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Sun 12 Oct, 2014 03:22 pm
My atheism is very incompatible with my mindset (which is a mindset I will never change) and I wish to discuss this. My own personal experience of pleasure was so great and profound that absolutely NOTHING can make me see anything anywhere near as good as or better in life than my pleasure as well as an eternal life of pleasure (heaven):
If you are going to say something such as that people who have delusional religious beliefs in a God and a heaven are worse off in life while those who are atheists are better off in life, this would be false. Based on my hedonistic belief that I will never change which states that happiness is the most important thing in life, it is far better being more happy through religious belief than it is being less happy through knowing the facts of life. Also, it doesn't matter whether your delusional beliefs make your beliefs real or not--you are still better off with this delusional belief as long as it makes you more happy in life.
I (and many others) know plenty of religious people who lived happy fulfilling lives and were very motivated to do many great things in life through their religious beliefs. Sure, some people are better off with atheism and some religious people do horrible things through their beliefs, but some atheists are also better off with religious belief and can also do horrible things in life as a of their atheism. Maybe they perhaps feel hopeless or angry that there is no God and a heaven, so they take this anger and such out on others and are less motivated to do great things in their life as a result of their atheism since these people are to get what they want after they die in the end (which would be an afterlife of eternal joy with no suffering and despair).
Now I did not say that all atheists are miserable. Some are actually more happy than religious people. But what I'm getting at is that if having a religious belief makes you more happy than being an atheist and does not make you harm yourself and/or others, then you would be much better off with this religious belief despite the fact that it is delusional. I know for a fact that I would never harm myself or others as a result of my religious beliefs because I am not this type of person to harm myself or others anyway. Nor would I ever be such a person. I was never this type of person despite the fact that I had a christian belief my entire life. Therefore, I would still be this same person my entire life.
I am a hedonist and my hedonist belief is something that will never change and is something I refuse to change. Pleasure is the greatest aspect of you as a human being and makes you better than everyone else who either do not have it or have very little of it (based on my hedonistic belief) since pleasure is the only greatest thing in life and nothing else in life or about you as a person ever compares which is the why you would be better than everyone else who has less pleasure than you. The most important thing to me in life would be my pleasure that is from doing all activities that I used to enjoy such as videogames and composing. It's not the things themselves that are important. It is the pleasure that is received from these things which is important. With my pleasure, these things are important to me since these things are able to give me the pleasure that I value so much. But without my pleasure, they are nothing to me and nothing else has any value or any worth to me now. I have depression and emotional numbness which is why everything in my life is worthless to me now. Me being happy through religious belief would make me better than everyone and would make my life better than everyone else who is less happy with their lives and/or atheism (based on my hedonistic belief). I would also be the better person with a better life in comparison to myself who I am now being an atheist who is depressed and emotionally numb. My profound and meaningful experience of pleasure says to me that it is truly the greatest thing in life and nothing will ever change that since my experience of pleasure was so great and profound in the past. But if you or anyone else has found things of greater value in life than pleasure, then you have obviously not experienced pleasure as meaningful and as profound as I have to know that it truly is the greatest thing in life. Since your experience of pleasure is nowhere near as great as mine and that your value towards pleasure is not that great as a result, that would make you an utterly inferior human being compared to me. But, of course, I am the inferior human being now since I have no pleasure whatsoever due to my severe chronic emotional numbness. It doesn't matter what great things I do in life and how much I help others/bring them pleasure despite my inability to experience pleasure, I would still be an utterly inferior human being without my full pleasure in life.
But if you are not a hedonist and don't have value towards your feelings of pleasure as well as the pleasure of others and instead has value towards other things in life, again, you would no longer even be considered a human being. Since pleasure (in hedonism) is the only good thing in life which would mean that nothing else about you as a person or anything else in life is anything good at all, you would be an utterly inferior human being without your pleasure and your life would be worthless. Furthermore, you would then be COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY inferior if you had no value whatsoever towards pleasure on top of that and your life would then truly be worthless this time! A true human being is someone who has both immense value towards his/her own feelings of pleasure as well as those of others. To instead have value towards one or the other would make you the lesser person and if you were to instead have no value towards feelings of pleasure at all in general (both yours and those of others), you would truly be the lesser person who has no part in the title of a "human being" whatsoever.
Also, some people might say that there is no grand cosmic purpose in that we all must live worthwhile lives and all that is needed to live is to breathe, eat, etc. But this would be false. For example, would you be fine living in an empty void not being able to do anything and see/talk to anyone whatsoever as well as having no pleasure your entire life? As you can see, human beings are quite different and require lives of worth. Very very few (if any) human beings can live a truly worthless life such as the example I have given. Therefore, I MUST live a full worthwhile life by having my full pleasure back and by having my christian belief back that would make me happy. Otherwise, this one and only life I will ever have will be wasted.
