I am the type of person who strictly wishes to be free in life and to live by his own values and to not have my life dictated. This is not just limited to people who wish to force their own values and beliefs upon me, but this also even applies to suffering and mortality. In other words, I don’t even wish to have my own mortality and suffering dictate the life I want to live. Now some people would say that America is the land of the free, but this would be false. We are not truly free. We have all sorts of major suffering in this life. We might very well have freedom in other ways, but we are not truly completely free in this life. Therefore, to truly deem America as the land of the free would be to eliminate all suffering on this planet and for us to live eternal lives of pleasure through perhaps science in the future. Freedom doesn’t necessarily refer to doing whatever we want in life. It also refers to being free of things that many people perceive as problems. In this case, suffering is a major problem for many people. Therefore, America is only free in the sense of being free to do the things you want in life. But it is not truly completely the land of the free.
Now I am an atheist and there are the two things that I detest the most in this life. Those two things would be suffering and mortality. I am a hedonist (which is a value and belief that holds that pleasure is the only intrinsic good in life which is a firm and strict belief I hold and no one has the right to try and change it just as I would have no right to try and change your values and beliefs. As long as I am not harming and demeaning innocent people and still have just as much good value towards them, then I have every right to have these values and beliefs). For me, I don’t think you would necessarily call my pleasure a craving (like some addiction a person might have). Rather, my pleasure to me is my very life force (essence) as a human being that I live off of and is the only thing that makes me and my life good. It is an intrinsic part of me and a life that would truly be defined as good. How some people thrive and find good meaning in their lives is off of their intelligence, actions, personality, etc. However, I thrive and live off my pleasure.
Therefore, me being an atheist holds no benefit for me whatsoever. The only benefit is that I am free from the morals of a religious belief. However, I could of easily had a religious belief that didn’t have any morals. As long as it was a religious belief that says that there will be an afterlife of eternal pleasure as a reward for my life of suffering and mortality here on Earth, then this would give me a sense of hope, empowerment, and superiority over this life of suffering, hardship, and mortality in which you suffer and just forever remain dead in the end. This sense of empowerment and superiority is the only thing that matters to me even despite the fact that it would be delusional since there is no afterlife. This sense of empowerment and superiority would encourage me to do more great things in this life and such knowing that I would get the ultimate reward of an afterlife in the end.
Now I realize that some people who do have religious beliefs end up harming others and such and doing other dumbfounded and bad deeds. However, this is not the case for me because when I had my religious belief in the past before I lost it and became an atheist, I was perfectly fine with it, didn’t harm or demean others with it, and didn’t do any other dumbfounded or bad deeds. Now there may be scientific studies that indicate that many people who are religious end up doing more bad things and also that they become more depressed than atheists. However, such scientific studies do not apply to everyone. They are not scientific studies that have been conducted on every single person on this planet. Therefore, there are also some people who are much better off in life with a religious belief than if they were being an atheist. I am obviously one of these people. Not only that, some people are much more happy in life having a religious belief than some atheists are with their atheism.
You might now give me a quote such as:
“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”
- George Bernard Shaw
However, it would just be your own personal values here that say that pleasure isn’t all that important in life and that there are more important things in life such as realizing the truth, intelligence, etc. For me, my level of pleasure is the one and only thing that defines me and my life as being good and it is only my suffering that defines me and my life as being inferior and worthless. Even my own mortality defines me and my life as being inferior since I would be utterly inferior compared to the ideal version of myself living in an eternal life of pleasure of no suffering. If you respect my personal values and beliefs here, then I will respect yours. This is my attitude in life. Therefore, you should respect my hedonistic values and not have scorn towards them. Only then will I respect your values and beliefs in return and won’t show scorn towards them.
Now some people might say to me something such as that there is much good in me being an atheist anyway. They might say to me that it would be because I can live, value, and appreciate this one and only life I will have more than if I were religious. However, this does not hold true for me. I am the opposite in that only the idea of me obtaining the ultimate reward of an eternal life of bliss would give this inferior life of suffering and mortality immense meaning. I do not find greater good meaning in this life of suffering and mortality in of itself (even if it is me simply living to appreciate the good things I have in this life anyway even though those said things won’t last forever).
