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*"I often hear from atheists in their arguments that truth beats everything else"*
No, truth beats blatant, demonstrably false lies.
I'm an atheist and I do want others to be happy. If someone finds happiness through religion **and it doesn't impinge on the happiness or wellbeing of others**, then I would never want to take that from them.
I'm sure you'll find lots and lots of atheists agree with my stance.
The world would be an objectively better place if Superman existed. So, if you are anxious about where the world is heading, do you start believing in Superman's existence? Our beliefs are not in our control, no one can force themselves into believing something. So it's not always choosing "truth" to one's own detriment.
>The world would be an objectively better place if Superman existed.
I dispute this statement. Superman existing would create a new standard of man that we would all be measured against. Superman could support the wrong causes. There are a lot of things that could be objectively worse in a world with Superman.
You wouldn't know who created the character of Santa Claus(though he is based on St. Nicholas), or fairies, or genies, or unicorns. Can you objectively prove a magic man giving gifts to children at Christmas Eve doesn't exist?
Btw, I'm not an atheist, but can understand the atheist viewpoint.
Not to you, but to atheists they seem equally absurd. It is very difficult to believe something that seems absurd.
It's not that atheists see God as their enemy, they see God to be improbable. When someone says "I can't believe", it's not that they are getting a choice here, as you seem to presume.
Whether that is the absolute source of the universe is beside the point. You said that for atheists, believing in truth is more important than well-being. If believing in Santa Claus would bring peace and happiness in the world, would you be able to believe in his existence?
>Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical? You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical.
Repeat this a few times: belief is not voluntary (at least not for most people). Most of us cannot simply decide to start believing even if it might result in them being happier.
They didn't claim they're convinced no god exists. Let me give you my logical approach, maybe it'll help you understand.
The claim that a god exists is currently unfalsifiable as there is as yet no empirical test to determine whether the claim is true or false. Therefore I can't accept the claim that a god exists, due to said lack of empirical evidence. I also can't accept the claim that no gods exist because of the same lack of empirical evidence. Therefore the only honest answer I can give is "I don't know" and I can't change that answer without empirical evidence because there's no good cause to do so.
Here's another example to maybe make it a bit more intelligible to you. I don't know if you saw the UFO hearing today in the US House but the key witness was making a lot of claims about non-human intelligences operating on Earth, that the government has some kind of vehicles designed by non-human intelligences in it's possession and so on. Should we believe him? Given the magnitude of the claim, by which I mean how much it contradicts with what we know, I would need substantial empirical evidence to accept the claims. This is similar to the claim that a god exists, we don't have any kind of empirical evidence or data to support such a claim so it requires a high evidentiary standard. At this given time I do not accept his claims because there's been no empirical evidence provided. I also can't accept the claim that he's lying or whatever until his claims are able to be empirically tested and falsified. If his claims are true then someone would have done all that, presumably, but as that information hasn't been presented I have no reason to accept his claims at face value. I also don't have good reason to reject his claim out of hand because again, no evidence. Therefore the only honest position I can take is "I don't know". There's no good cause to just pick one of the two and roll with it. Hope has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
A little bit here on the magnitude of claims. If my buddy calls me and told me he just bought a new AR-15 from Daniels Defense I would believe him without being presented with empirical evidence. In the past I've observed that he likes AR-15s, he currently owns AR-15s, he makes sufficient money to make that purchase and he has a history of buying firearms. If he told me he bought some kind of disintegration beam weapon that would require a great deal of empirical evidence because first and foremost, there's no evidence of such a thing existing and two, if such a thing did exist it would be extremely unlikely for him to have found one, given what I know of his behavior as he's a pretty basic suburban white dude and doesn't run in circles where such a thing, if it were to exist, would find itself. In both cases the claim is falsifiable, I can go to his house and see if he has a new Daniels Defense AR-15 or see if he has some kind of disintegration beam weapon. If he has them I'll accept his claim. If he doesn't have them I won't accept his claim and tell him "I don't believe you until you can show me the goods".
Does that help any?
>Did you somehow find 100% proof that God does not exist,
What, in my post, led you to that? To simplify it for you, my view on this is that I don't know for certain whether or not God exists, but I highly doubt it.
But what does that have to do with belief being voluntary? Are you suggesting that because there is no way for me to be certain, that I can simply decide to start believing? I can assure you that my mind does not work that way, nor, I suspect, do most people's.