Also, some people might say that living in your own fantasy world with the belief in a God and a heaven and not caring what others say is childish and that I should just grow up. But apparently, atheism serves no benefit for me and neither does the criticism of others. So it would be pointless for me to "grow up." I am FAR better off with a religious belief and not caring what others have to say because that gives me the life I want to live and not how others want me to live. It gives me power over other people and their personal opinions and makes me superior if I had a nice happy life right now. Religious belief would be the only benefit for me since I would have the delusional belief in getting what I want after I died (which would be an afterlife of eternal joy with no suffering and despair). But since I am an atheist and am unable to get this nice happy life that I want both in this world as well as the afterlife, my life is now worthless! Some people would go bored or insane from living a perfect life of eternal happiness (heaven). But not me. Unlike these people who value hardships and suffering and need some of these things in their lives to give their lives meaning, I don't need such things and they give my life no meaning. Only a perfect happy life has the ultimate meaning for me and you can also achieve great things in life and help others just as good as (and even better) than people who do through their atheism and/or through their lives of much suffering and despair.
Now if you are also going to say something such as that it is a fact that being an atheist and having suffering and despair in your life makes you a better person as well as a more compassionate person as opposed to living a nice happy delusional life of little suffering and despair, this would be false. A person who is an atheist and/or suffers and goes through despair might become hateful towards others and take their atheism and suffering and despair out on others (even towards those who suffer the same things as this person who are atheists as well). Also, if you are a psychopath, then atheism and suffering and despair is likely not to increase your compassion or make you a better person. It would be likely to make you less compassionate and make you even more of a psychopath. However, becoming hateful towards others and becoming less compassionate here is a choice. Therefore, it is also a choice as to whether you can be a much better person and have much more compassion through living a nice happy delusional life as opposed to a life of atheism and suffering and despair. Any awful thing you do as a result of your religious belief is purely a choice on your part because you can choose to do otherwise despite the fact that the bad deeds you were to do through your religious belief are very important or are even the most important things to you in life.
Also, as I stated in my opening post here, doing harm to yourself or others through your religious beliefs is a choice. As for me, I would be completely happy right now with a religious belief if it weren't for my emotional numbness and I would do no harm to myself or others as a result of my religious belief. But unfortunately, I don't think I am able to convert from atheism over to a religious belief considering how logical I am and view science as the truth. So religious belief would have the far greater advantage for me since I am a type of person who would not harm myself or others.
If you are also going to say something such as that if it weren't for your atheism or suffering and despair, that you would of never even made the choice in becoming the better person with much more compassion, this would also be false. You can make this choice through living a nice happy delusional life of little suffering and despair under the right circumstances. I don't care what benefits you have achieved through your atheism and/or life of suffering and despair--these same benefits can be achieved just as good (and even better through living a nice happy life of little suffering and despair with religious belief).
Being an atheist and knowing what it's like to suffer is not necessary in becoming a more compassionate person compared to how compassionate you would be through living a nicer and happier delusional life. For example, different people have different capacities to experience compassion. A person who knows what it's like to suffer might very well have a lot of compassion. But a person who does not know what it's like to suffer could have even more compassion just because this person's mind has a natural greater capacity to experience compassion. Or it could be because this person just simply changed his/her attitude. Therefore, it is not necessary to be an atheist and/or suffer and you can have more empathy, compassion, be more caring, and help even more people through living a nicer and happier delusional life.
Also, if you are going to say something such as that selfish people are weak, cowardly, and inferior human beings that need to grow up, this would be false. Narcissists can be quite badasses too. Think of Hitler. He was someone who had power and control in his life and that is what made him superior regardless of the fact that he killed many people. Yes, it is horrible that he killed many people. But the fact is that he is still superior anyway for living the life of power and control that he wanted to live. Therefore, since I wish to live a nice delusional happy fantasy world of little suffering and despair, that would make me superior right now if I were living such a live. Living such a nice happy fantasy life of sunshine and rainbows would make me the most powerful badass this world has ever known!
