The world of religion (there being a God and an afterlife in which you experience eternal joy and no suffering) might actually become a reality here on Earth through science. When science has achieved absolute perfection many years from now, we will live in a world where all illnesses have been cured, we no longer have problems and negative emotions, and we might even have an artificially created God that can look after us, or even an artificial afterlife.
Now evolution has designed our brains to experience negative emotions. However, this fight or flight response is primitive (which is the reason why so many people have depression and anxiety disorders) and needs to be updated through science. Therefore, instead of having brains that evolution designed for us, we can instead choose to have brains how we want them to be through science. Therefore, we can even choose to have brains that no longer experience negative emotion or even brains that have a much higher capacity to experience pleasure in life than that of any normal human brain.
But this life as it is now and how it designed us sort of says the message to us: “We are insignificant creatures only designed for survival and to forever die in the end with no grand purpose. We are not meant to live a life of perfect joy and freedom and are designed to practically be slaves of our own negative emotional responses to life’s struggles. And if a problem does happen in your life, well you are just going to have to live with and deal with it. And that even goes for any negative emotional responses you might have to these problems.”
Now most atheists would adopt and accept this message of life. But I find it utterly degrading and inferior to who I am as a person. We as human beings are superior and this message of life is what is inferior and deserves to be eradicated through science. And science says so because it is trying to solve problems and achieve a life that is perfect and such with no problems. We as human beings with our human desires to achieve a perfect life with joy and such are trying to eradicate this inhuman message of life through science.
Most atheists would think that we are insignificant and don’t deserve a life free of struggles. But that right there is an inhuman message that goes against who I am as a human being. Look at the worst suffering in this world and tell me that we don’t deserve a life that is perfect with no problems with perfect enjoyment.
In conclusion, I wish to know if my post sort of changed your views as an atheist (not in terms of being someone who is more religious), but in other ways? If so or if not, could you explain why?
Edit: I realize that nothing has value, worth, or meaning. But I am someone who places great worth and value on human personality (who we are as human beings). And based on that worth and value, I then conclude that we are superior to this inferior message of life and that we do deserve a life of perfection and immortality. I am not some logical machine who will just look at someone who is, for example, loving and inspired, and say to them “Your personality is insignificant and is nothing more than the activity of atoms that is prone to a life of no meaning to suit your valued personality and is something that is just prone to death and no afterlife or God.” Again, I am not saying that atheists who view life as having no value, worth, or meaning are in any sense logical machines.
Now we do have a sense of worth towards ourselves and others hence the reason why we care and help others and such in the first place. And that itself is worth something. So perceiving someone as being worthy is definitely worth something in this case. Therefore, to take this perception to the absolute extreme in saying that this person is worthy of a perfect life and immortality is the best sense of worth you can have. To say that we are not worthy of a perfect life and immortality is only demeaning our self-worth.
To me, just the act of perceiving someone as not worthy of a perfect life of immortality is, in fact, having a lesser sense of human value and worth no matter how much value and worth you have otherwise. Because if you had the best possible sense of value and worth possible, you would obviously view yourself and others as being worthy of these things. I believe what I just said to be logical and true. If you feel otherwise, then please explain why.
Final Edit: Now let me just say this in conclusion which is that for anyone who has a normal pleasurable life, it might seem to that person that a perfect life of pleasure and immortality might devalue any worth that life and pleasure have. But for someone who has one of the worst lives with severe chronic depression, then having the perfect life of pleasure with immortality would likely mean everything to this person and there would be nothing wrong with it. This would be my case as I have chronic depression.
This sounds like it could be a piece of sarcasm, but what the heck, I got time. I can’t tell if you are saying we should do this, could do it, or will. “Should" is the only one that draws a response. You are coming at it from two directions, one that there is an argument for us being insignificant and “designed for survival" and the other is that you put “great worth" in human life and want the ultimate happiness for it.
The first one is easy. The fact that we are made of atoms and have primitive responses to stimuli does not lead to the conclusion that we are robots, survivalists only, meaningless or anything else. Those atoms combine in a way to make something more complex, and if that more complex thing can experience what we call meaning, then meaning exists. Meaning does not require an afterlife or immortality
The other, well, I guess that’s nice that you want that. As Werner Erhard once said, he’s not too worried about working on teleportation, let’s get public transportation figured out first. Or Bill Hicks, let’s get this whole food, air deal figured out, then you can get back to whatever you were doing. If we keep trying to make things better, maybe we will reach perfection at some point. At least we can say we tried.
Now let me just say this in conclusion which is that for anyone who has a normal pleasurable life, it might seem to that person that a perfect life of pleasure and immortality might devalue any worth that life and pleasure have. But for someone who has one of the worst lives with severe chronic depression, then having the perfect life of pleasure with immortality would likely mean everything to this person and there would be nothing wrong with it. This would be my case as I have chronic depression.
... anyone who has a normal pleasurable life, it might seem to that person that a perfect life of pleasure and immortality might devalue any worth that life and pleasure have.Personally, I don’t feel that way. I guess some people do. Philosophers and religions address the issue, from “don’t covet your neighbor’s possessions" or the seeking of Nirvana to understanding that we are animals that evolved with mutual cooperation. All of them present the paradox that we can look at where we are and do something to make it better AND we have limits, there’s only so much we can do. They also say not to despair over the limits or lose ourselves in the excitement of possibilities. Knowing that you have chronic depression is an advantage over having it but not knowing. You can take steps to manage it. Religion and philosophy often to present solutions as if they work for everyone, without regard for mental conditions outside of the average. So, always best to check with others as you develop a worldview.
Gosh where to begin? This “perfect world” that you imagine sounds more like a dystopia to me! Life without struggle? Life without even minor disappointments? Sorry fella but the only way you’re going to do that is by creating some kind of Matrix-like virtual reality where it never rains (unless you want it to), where other people are always submissive to your desires (what about THEIR desires?), and where random events always favor you (?). I don’t buy it. We sometimes need to be disappointed sometimes. Star Trek drummed this lesson into my head a long time ago! 