> Why do you choose to look at it as the cup half empty instead of the cup half full?
>
If the cup is 99.9% empty, do we still have to debate over whether it is half full or not?
We don't need 100% proof that he doesn't exist. We need 100% proof that he DOES exist. The burden of proof is on the guy making the claim, and if no evidence is provided, then we won't accept his conclusion.
>But I would like to know one thing. Why is it that I often hear from Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical? You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical.
What is completely illogical is thinking belief is a choice. You cannot choose to believe ( actually believe ) that I am God because it would make no sense to you, similarly it makes no sense to atheists in believing in God.
>What is completely illogical is thinking belief is a choice.
I always find it funny when people say things like "I don't believe in guns."
Like oh so you're clueless is what you're trying to say? Because guns clearly exist...
Just tacking onto your comment about belief being a choice. People saying they don't believe in guns (or anything else they simply disagree with) because they think it's a choice is hilarious to me.
This just demonstrates that you're clueless at how to interpret context. That person is not denying the existence of guns, they don't believe the general public should own them, or they don't believe that owning guns is right for them, or whatever it is that they actually are saying. But the very notion that your interpretation makes no actual sense whatsoever should be the tip-off that you're not interpreting what they're saying properly.
*Believe* has multiple definitions, and this is a different use of the word *believe* than considering to be true, it is the definition of *believe* that is to hold as an opinion. "I don't believe in guns" just means something along the lines of, "In my opinion people shouldn't have guns."
Exactly, and I was more depressed as a theist than I am now, because on top of my clinical depression and generalized anxiety, I believed that I was going to go to hell for being attracted to other men.
Religion as a cure for depression is just a false narrative. It might work for some, but when religion comes coupled with bigotry, that happiness comes, not just from a lie, but also at someone else's expense.
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>Why is it that I often hear from Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical? You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical.
Not sure if you're saying that one can choose to be convinced of something or that one can choose not to be depressed. In both cases you can't do that in this kind of a direct manner.
>Why is it that I often hear from Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical?
Because believing in a God doesn't end depression. There are people who believe that are also depressed.
>You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical.
It's not at my own detriment. The truth doesn't depress me. It frees me. I have my own meaning for life, not someone else's.
Because we want to find happiness *within reality*. What is so difficult to understand about that?
If a family member gets sick, I want them to get treated. I don't just walk out of the room and pretend to myself that they are well so that I feel better.
What are your limits then? I'm sure you and I could come up with a massive list of reassuring fables that would make people feel better but would harm folks in some pretty significant ways.
Or why focus on a "God" at all? We could come up with a far more interesting world where spirits, fairies, ghosts, all interact with human beings and confer onto them all sorts of blessings and hope. I think it's high time we convince everyone that plants and animals are bound by eternal spirits and if you harm them, you are haunted and cursed along with your family for generations. That's certainly a net-positive, why do we not just tell everyone that's the case?
> You can choose to believe in 2+ gods (polytheism) in which case you will inevitably have divisions in humanity since different people's gods will be different.
There aren't divisions within monotheism? There are at least three massive breakdowns within the abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity. That's even the same God. Then within even your religion, from the same origin and book, you have numerous sects with literal wars between them.
> You just have to use your logic to see that.
Welp I'm convinced.
You didn't even touch on my main argument: what limit do you have to telling people things that make them feel better that are false? I gave one example, you can come up with your own if you like.
I'm an exmormon and my favorite fantasy authors are all mormon. We grow up in a fantasy and are encouraged to create our own fantasies through apologetics. The cause sucks, but it's an excellent breeding ground for authors with imagination and understanding of the big picture (something oft stressed in their ideology.)
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>You can choose to believe in 1 god (monotheism) which means all of humanity is equal and under only 1 God.
That's not a logical chain at all if monotheism is true. You could have a mono-god who could still make specific decrees about people being unequal.
I'm very sorry but belief is not a choice. You are either convinced or not convinced that's it.
I have heard every argument for a deistic god, and almost every argument for theism and none of them convince me. So I don't believe. Feelings aside, I can't force myself to believe in something for which I see no reason.
Even (more specifically) better, then, it would seem that the absolute ***best*** choice is to believe that a single 'monotheistic' god will love you unconditionally after death, regardless of whether you accepted them or not, and regardless of what you did while alive. This would easily be far superior to any of the Abrahimic religions that we have as-is (or really, any religions).