First off, I do not care about science or the pursuit of intelligence as I am not this type of person at all. These things won’t help me recover my ability to experience pleasure anyway. I am a “feeling” type person who values my feelings of pleasure themselves. Also, I realize that life is about helping others. But here’s the thing. Your own happiness matters just as much as everyone else’s (even your own family’s happiness). In other words, their happiness is neither of lesser or even greater value than yours. So if I had the choice to either be a happy retard and give my family the burden of taking care of me in which they would just feel a little loss of pleasure due to their hard lives of taking care of me, or to be an intelligent genius with no ability to experience pleasure whatsoever to make their lives happy, one might think that making the sacrifice in becoming the intelligent genius would be the right thing to do. But if I were to become the intelligent genius, that would say right there that my family’s happiness is more important than mine. But if I were to become the happy retard, that would say right there that my own happiness has more value than theirs. Therefore, to determine which of these two sacrifices is the right one now all comes down to which of these two sacrifices would cause the greatest loss of pleasure. My family might be happy with a little loss of pleasure in having to take care of me if I was the happy retard, but I would have no pleasure whatsoever if I was the intelligent genius. So the right sacrifice for me to make would for me to become the happy retard. What would be even worse in me making the sacrifice in becoming the intelligent genius is that, since pleasure is the only greatest thing about you as a person in life and that to lose it would be the worst suffering, your family should not feel happy for you at all in making that sacrifice since you would now be nothing more than a biological robot regardless of how much value they have towards you and that you would be going through the worst suffering. Even if my family made the sacrifice in becoming happy retards if they had depression or anhedonia, I would feel that their decision was well-justified and was the right thing to do despite the fact that I would now have to take care of them.
The point I’m trying to make here is that you should have full value towards your own pleasure as well as the pleasure of others (which would give you the full title of an “human being” for having value towards both your pleasure and those of others). You should not just sacrifice yourself and help others at the expense of your own pleasure without any consideration first. Doing so would make you less of a human being since you have abandoned your own pleasure in the process (only providing that the sacrifice was not for the best benefit such as the example I gave above). Yes, I do have value towards my family’s and the happiness of others. But I also have value towards my own happiness as well which is why I am so fixated on getting it back by obsessively talking about it here on this forum. So that is why I wish to no longer have this emotional numbness/depression and to be back to the way I was before with a christian belief that gave my life happiness before.
Some people would also say that without pain and suffering, then there can be no pleasure. But this would be false. A baby can be born into this world without having yet experienced pain or suffering and immediately feel happiness and love being in the arms of a mother. This baby would be able to then full happiness and love in life having no future pain or suffering as well. The only way for him/her to experience less pleasure in life is for him/her to develop a sense of value towards having struggles and suffering in life and then having less value towards living a life of pure pleasure with no struggles and suffering as a result. That, or just being bored living such a nice happy life which are both things that would never to me since I find great value living a perfect happy life. As a matter of fact, babies can even experience pleasure being in the womb without any pain or suffering ever happening to them yet.
As for not knowing what pleasure is despite the fact that you are experiencing it if you lived a life of pure pleasure, it would be pointless to be aware of it because being aware and such is nothing more than thoughts and knowledge. Even if knowing what feelings of love and pleasure are does have a benefit, this benefit can be achieved just as good (and even better) through living a life of pure pleasure. Also, couldn't you just simply give your feelings a name and such and know what feelings you are experiencing anyway?
Now this life is all about striving for yourself and not caring about reality or what others have to say about you and instead living in a delusional fantasy world that rejects reality (the reality of atheism as well as the reality of suffering and despair in this world by avoiding atheism as well as suffering and despair as much as possible to live a nice happy delusional life of little suffering and despair instead). This is what makes you superior and better than everyone else who are atheists and/or live lives of much suffering and despair. This would be providing that religious belief has the greater benefit for you and not atheism. So we all find our own strengths in life and go about our own ways of life. Religious belief is a strength that some people have (despite the fact that it is delusional) because it gives their lives more worth by enabling them to become more motivated to get more things done in life knowing that they will get what they want in the end (which would be an eternal life of joy with no suffering). Atheists can also be encouraged to get more things done in life through their atheism knowing that this is the one and only life they have. So their atheism is a strength to them.
So it would be wrong for an atheist to tell a religious person that their beliefs only make them weak, cowardly, and inferior human beings and that they should just face reality and stop living in a fantasy land. But it would also be wrong for this religious person to tell an atheist that their atheism makes their lives basically worthless and makes them inferior human beings for not looking up to a higher power and an afterlife of eternal joy. Instead, we find our own strengths in life and go about our own ways of life. A religious person has found his/her true strength in life which is his/her religious belief (despite the fact that it is delusional) while an atheist has found his/her true strength in life which is his/her atheism (providing that it is very beneficial to him/her and does not make him/her angry and/or depressed). But since my mindset is incompatible with atheism and is a mindset that will never change due to my immense value of living an eternal life of joy, my atheism is very detrimental to me. Especially since this one and only life I will ever have is now being wasted and is now worthless since I have no pleasure. I would absolutely NEED the belief in a God and a heaven in order to give my life worth despite my depression/emotional numbness.
