The pursuit of pleasure vs the pursuit of intelligence

[MozartLink]

I speak the truth regardless of how offensive it is and if any of you here are going to be offended by what I'm saying here in my writing, then you are not a truly compassionate person because if you were, you would understand my suffering, have full compassion towards me knowing that I have lost the greatest thing to me in life which is my pleasure, and you would not be offended as a result of your immense compassion.

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).

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 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. 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 through living a nice happy life of little suffering and despair 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).

If you are going to say something such as that it doesn't matter whether religious belief is more beneficial to you or not and that you would be dishonest to yourself for not facing and not knowing the truth, this is something true. But what's the point in knowing the truth if it is only going to make you less happy with less benefits in life as opposed to having a religious belief? Especially if you can do more great things in life and help even more people through having a religious belief? But if you are going to say something to what I just said here in my paragraph such as that:

"Ah, so if we plugged a mainline into your vein and kept you deluded that everything was freakin awesome, while in reality you were laying in a bed with a slobber bucket tied around your neck, you'd be none the worse for it. Got it! Disagree, but got it!"

What I would have to say about that is that would be correct. But if you were to instead replace the situation you described of you having a slobber bucket tied around your neck in a bed with a dangerous life-threatening situation, then it would matter (although it wouldn't to me because of my immense value towards living a happy deluded fantasy life). However, being in a dangerous situation that is being denied with a delusion is not equivalent to having a deluded belief in religion since there is no dangerous situation that is being denied by this delusion that you need to face (at least for me anyway). But for some people, it is. For example, if someone were to be in a dangerous situation and believe that God will protect him/her, then it would be likely he/she would then die. But such a situation in which something dangerous was being denied by a delusion has never happened to me despite my christian belief in the past as I am a person who takes precautions for myself and wouldn't solely rely on God to protect me. So this is why people such as me are much better off with a religious belief. This also goes for relying on God/prayers to help others because I would help someone in a dangerous situation and not just think that my prayers or God would take care of this situation.

Now religious people who do bad deeds just rely on God to forgive them and they might not make amends to their bad deeds. As for making amends to the consequences of your actions, I am not the type of person to harm myself and/or criticize others or any other such bad deeds. Even if such things were to happen, they would be very few. So religious belief would truly be the much greater benefit for me. Also, if knowing the truth of atheism does have a major benefit in making you happy and other things, you can achieve this benefit just as good as (and even better) through living a nice happy delusional life. You can achieve a greater amount of happiness and other things through living a nice happy delusional life under the right circumstances.

Now here's a very important thing I'm about to say here which is that there is actually scientific evidence to support what I'm saying here. Now some scientific studies show that people who are atheists and/or went through trauma and depression become more compassionate and caring and become better leaders and such that living a nice happy life could never achieve. That they can achieve more great things in life and help more people through their atheism and/or suffering and despair. Although this might hold true for some people, this does not hold true for everyone and is not a proven scientific fact. There are many other scientific studies indicating the opposite and I have every reason to instead believe these scientific studies. These scientific studies show that you can be more happy and do more great things in life as well as help even more people through living a nice happy life with a religious belief. Therefore, I have every reason to instead believe that you can be the better compassionate person and better in other ways as well under the right circumstances through living a nice happy religious life. For example, anyone can be a better compassionate person by changing his/her attitude as well as through other things in life. Another example would be that you can be the more intelligent person and help others suffering through your intelligence by reading and studying up on things. In other words, you do not have to be an atheist and/or suffer in order to be a better/smarter/more creative person with a more worthwhile life. Also, this is something many mental health professionals are unaware of. They think that it is best to face reality. But many of these mental health professionals are unaware of these scientific studies that show you can be the better person and achieve more great things in life through a religious belief. However, there are very few mental health professionals who are aware of these scientific studies.

Now if you are going to say something such as that even if you were to be more happy through religious belief, that this is not real happiness, I'm going to have to argue against that. It doesn't matter whether your happiness is obtained from fantasy or reality. Happiness is still happiness. For that very reason, as long as you are more happy with a religious belief than being an atheist, then you are better off with this 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 ****** 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 experience 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 happen 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.

[WanderingLands]

You speak the truth, eh? I don't know. Having read a few of your posts (including this one), your philosophy seems to be 'one-dimensional' and immature thinking. Human beings are not merely existing for the purpose of 'pleasure', as in mainly the material or animalistic pleasure. We do in fact have a brain, and we do have the potential for intellect, and for many such as myself it actually is a pleasure rather than a divergent of it. I understand that you are suffering from depression, but saying things such as "you won't change me" and lash out with anger towards others; saying that they have "no compassion" just because they were "offended" can quite show how bad you are coping with it. Whatever problems you may have, I think you must face it, and face it with a truthful but also a bit more optimistic outlook.

Just my 2 cents.

[pljamesone@att.net]

My pursuit is the pursuit of truth in knowledge. Then If I can understand the logic rational reasoning from that information then I am happy. I've done something good for me and sharing it with others. Happiness has lots of meanings to lots of people individually. The word narcissism (see http://www.enc.wikipedia.org.enc/narcissism) comes to mind. You as I have never been truly alone, we come from and or created by our experiences and we are a product of society like it or not. We are social creatures. Paul

[Skip]

I speak the truth regardless of how offensive it is

Those are the first and last words I read from this poster. Who needs yet another offensive pov? Especially when it comes packaged in 50tons of verbiage.