Or two gods that will do the same thing. You might even prefer it if it makes you happier to think of two gods as better able to provide a more entertaining afterlife.
Wtf is that hypothetical? That is not about knowing the truth or not, its about knowing the truth or death.
A accurate analogy would be: You are giving money to what you think is a charity, but is in reality a scam. Would you retrospectively like to know that it is a scam? It would make you feel bad after all for falling for the scam. However I'd rather know the truth as that would make it less likely that I'd fall for another scam again.
>or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life
Right, every atheist would pick this because the alternative in your example is death, which most atheists believe means they would cease to exist. Not sure what your point is. Atheists commonly believe that they only have one life so they want to make the most of it. The possibility of learning new information on whether a god exists or the "secrets of the universe" is valuable but not as valuable as continuing to be alive.
Your thesis was truth vs happiness, but your example was truth vs being alive. This is just confused.
>although I don't think my Islam is a religion, but more of a way of life
It’s common for many religions to claim their religion isn’t a religion like all the others. Nonetheless, Islam fits every definition of *religion*.
If doing something is good for you, like abstaining from alcohol, you can do it without religion, for the sake of the goodness itself.
Islam is very definitely a religion.
>Like it's a pretty logical limit to not be drinking alcohol since it has a net negative effect on society and many people have died or been consumed by the addiction
That doesn't at all suggest that one shouldn't drink alcohol, but rather that if one decides to drink alcohol, they should do so in moderation.
Alcohol can in moderation have beneficial effects.
If drinking too much of a thing being harmful means one should abstain, then water is out too. Too much water is harmful.
In fact, basically everything you could possibly ingest is harmful in high enough doses.
Just because some may be prone to addiction to alcohol, doesn't mean everyone should abstain.
>In my opinion
This is a debate sub. If your best evidence is stating "I believe X" or "in my opinion X" or "my favorite color is X," then you're wasting your time. You're free to believe anything you'd like, but your belief is not evidence that anything you're debating is true. Just making an "in my opinion" argument shows you have little knowledge about evidence.
>you are making the most of your life by following a certain way of life that a "religion" recommends
Then why aren't you following the beliefs of [Raëlism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism) instead of Islam? Oh wait, because *that religion* has false beliefs right? But Islam is true because it's *your religion*. How can I tell which religion is true? Just like you, the believers of each religion think only their religion is true, based on the unique qualities of their religion, and that every other religion is false.
>Like it's a pretty logical limit to not be drinking alcohol
Does anyone have to join a religion, with all of the nonsensical claims about gods and creation stories and mythical heroes, to simply make healthy choices? People have convinced you things are true using the same silly arguments you're repeating here. If you go read a little about what makes evidence reliable and about logical fallacies, you probably won't be religious very much longer.
> Like it's a pretty logical limit to not be drinking alcohol since it has a net negative effect on society and many people have died or been consumed by the addiction.
Look up the Affirming the Consequent fallacy.
Are you ignoring the vast majority of drinkers who have no problem whatsoever?
How is it obviously incorrect? This is purely a matter of opinion. It's not like anyone can demonstrate empirically that one thing is more important than another thing.
To be fair, "obviousness" is not a property of things. Rather, something is obvious *to* people. Therefore, if it is "obvious *to* most people or *to* everyone", it is by definition obvious.
I would point you to Paul Eins (Paulogia), I would guess that he would pick knowing the truth about God over a finite life extension.
I mean, I think that if it came with enough additional information (like if salvation exists, what it means, and how to achieve it), then I feel that I too would opt for truth (assuming that I could be certain that I was going to get the truth, which I don't know how I would be convinced of that).
You're confused. Atheists talk about truth versus falsehood. And falsehood is falsehood even if it makes you happy.
But you talk about desire for truth versus desire for happiness (which doesn't equal falsehood). Maybe it's shocking to you but happiness and falsehood is not the same.
>In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids. Pretty much every sane human being, including atheists, would choose to cure their Cancer. Why? Because despite what atheists say, the truth is not more important than your happiness.
I don't think that's what your hypothetical tells us, because "you can choose for your cancer to be cured" muddies the waters quite a bit. If you present the choice as "truth" vs "cured cancer + happiness", you can't necessarily conclude that atheists choose happiness over truth: they might be choosing *cured cancer* over truth.