Furthermore, I have severe chronic anhedonia (absence of pleasure) that resulted from a stressful life event and there are never any moments of brief pleasure whatsoever. It has been going on for 7 months now. Therefore, this is what makes me and my life utterly inferior, worthless, and of no personal good value now since it was only my pleasure that makes me and my life good and worth living. I still value other good people just as much as I value myself. But I have just as much good value as any other good person and that gives me the right to have focus towards myself and to want a personal life of pleasure of my own to live since we all have personal good lives we must attend to and have in our lives. Not just in terms of living for others, but also for living for ourselves.
Now there are two types of people here. There are those who have a sense of appreciation, appreciate the little good things in life, accept problems in life, and accept suffering and mortality in life. Then there are those types of people who want it all, who want to live eternal lives of pleasure and no suffering, who want to live only the way they want to and have complete dominance and control in their lives, etc. You might be thinking that these other types of people here are spoiled and selfish. However, it is only those types of people who want every little thing handed to them in life who are spoiled and selfish. But as for those types of people who want the full amount of something in their lives that defines their very humanity, human existence, and lives as being good, then these types of people are not spoiled and selfish and have every right to desire the full amount of that said good thing in their lives.
Therefore, since my pleasure is the only good thing about me and my personal life, then I have every right to not appreciate this life of suffering and mortality and to want to have a far better life of eternal pleasure. Especially since me and my life are nothing good at all since I have no pleasure now. I would only be spoiled and selfish if I demeaned, harmed, and/or refused to help other innocent people. I am someone who wants to be awesome and wants complete dominance and control in this life through pure pleasure alone even though such a thing is not possible.
You might say something to me such as that “This life doesn’t owe you anything and you should just live to accept that and stop complaining.” But that would be disrespecting and having scorn towards my own personal values and beliefs as I said before. Furthermore, me having this attitude (even if it only serves to be further detrimental to me and my life), this attitude is the only thing for me that makes me the better person. I only live by my own values and not the values of others. This is what makes me the better person since I am choosing not to live by the loathsome non-hedonistic and atheistic values (morals) of others and am instead choosing to live by my own defined greatness and values. Although I do still live by the other values of other good people who wish for me to help them out in life, value them, etc. But all those other values I have are my own defined greatness. Therefore, me deeming this life of suffering and mortality as inferior and looking down upon it as though I am some metaphorically spoken god is what makes me the better person. I do not hate the beautiful and innocent things in this life such as nature or innocent living creatures and people. Rather, I detest the suffering, lack of pleasure, and mortality of this life.
I will never accept any problem in my life that hinders the one and only greatest life I want to live (which would be a life of full normal pleasure I once had before). This even goes for an afterlife of eternal pleasure. Some might say to me that our problems do not dictate our lives and our attitudes and such and that we instead change our own attitudes in how we respond to our problems. But in a way, our problems do dictate our lives and attitudes. If, for example, your attitude in life was to live and explore in this world by walking around and taking nature trips and this is what made your life good and worth living, but all of a sudden, you developed cancer and was bound to a hospital bed, then you obviously would no longer be able to live that life you wanted to live. Therefore, you can no longer have this attitude of wanting to go out into nature since you can no longer do such a thing. Instead, you would have to have changed your attitude to something new to cope and live with your new life of being bound in a hospital bed with cancer. Therefore, your problems have made this change of attitude inevitable.
So, in a way, your problems have dictated what attitude you should have. However, it might be beneficial for this person since this person would be able to find other good things in his/her life now besides going out in nature. But sadly, it might not be a greater life for this suffering person and this change of attitude might of been something he/she never wanted. In other words, his/her previous attitude and life of going out in nature was the far greater life and attitude. Therefore, this would mean that his/her problems (cancer) really has dictated his/her attitude and life and really has made his/her life inferior and more worthless. I realize though that, over time, people tend to develop a sense of greater value and acceptance towards any new life of suffering they might go through.
(Note to Reader: This post is continued below)!
