MattMVS7

I’m an atheist with the mentality of a religious person who seeks self-enlightenment and even though a positive perspective can be achieved through atheism, some people are better off with their positive perception of religion. Atheism recognizes the reality of situations (in this case, there being no God and no afterlife). Even though it is good to recognize the reality of a situation in most cases, this is not always the case. In situations where not recognizing the reality of a situation does no harm to you or anyone else and brings you personal pleasure, then recognizing the reality of the situation is pointless. In other words, since believing in God and such would do me no harm and wouldn’t make me harm others and would bring me personal pleasure in life, it would be pointless for me to be an atheist that I am now.

I am going to add something here for people who think that atheism has more value than any amount of pleasure through religious belief (even perhaps the greatest amount of pleasure a human being can have through belief in religion). No amount of intelligence or great things we do in life will ever make up for a lack of pleasure because in order to have such value towards these things is to have pleasure in the first place (as pleasure is what allows us to give value in terms of emotion towards these things). So it would be illogical to say that these things have greater value than our pleasure. Now if you were to somehow have value towards something with no pleasure, then this value would be nothing as it is nothing more than a thought. Pleasure is what gives any notion of value life and without pleasure, it would be completely dead. Therefore, pleasure is the only thing that matters and any notion of value is just a thought and nothing more. It is the processes in our own brains that give these things value. Without such a process (which would be the process of experiencing pleasure in the brain), then they will have no value.

The Batlord

I'm an atheist and I pretty much agree. I've really never seen anything to suggest that atheist are any smarter or happier than theists. I mean I'm not gonna get any brownie points if I turn out to be right about there not being a god. I'll die and then... not have much chance to gloat. I recognize religion's power to affect the world around it in catastrophic ways, but on a personal level I couldn't give less of a **** about another person's religious beliefs (alright I have a bit of contempt for Creationists). Whatever gets you from now to death with a minimum of misery is fine by me. Just please stop wasting precious trees on your stupid pamphlets.

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John Wilkes Booth

trying to have an accurate picture of reality is important to me. not that i am saying i don't have delusions and not that i'm assuming atheism is correct. i just think the idea of believing whatever you think would make you feel good cause the truth doesn't ultimately matter is intellectually lazy and doesn't really appeal to me. some amount of delusion is inevitable, but i won't willfully (and consciously) take on new delusions to achieve some pragmatic goal. if i die with a slightly more accurate picture of reality in exchange for a slightly more grim picture of reality then to me the trade off is worth it.

Mr. Charlie

I agree with the jist of this, especially that regarding pleasure, but am uncertain your allusion that atheists have a firmer grip on reality in true. I firmly believe everyone is an illusionist, that each of us subconsciously creates own own reality. We like to think of ourselves as in touch with reality, that our senses are in effect windows into which reality - by way of electromagnetic waves - falls into, but all sensory data is filtered and rearranged by the brain long before it reaches the conscious mind.

Apparently a bumble bee perceives the world in ultraviolet, rattle snakes in infrared, dogs are supposedly blind to the colour green (and there's an increasing belief among biologists that colour doesn't actually exist, that it is solely a product of the mind). But is the bumble bee or dog's perception of reality less accurate than our own? I'm not so sure. Likewise I don't know if someone who believes in God is any more delusional than someone like myself, an agnostic.

But, yeah, pleasure is what gives life value. And value is measured in pleasure. But pleasure itself can be an illusionary beast too. It's surpising the number of people who, in pursuing what they think is pleasure, are unhappy.

Haha. I sometimes think the best thing anyone can do is cease all thinking and just be.

Sansa Stark

Mr. Charlie

That video ain't working for me. Is it really just some woman saying shut up for 3 hours?

Sansa Stark

Some woman? No the bossest bitch of boss bitches

Mr. Charlie

I don't know who she is.

The Batlord

What'd he do this time?

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John Wilkes Booth

i thought it was well established that color is our brain's representation of different wavelengths of light
that's a faulty comparison because color is just a matter of perception, as you said. the different wavelengths of emr are what actually exist as part of physical reality. so if on the other hand there are two people, one who thinks emr exists and the other who doesn't, one of them has to be wrong.