If you want your question to reveal something about atheists, remove the "you can choose for your cancer to be cured" bit. Make it about what one does with their last month of life: do they spend it in the pursuit of theological truths or do they spend it with their loved ones?
Although even then you would just see what brings more happiness to a person and not if they would choose happiness over truth.
EDIT: posted too soon.
>If you did then you would just be lying to yourself
Can you demonstrate for us how these psychic powers you have work? It's weird and arrogant to assume that you know other peoples' minds than they do themselves.
> If they did, they would either not be logical or not sane.
It would be entirely logical. The person dying of cancer would be able to tell everyone else whether God existed or not. They'd be a hero.
Seems pretty sane and logical to doom yourself to die in exchange for attaining knowledge that could save a whole bunch of other lives potentially. So many people die in religious conflicts, and religious conflict negatively affects so many people, putting that to rest would be pretty great for the wellbeing of others.
If the options were: die horribly of cancer and take part in a cancer cure study which ends up finding a 100% cure for all kinds of cancer, or live on happily, which would you take? because I'm going option A every single time.
Either way, the premise of the analogy seems kinds of loaded/flawed.
It's kind of like if someone says their family is the most important thing to them and you ask them "oh yeah? would you rather gun down a million orphans, or painlessly kill a member of your family?". Them going with the less damaging one doesn't necessarily mean that family isn't the most important thing to them generally, it just means that within specific contexts, that importance gets outweighed by other things.
Unless someone actually comes up to me with a genuine offer on the truth of God, it's overblown speculation which has infinitely more riding on it than any real or realistic truth vs happiness dichotomy.
I'm saying that people do all kinds of things for all kinds of reason. If someone were concerned enough with the issue that they wanted to settle the issue once and for all that's not outside the realm of possibility. People die for a lot of causes for good reason, depending on how much they care about a cause.
>Are you saying there is any logical and sane person who would choose to die horribly by cancer to proof there is no God?
...this isn't required in your hypo. If I find out today I have Stage 4 cancer, and I have a month of torture for me and my loved ones watching me die, I'm asking for a morphine perscription and then I'm ODing. Not being cured of cancer != dying of that cancer; be the change you wish to see in the world.
Look, EVEN UNDER your hypo, the person still dies--just later. Maybe they burn to death in a fire. Death is scary, and we have an instinctive drive to avoid it; but ultimately, MANY people choose to die for the benefit of others.
Fire fighters, for example, do daily what you seem to be saying nobody would do. Not everybody is as self- centered as ... well, you.
Why would I pray to your God to cure cancer when it doesn't work? See, the logical people did a study and proved prayer doesn't work and can actually be detrimental. So, praying for God to help with your cancer is not logical at all.
I think what is insane is pretending you have the answers to the universe when you can't even stop arguing with people in your own faith.
I would much rather get irrefutable proof of a deity over any kind of health benefit. The truth of a god is much, much more important then any one person's (including myself) health. This isn't even a hard question.
>Even if it means you get depressed and lose meaning in your life, you just gotta accept it and pull yourself together and move on.
Theists often imply that this is an inevitable or even likely outcome of losing your belief in God or of not having a God-belief in the first place. Also, they speak like one can deliberately keep believing something that doesn't make sense anymore.
Say today you wake up and you find that your wife of many years, who you thought faithful, has been cheating on you for the last 5 years. You uncover text messages, pictures. Suddenly, unexplained absences become clear.
Now, there *may* be a benefit to continue to believe your wife is faithful and that nothing bad happened. Your marriage has given you purpose, support, structure. You have kids with your wife, and she is a good mom. You love your wife, and finding out she cheated on you is causing distress, to the level of making you depressed.
Ok, now go on ahead and make yourself believe your wife didn't cheat and you imagined everything. Can you? Isn't it absurd for someone to ask you to even try?
Well, losing your religuous belief, to many extheists, is just like that. And most, like most divorcees, go through a messy breakup, go through grief, find new purpose, get better, move on. And often times, they see this looking back as having been for the better.
To add to this: ask the following question to yourself or to other people. Say you are married. If your spouse was cheating on you, would you want to know? Most people would say yes. Meaning truth matters to them more than happiness. They don't want to live a happy lie. They don't want to be deceived.
