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 result 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 unable to get what they want after they die in the end (which would be an afterlife of eternal joy with no suffering and despair).
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 reason 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 received from doing all activities that I used to enjoy such as playing 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.
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. 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!
Finally, 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.
Boy, you’re all over the place on that post, aren’t you? I think the root of your argument (correct me if I’m wrong) is that it’s better to have a false belief in an afterlife that makes you have a more fulfilling life than it is to believe that there is no afterlife and be miserable because of it. I agree with you there but I don’t think that’s a large population of people.
I think most atheists are like me who live there lives ethically and morally BECAUSE we know this life is all we have. I also don’t think there are a lot of theists who would suddenly revert to amoral behavior if they figured out that there is no heaven or hell.
Like you said in your post, there are people who behave properly or poorly with varying degrees of religiosity. That has to do with the person and not with their beliefs. People can blame their bad behavior on a wide variety of things including religious dogma or even atheism.
I personally prefer to live in reality rather than a fantasy. Please see my tagline for a great Carl Sagan quote.
Boy, you're all over the place on that post, aren't you? I think the root of your argument (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's better to have a false belief in an afterlife that makes you have a more fulfilling life than it is to believe that there is no afterlife and be miserable because of it. I agree with you there but I don't think that's a large population of people. I think most atheists are like me who live there lives ethically and morally BECAUSE we know this life is all we have. I also don't think there are a lot of theists who would suddenly revert to amoral behavior if they figured out that there is no heaven or hell. Like you said in your post, there are people who behave properly or poorly with varying degrees of religiosity. That has to do with the person and not with their beliefs. People can blame their bad behavior on a wide variety of things including religious dogma or even atheism. I personally prefer to live in reality rather than a fantasy. Please see my tagline for a great Carl Sagan quote.I read your signature. But 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. 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.
:roll:
words are so much fun to play with, aren’t they.
I do find your closing line appropriate, for sure.
But, of course, I am the inferior human being now since I have no pleasure whatsoever due to my severe chronic emotional numbness.Since from what I've seen total emersion in one's own pleasure has a tendency to leave a vacuum behind. :smirk:
I read your signature. But 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. 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.LOL! Over-the-top troll, very nice. Let me know if you actually want to have a discussion on this topic.
I read your signature. But 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. 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.LOL! Over-the-top troll, very nice. Let me know if you actually want to have a discussion on this topic. That is something I wish to discuss in this topic.
Happiness and misery are very often choices. They are only occasionally circumstances. We all have the power to choose happiness or misery regaurdless of our circumstances. Mozart Link cannot abide the idea that he has this choice. I suspect he would have to relinquish his unique otherness. He is depressed, and needs help, but to admit that there is an out for himself would destroy the unique and very painful corner he has thought his way into.
He is not a troll. He really is suffering.
He is not a troll. He really is suffering.Agreed, he is not arguing just to argue, or attempting to incite an emotional response. I accept that he is attempting to communicate his point of view. Of course that POV is completely disagreeable to me, but I'm just one guy. I wish he'd work on his sentence structure a little, that might make him easier to read. It also might cut down on the length of his posts since he spends a lot of time saying "happiness is the best thing because I that's what I experienced and it was great".
Okay, let’s assume that your statement “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” is not you being a troll looking to get a rise out of me.
If you were a believer who has come to understand the truth of reality and are now faced with the thought of death being final, then I’m sorry. I can’t even say I know how you feel because I was raised in a secular household and never believed in heaven or hell.
I can tell you that life is what you make of it. I plan to live “beyond death” through my children and grandchildren telling stories of me to the next generation. I tend to be a bit of a goofball and make fun of my own stupid antics, those should make good stories. Obviously that won’t last forever but it’s nice to think that I will make an impact on the lives of my loved ones.
The values I taught to my children are being passed on to my grandchildren now and hopefully that will go on for many generations still. In fact, they’re not even my values; they’re my parents and grandparents values. I’ve taught my kids to think things through, be logical skeptical, and to respect science. I’m proud of that.