Finally, without our minds in the first place, then this life would have no positive or negative meaning whatsoever. Some people might have the positive attitude in seeing life as something greater than their minds. But the fact is, it's your mind that allowed you to think that way in the first place. Therefore, nothing is truly greater than our minds. Instead, our minds are the greatest and this life is just an environment for us to dominate in and to find our own personal meaning/worth in. It is an environment for us to embrace in the sense of having dominion in your life and living the way you want to by avoiding suffering as much as possible as well as having a religious belief (as long as that religious belief is more beneficial to you). Fantasy is just an illusion of a different reality created in your mind. Since I said that this life (reality) does not really matter and that your mind is the greatest thing, then that would mean that your own created fantasy in your mind is the greatest thing and that you should just ignore reality (the reality of atheism and the reality of suffering and despair). Also, what I mean by reality is not this life and universe we have now. What I mean is these concepts of reality such as the fact that there is no God and a heaven as well as the fact of suffering and despair in this life. You should, therefore, live your life of pleasure separate from these inferior loathsome concepts of life in order to avoid atheism if it serves to not make you more happy in life and to avoid suffering and despair as much as possible.
What I read of it is horse ****. But you will get lots of differing opinions. People are as happy as they allow themselves to be, regardless of religion or atheism.
@MozartLink,
Religion is certainly a psychological palliative. However, as regards being a "better person" you should note Sam Harris's observation
Quote:With or without religion you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
@MozartLink,
Oddly enough there is a lot to be said for succinctness.
@MozartLink,
So many words. So little substance.
If the bible is correct, man's future is earthly life.
Sorry to disappoint.
@MozartLink,
MozartLink wrote:My atheism is very incompatible with my mindset (which is a mindset I will never change) and I wish to discuss this. My own personal experience of pleasure was so great and profound that absolutely NOTHING can make me see anything anywhere near as good as or better in life than my pleasure as well as an eternal life of pleasure (heaven):
What's this "my atheism" horseshit--have you got a freethinking mouse in your f*cking pocket?
Oh my . . . a tour de force in straw man fallacies.
@MozartLink,
OY (I was hamstergrammed ,saying that my response was too short so I lengthened it).
@farmerman,
I bet they never sent one of those to Mozart here.
@MozartLink,
A Mozartean masterpiece of mental masturbation.
@MozartLink,
Atheism IS a religion.
I'm a meist, btw.
ALSO a religion (Way of life).
@mark noble,
mark noble wrote:
Atheism IS a religion.
I'm a meist, btw.
ALSO a religion (Way of life).
Yeah atheism is a religion like NOT painting is a religion.
@Krumple,
Not painting is a religion - If applied to a worldview.
@mark noble,
mark noble wrote:
Not painting is a religion - If applied to a worldview.
How exactly is atheism a world view? Just because you don't believe in the nonsense of a god or an after life? Sure you adjust your outlook on life and death but so what it is far more realistic. Betting on the fact that you will exist after this life ends says nothing if you are living in such a way that you **** on this existence because you assume there is a better one waiting for you. That is some world view you have then.
@Krumple,
I don't perceive atheism as a disbelief of 'god' (whatever that is). I see it as a fundamentalist counter-concept.
@mark noble,
mark noble wrote:
I don't perceive atheism as a disbelief of 'god' (whatever that is). I see it as a fundamentalist counter-concept.
It can't be a counter position, because there is multiple versions of god that each religion puts forth even within christianity itself. Some christians will claim that their god is human like with human like traits just perfected where as others will try to claim that their god is a disembodied essence or the fundamental laws governing the universe as a whole. A sort of abstract god if there is such a thing. In any case once you take in all the gods of greek and roman history it is easy to just lump yahweh and jahova and jesus in with the greek and roman myths. Totally leaving out egyptian, sumerian, norse and hindu gods. The list goes on and on.. An atheist just lumps the christian versions into the same category as all those others and rightfully so.
So it no longer is a counter position but more of one where there is nothing that actually supports any of the god claims. Nothing. I am with-holding a position because I am not convinced that there is a god. I could be wrong but so could every christian even if a god exists it could be completely different than what they attempt to proclaim. It could be a prankster uncaring child-like entity that has powers to create things but cares nothing about the results. The possibilities can get extremely absurd yet there is still nothing that supports any of those possibilities.
The only thing that changes, since I don't believe any gods exist is that my life is not built upon the appeasement of any external governing mind. I learn and make mistakes based upon my own points of view when it comes to society and my existence. Once I am dead I won't even be aware that I am dead. The electrical impulses that sustain the biological system will cease to function and all thoughts, feelings or experiences will just stop. Since this seems more likely and reasonable to me, I fashion my life around this concept and try to enjoy the time that I have left until eternal oblivion.
If a god get's angry with me for having that world view then it is not even worthy of the title. If I am absolutely wrong and in some way some part of my consciousness continues then all I can really say is that I would dread such an existence because one thing that makes this existence cherisable is that it is finite. Existing for eternity would be hell (given enough time) no matter how pleasant it might be.