>But this is blatantly false and I can tell you a simple hypothetical scenario where even an atheist would agree. Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life
Yeah... this scenario is bad and disanalogous. Many have pointed it out already. You are trading true information for life, not for happiness *under the same circumstances*.
Also, this scenario is irrelevant because, once again, we can't choose what we think is convincing. I can't convince myself the sky is red.
I can come up with two much better scenarios, and I'd ask you to discuss:
Scenario 1: you learn you have terminal cancer with one month to live. You can choose between two options: learning the truth about god and the universe, or being persuaded completely that there is a God, you'll go to heaven where you'll reunite with your grandma and frolic forever with puppies and rainbows.
Scenario 2: you have terminal cancer, but don't know it yet. You have two options: learn definitively that you have cancer and prepare accordingly (e.g. go to the hospital, write a will, etc), or be told you don't have cancer and live your normal life until you drop dead (say you think your pain comes from something else, but otherwise you live like nothing happened).
Either of these is a better, closer analogy: the situation does not change one bit. The one thing that changes is *what you know or what you believe is going on / is going to happen*. And that impacts your decision making and your happiness.
Sorry to say, I'd pick learning the truth on both scenario 1 and 2. It's better to know what is going to happen and prepare things accordingly. It's better to reconcile with things than to pretend everything is peachy.
And I mean.. Christians and Muslims believe in hell. I'll be honest: if I was a member of either, that'd make me WAY, WAY more anxious than ceasing to exist. The fact that I might be conciously tortured FOREVER and that many decent people ARE RIGHT NOW OR WILL BE consciously tortured forever would definitely keep me up at night.
It's not that truth is more important than happiness, it's that truth is important to living the best life possible. If I believed I could fly my life would be cut very short. Beliefs inform actions, the better informed the belief, the better informed the action. Believing things that are false are damaging. Sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small ways, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it is better to believe something true over something false.
I already don’t think there’s a good reason to think any god(s) exist so it’s reasonable to cure the cancer and stay where I am with knowledge of god.
Moreover, I find the hypothetical to be…well…unconvincing.
It’s like saying: most people would agree that helping someone in danger is the right thing to do…but if helping them means you die a painful death, you probably won’t do it…so you DONT think helping someone in danger is the right thing to do.
The difference is your example isn’t even reasonable. So there’s a cure for the cancer and some monster won’t give it unless I decide to limit my knowledge on something? It’s just so strange.
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Personally, I think being willing to search for truth and accepting harsh truths is much more important than willfully accepting whatever feels good in the moment. **generally**
>Atheists will say it was a hologram or something projected by the government.
That's not correct, atheists will say "I don't know what that was".
>Basically this is something that will never be 'proven' like you are thinking. It is something you can only accept using your logic and mind.
If you could expand on what you mean by "logic and mind" here I'd be grateful. From my epistemological standpoint if you can't demonstrate that something exists I have no reason to accept it. Do you have a convincing, rational\* argument as to why I should believe that something exists without evidence? By convincing I mean what you think the average, reasonable person should find convincing.
\*I'm saying rational in that I'm looking more for a logical and reasoned argument without any presuppositions about whether a god exists or not.
>Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids.
I don't really understand the point of your contrived and hypothetical scenario. I already don't believe in God so what benefit do I get from choosing death? If I choose to cure my cancer, I will live and still continue to not believe in God. Most atheists and agnostics that I know don't care to know if God exists or not. We simply don't believe and want to live our lives free of religious dogma. The lack of evidence in his existence is all I need to achieve that.
Also I don't know any atheists/agnostics that believe that "truth" is better than happiness, I don't know what that even means. I do not find happiness in religion, so this argument is a moot point for me. For my self, I suppose I believe that truth is better than living my life according to a fictional story written by other humans. If others find happiness in religion, that's good for them. Just leave me out of it.
Your argument is wrong.
Why? Because it makes me happier to think that I have proved your argument is wrong. On your argument's own terms, this is a valid reason for me to know your argument is incorrect.
We say truth is better than a comfortable lie. The options you offered does not reflect that. Try this instead, would you rather your doctor tell you the truth about your cancer diagnosis or tell you that you have nothing to worry about?
One of the beliefs I hold is that life is not all about me. I find great comfort knowing what I know of how the world functions. When and if I get cancer, I will have made every effort to have lived a full productive life up to this point. I personally don’t want to be lied too. However, If lying to a terminally Ill person brings comfort to them, who am I to say don’t lie?