What kind of things have you done that can be passed on to the next generation? If you don’t have a good answer, don’t worry, you’ve got time to change that. Volunteer, join an athletic group, play in the community band. Life is what you make of it.
Okay, let's assume that your statement "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" is not you being a troll looking to get a rise out of me."Troll", to me means the person making the statement that 'gets a rise' does not necessarily hold the opinion of the statement. Originally "troll" meant purposely espousing an opinion you don't hold. Now it includes varying degrees of that. Mozart has consistently made many statements like this:
and I wish to discuss this: 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.He has never expressed any sort of subtlety or desire to understand others. To paraphrase, he says, 'I want to discuss how you are wrong'. This is not a "troll", it's someone who thinks they can talk to others as if he is their father.
Okay, let's assume that your statement "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" is not you being a troll looking to get a rise out of me. If you were a believer who has come to understand the truth of reality and are now faced with the thought of death being final, then I'm sorry. I can't even say I know how you feel because I was raised in a secular household and never believed in heaven or hell. I can tell you that life is what you make of it. I plan to live "beyond death" through my children and grandchildren telling stories of me to the next generation. I tend to be a bit of a goofball and make fun of my own stupid antics, those should make good stories. Obviously that won't last forever but it's nice to think that I will make an impact on the lives of my loved ones. The values I taught to my children are being passed on to my grandchildren now and hopefully that will go on for many generations still. In fact, they're not even my values; they're my parents and grandparents values. I've taught my kids to think things through, be logical skeptical, and to respect science. I'm proud of that. What kind of things have you done that can be passed on to the next generation? If you don't have a good answer, don't worry, you've got time to change that. Volunteer, join an athletic group, play in the community band. Life is what you make of it.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.
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.Depression should not be taken lightly, please seek professional help. I can tell you from experience as a parent of a child who was on the dark side of depression and has now moved past that through the help of meds and counselling. If you were hit by a bus, no one would be debating on whether you needed to be treated, they would just take you to the hospital. The same should be true of depression, if you feel like you are emotionally numb and depressed then you need medical help. Period. Obviously there is no putting the genie back in the bottle, you can't go back to believing once you have "seen the man behind the curtain". Hopefully you don't earn your living through the church because I have heard that there is a population of clergymen that are new atheist but keep doing their job since it's all they know how to do. Here's an interesting article about different groups that handle this type of thing: http://www.alternet.org/belief/7-atheists-support-groups Remember that somewhere around 15-20% of Americans are nonbelievers, you're no where near to being alone. :-)
Okay, let's assume that your statement "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" is not you being a troll looking to get a rise out of me."Troll", to me means the person making the statement that 'gets a rise' does not necessarily hold the opinion of the statement. Originally "troll" meant purposely espousing an opinion you don't hold. Now it includes varying degrees of that. Mozart has consistently made many statements like this:
and I wish to discuss this: 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.He has never expressed any sort of subtlety or desire to understand others. To paraphrase, he says, 'I want to discuss how you are wrong'. This is not a "troll", it's someone who thinks they can talk to others as if he is their father. Obviously you know Mozart better than I do. I have a hard time taking someone seriously when they say things like "I'm superior and you're inferior because of...". Maybe that was a snap decision on my part because he seemed quite reasonable before and since.
Obviously you know Mozart better than I do. I have a hard time taking someone seriously when they say things like "I'm superior and you're inferior because of...". Maybe that was a snap decision on my part because he seemed quite reasonable before and since.Form your own opinion of course. He hasn't been posting for very long, but when he does, it's a long post. In his last post above, I didn't read past:
First off, I do not care about science or the pursuit of intelligence as I am not this type of person at all.Too much effort would be needed to show how, whenever he says "if X then Y", he is using a form of science. Hopefully he is also working with doctors and taking medicine of some kind. (Which of course also involves science, but pointing out to people who dismiss science that they wouldn't have the life they have without it, is usually pointless).