I don’t think there’s anything after death, so it doesn’t influence how I live other than actually making me appreciate more the one life I only have, and make the most of it.

I am atheist and don’t believe in an afterlife.

I don’t take it personally when people hate or are angry at others they don’t understand. Not everything is fair everyone, including how we experience life and what happens to us in our lives. Some people act as though it’s their responsibility to be angry or control others. I recognize their feelings and try to understand where they come from, but much of the time it’s taught through religious institutions. All I can do is try and make life better for myself and others around me, and for future generations. If I don’t like something I evaluate my actions or experience based on greater good (of myself for healthy eating, of others for vaccines and general kindness, of future generations for how I vote for funding healthcare and schools).

I just want my kids to have a better future

I might not believe in God, but there’s at least one person depending on me who would be in deep shit if I yielded fully to nihilism (as believers insist atheists like me are wont to do) and lived entirely in the moment with no thought to the future or to any consideration but my own momentary pleasure. I’m not going to fuck her over.

After having tested my beliefs for years I can say that they influence most if not every aspect of my life

All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.

I am a better person because of my non-belief than I ever was as a believer-by-default due to my upbringing in a cult.

If this is it, what are you doing right now to make the best of it? Belief encourages moral laziness and the ultimate procrastination of waiting till the next life to address problems that exist here and now.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about death and am not scared of it. On a day to day, it mostly just means I’m more willing to take risks. It also contributes to my morbid personality.

Spiritually, I have a lot of thoughts about death, but I doubt anyone wants to hear them.

It doesn’t influence me to know about heaven, but it puts me at peace about my dad.

Well, I’m an enjoyer of occasionally pausing to contemplate the effects our actions today might have as their untraceable implications reverbrate through the collective unconscious a thousand years from now.

For one thing it means I experience strong feelings of hostility when something like the currently circulating drivel about “longtermism” comes to my attention.

I don’t believe in an afterlife and I don’t have any children, so I could in theory live in an ego bubble and care about anyone or anything. Instead I try to do at least the bare minimum of a decent human being and more when I can. I’m way not perfect and I fuck up regularly, but I do put in effort to be and do better.

It’s weird to interact with people that have kids that will inherit the earth but these people don’t seem to give a fuck about neither. Even more if they tout symbols of faith yet act in direct opposition to the general “be nice” that is central in most so religions.

But I try not to be too hard on those people too. Life is difficult for everybody.

That really depends on what my personal beliefs are being compared to. Compared to none, or to benign afterlife belief structures, probably very little. Compared to Hell-and-damnation or to Valhalla? Considerably more.