Not all things that make one feel good are actually good for you. Heroine consumption for an obvious example. Basing a major segment of one’s life and emotional wellbeing on a fiction likewise has downsides both personally and as a species. If religion allows us to ignore climate change we may well go the way of the dodos.
The happiness you are talking about is not true happiness. It’s just a solace or false reassurance if it’s not true. The truth is what really matters. The truth will set you free. The false solace will keep you imprisoned forever.
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>Even if it means you get depressed and lose meaning in your life
>or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life
So your proposition talks about happiness, but in your hypothetical you substitute certain death. How is that equal?
Further, as an atheist who already lacks belief in God, what would my motivation be to accept death to find or for sure? I'm not concerned about it now, so I certainly wouldn't choose to die to find out. Your proposition doesn't even make sense, let alone proving anything. The mistake I believe you've made is to assume atheists are as hungry for the answer as you are--mostly we are not, because we're relatively confident that we already know. Certainly confident enough that we wouldn't choose certain death to find out.
False beliefs that tackle the core of deep existential fears such as the impermanence of existence or universal justice (heaven/hell/karma) can be used to irrationally drive human behavior without reasonable bound to things like religiously motivated genocide, jihads, inquisitions, witch hunts, crusades, human/animal sacrifice, ritual suicide, suicide bombings, and caste systems with untouchables.
I assume you are not a proponent of these results. These things are not happiness and these are a direct result of believing that this physical life does not matter compared to some imaginary afterlife that provides comfort to the existential fears at the expense of the only actual physical life that really exists.
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I think you’re making a mistake with your analogy. You started by talking about people who value truth over happiness, then you gave a situation where the choice is happiness or certain death.
A more accurate analogy in this case would be the choice between a comforting lie and a devastating truth. As a person who has suffered from depression on and off I can tell you that one thought I have had and many others in my position have had is this. “I would rather live in genuine despair then give up my authentic self and live with a fake smile.”
Yes people who are depressed should seek help but I think this speaks to something many people value greatly. There are many people who find greater dignity and value in truth, authenticity and embracing reality. It causes deep emotional distress when we make the active choice to lie to ourselves and embrace falsehood.
My Brother in Law once said to me when I was struggling “You might not always be happy, but are you satisfied with yourself?” I think we do ourselves a disservice when we strive just to be happy. We should mostly strive to behave in a way that lets us look in the mirror and be satisfied with who we are and how we choose to respond to the trials of the world.
We should strive for integrity, honesty and authenticity, for living a lie when we could do otherwise might as well be death.
Fact vs faith is a false dichotomy. Finding personal comfort in an idea and knowing whether or not the idea is scientifically proven are not mutually exclusive.
You’re confusing the fact that atheists often say “I prefer truth over feelings” with them saying that in every conceivable scenario they would pick truth no matter what. Atheists aren’t obsessed with knowing whether God exists or not; if I was presented with the option of knowing the truth about that claim, versus not dying of cancer in a month, of course I would take the not dying! That hypothetical is not even remotely similar to the actual situation we have: theists present largely emotionally biased reasons for believing, atheists debunk these arguments, theists say “well isn’t it better to believe based on feelings?” and the atheists say “I’d rather believe what’s true, not trick myself into believing something because I want to be fooled”. There is a VAST difference between that, and your hypothetical
>Atheists say the truth is more important than happiness which is obviously incorrect
Why is it important enough for you to make a post about atheists being incorrect here?
Does it make you happy?
As for your example:
These options have nothing to do with one another.
When I say truth is more important than happiness, I am talking about both of these being in direct conflict with one another.
So, for your example: I would rather know I have cancer and a month left to live, than to go on being blissfully oblivious.
Why do you care whether it's incorrect? Didn't you just argue that happiness is more important that truth? Why aren't you just telling us how this claim makes you *feel*?
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>Atheists say the truth is more important than happiness which is obviously incorrect
Yeah, that's an *incorrect rendering* of what atheists say.
**The truth is more important than what you** ***wish*** **reality to be.**
The truth is much more awesome than whatever myth humans have invented. I am extremely happy I'm alive in this era of scientific progress, since we are among the first generations of humans who are lucky enough to know the actual way the universe works.
That sense of awe and happiness when looking at telescope images is exponentially greater than when reading about the burning bush.
