Atheism and existentialism.

Okay, I'll try and make this quick....

...the depressive angst-y brand of existentialists fucking suck.
That simple.
Okay?
Avoid.
It's a trap that'll waste your time.

Keirkegaard? Miserable whiny douche. Religious lunatic.

Dostoevsky? Gloomy creepy life-sucking douche.

Schopenhauer?
Ditto, and a hypocrite who spouted gloom out one side of his mouth, and rammed pastries into the other.

Nietzche? Fuck him. Piece of shit.
Went to the loony bin, and belonged there.

Also, he "inspired", Ayn Rand, so while it's perpetually debatable how much he truly influenced the honest-to-goodness fascists, there's one crime he's indubitably on the hook for.

(By "inspired", I mean she swiped his stuff lock stock and barrel, right down to her ideal of the highest human type essentially being the Übermensch)

So, anyway, that's the quickie rundown.

Next time you find yourself at some unpleasant forced social gathering that attracts pseudo-intellectuals, and you hear those names buzzing around, you know you're in for some painful bullshit.

These are usually the same empty-headed jabber-jaws that throw "recitative", around.

Fuck these people, they are ugly, and hollow, and not at all clever.

Treat them like nuclear waste.
Wide berth, and a vigorous shower after exposure.

Anyway, back to the title.
How does one avoid the pitfalls of angst as an atheist?

When you take away the invisible sky daddy, and the phony moral certitude that his tyrannical rule allegedly brings the cosmos, and then you look really hard at the world, and all of it's foolishness and unpleasantness, and everything reduces down to meaninglessness, and absurdity; and given that, how do you keep from going crazy, or at least curling up in a ball, and weeping perpetually with a quivering lip?

Well, I can answer that in just a couple minutes, and it's really fucking easy.

See, after you pull back, and really look at it all, and reduce it all down like that, all the way down to the atoms, like I have with these rants, you pull back just one more level after that, and look at that whole situation, and you conclude this....

Being a whiny emo douche sucks.
More than anything.
It's the lowest form of life.

You do not want to end up a preening, whiny, depressive, masochistically indulgent twat like the RD.net poster, Santi Tafarella.

He's a life sucking, joy killing, miserable, arrogant bore, the living embodiment of those jabbering stereotypical dinner-party douches I mentioned, the board pariah, and rightfully so, and no one should ever want to end up like that.

Just look at Santi, and that will fill you with a defiant fist shaking optimism.
The kind of defiant optimism I gained in my Batman moment.

That easy.

You don't like it being that simple, read some Albert Camus, he says the same thing in a longer winded way.
You want it dressed up for you in a pretentious college boy way, he's your guy.

And it's funny, Santi spews Camus quotes, but gains more depression from him somehow.
Talk about missing the fucking point.

As for existentialism, it's not all bad.
The absurdists have some interesting things to say.
But, a simple re-watching of "Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life", will give you all you really need to know there.
Some swear by Woody Allen, but eh...I'm not a fan.
Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, rambling way to hammer home, don't get sucked into an emo phase, definitely don't get trapped in the emo phase, and make it your fucking life.

That way leads to Santi, and therefore madness.

And if you should wander into a depression by other means, avoid books by the fuckers on my list.
And if you're a chick, substitute Sylvia Plath.