility and humbleness (?) keeps one empathetic. When one is empathetic, one can understand problems and when one understands problems, there is a higher potential for effective solutions. That's the truth no matter what one's beliefs, or lack thereof are.