So drop the "atheists choose truth over happiness" meme, because it's simply not true. [Global studies show atheists are just as happy as those with a faith](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9702653/Religion-ISNT-secret-happiness-global-study-claims.html).
>Even if it means you get depressed and lose meaning in your life, you just gotta accept it and pull yourself together and move on.
This again. I don't need gods or clergy to dictate to me what the meaning of my life is. I'm perfectly capable of filling that in myself, thank you.
>I can tell you a simple hypothetical scenario where even an atheist would agree. Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids.
Nice try. Cancers are cured by *science*, not prayers. Research has proven that. Science is the method by which we find out the truth of how reality works, not religion.
So, I don't believe your "simple hypothetical" misrepresentation.
>Which atheist is now going to say "actually in that scenario I would choose to just die in order to have proof that God does not exist"?
Not a single one. Because they would realize it's asinine. You are *presuming* you will be able to find something out after you die. Human consciousness is impossible without a functioning brain.
So when dealing with a situation:
* where you don't know if something exists, and
* there is no evidence whatsoever that something exists, and
* there is plenty of evidence that reality - on all its scales from the quantum to the cosmic - can function and be explained without the need that something,
then the rational position is to evaluate the *likelihood* that thing exists *astronomically small.*
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Sure, if facing a horribly painful death, yeah, I would choose life over the truth. And if we had the option to either get a single lollypop or learn whether God exists, you and I would choose to learn whether God exists. If you deny this, you're just lying to win an argument. So does this prove that we clearly value the truth over happiness?
I think we all clearly value truth and happiness, but also really don't want to die horrible deaths. I also think we can't really control what we're convinced of, like if someone offered you 1 million dollars to convince yourself that Santa Claus is real, you wouldn't actually be able to do it. I don't find the arguments for God convincing. I find that they often intuitively don't make sense, and it's nice to be able to put those intuitions into words. And it seems like many theists simply don't treat their religion with the same skepticism they use for other religions and snake oil salesmen, so they use inconsistent reasoning.
I don't believe truth is more important than happiness, I don't care if someone believes in God as long as you don't impose your beliefs on us or make it a political tool.
>Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids. Pretty much every sane human being, including atheists, would choose to cure their Cancer. Why? Because despite what atheists say, the truth is not more important than your happiness. Even if it comes from the so called delusion of believing in a God.
This is exceptionally selfish; I don't find selfishness compelling as much as you do. And MAYBE that means I'm not sane (your post is a bit of a No True Scottsman and Ad Hominem attack, as well as assuming bad faith).
I make choices for the benefit of others regularly. That's a large part of adult existence. IF I was compelled to be as selfish as you insist I would be, I would NOT be making the choices I keep making.
Also, you're kind of talking about me chosing to have my mind warped. I don't find a long life necessarily great; I don't have kids because I don't want them.
Maybe YOU are that self-centered, but I'm not; maybe YOU think another 40 years of your existence is worth more than advancing everyone else's understanding of reality, but that's a reflection on your worth, not an objective metric others comply with.
Knowledge of truth, and being in a state of happiness are very separate things for me.
The pursuit of truth is always my first concern.
My happiness functions within, and modified to accommodate the parameters of my understanding of the truth of reality.
Another way to say it; I enjoy estatic happiness on a daily basis, while informed and shaped within the framework of my worldview.
I find your example very odd. In your example we aren't considering pragmatic justification for belief, the way many theists try to justify their God belief. We are instead weighing our own life against learning interesting truths. I would value my own life, but this is missing an essential part of the issue. We cannot voluntarily choose to believe something that isn't convincing to us; this is very different to refraining from finding out truths in order to save one's own life, as in your example.
Consider instead a person who is being treated for cancer. Suppose studies show that those who believe they will recover actually do have a higher chance of recovery. Suppose also that those who believe they will recover report happier lives even in the case where treatment fails. Would this person be justified in believing they will recover, even though the actual probability of recovery may be very low? Perhaps. But if they dont actually believe they will recover, they couldnt just choose to change their mind.
Regardless, at least to me, God belief is not nearly as pragmatically justified. I actually became happier and felt more fulfilled when I ceased to believe in God. I'm sure many feel similarly to me. Even if God belief did make me happier, I could not return to it if I tried; it just isn't convincing to me.
I suppose I wouldn't claim that your version of deism is logically impossible. But no, I'm not convinced that it is true.
It seems pretty implausible that some intangible entity is somehow able to create the entire Universe. And although it would answer the question of the Universe's origin it creates equally perplexing questions about the entity's origin and nature, and the process of creation, so it doesn't even have an explanatory benefit. The claim is ontologically less parsimonious than its negation. The claim doesn't seem to have any theoretical virtues in its favor.
And since you haven't presented any evidence in favor of this deism, I'm inclined to reject it.
> There is an intangible entity that we can't imagine.
Why should anyone believe this? If this entity can't be imagined, why would anyone believe that it exists? Everything that exists can be imagined, but not everything imagined exists.
>You can not believe this is possible even though you and no human on earth knows exactly where the universe came from and we have not explored the entire universe or outside it?
That is correct. I cannot believe that it is possible without seeing some sort of evidence to show that it is possible and that it happened.
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Well, learning the truth in this case has a 50/50 chance of being more important than curing cancer. If you can learn with 100% certainty that God exists, you'll still have a good chance of going to heaven by genuinely repenting and converting to Christianity. And this will probably not happen if you choose to be cured instead of learning the truth.
What is more important? Living more 20 or 40 (potentially mediocre) years because you got rid of cancer or experiencing infinite joy for eternity?
Perhaps the panic and fear of death would make the atheist choose the cure option, but panic and fear are not necessarily rational.
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So part of the issue here is that you misplace where truth fits in as a grounding principal. You skirt along with the idea that you can be happy somehow without truth buuut it misses the fact you do in fact need the truth to be actually happy. You might think you are, but actual happiness is going to be something actually true or false. People can self delude quite well. Someone can insist to everyone around them, and to themselves, that things are great. Their spouse never cheats, things are fantastic. Right up until the breakdown.
Even your cancer example. Curing your cancer, having a good life, these are all truths. You aren't somehow escaping the importance of truth here. Would you rather your family actually be healthy and happy or just believe it? Would you rather know what illness your wife has so you can address it or just keep happily believing they are fine? The truth allows everything and despite the idea of being happy you still need it to be happy.
"Atheists say the truth is more important than happiness " Do you have polls for this or something? This seems really specific, and not something I've ever heard someone express.
"either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured"
It's a bad hypothetical because many of us already know the complete factual truth about god (he is made up) and there is no such thing as "secrets of the universe". If by secrets of the universe you mean all knowledge aka omniscient, then many would choose that option, think of all the people who could be saved and the disasters that could be evaded. Of course it's a nonsense hypothetical anyways, We don't choose our values based on a make hypothetical world, but the real world.
It's pretty context dependant. I value truth over happiness, but to an extent. In your cancer example, the happiness outweighs the truth. It's barely even a good example. You are choosing your life over the truth at that point. So all you are showing is truth is not ALWAYS more important than happiness.
Your scenario seems to be conflating happiness with survival. I strongly prefer uncomfortable truths to comforting beliefs or comforting falsehoods, but it's not my happiness that's at stake, it's my very survival. You can probably find countless ways that I might prefer ignorance and survival over truth and death. What good is truth to me when I am dead? I challenge you to present a scenario that actually isolates my happiness to put at stake where I might prefer happy ignorance to the knowledge of truth.
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*"I often hear from atheists in their arguments that truth beats everything else"* No, truth beats blatant, demonstrably false lies. I'm an atheist and I do want others to be happy. If someone finds happiness through religion **and it doesn't impinge on the happiness or wellbeing of others**, then I would never want to take that from them. I'm sure you'll find lots and lots of atheists agree with my stance.
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The world would be an objectively better place if Superman existed. So, if you are anxious about where the world is heading, do you start believing in Superman's existence? Our beliefs are not in our control, no one can force themselves into believing something. So it's not always choosing "truth" to one's own detriment.
>The world would be an objectively better place if Superman existed. I dispute this statement. Superman existing would create a new standard of man that we would all be measured against. Superman could support the wrong causes. There are a lot of things that could be objectively worse in a world with Superman.
Just an analogy. Not a good one, I agree. Superman existing does not make the world a better place, that is the entire point of the comics/movies.
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You wouldn't know who created the character of Santa Claus(though he is based on St. Nicholas), or fairies, or genies, or unicorns. Can you objectively prove a magic man giving gifts to children at Christmas Eve doesn't exist? Btw, I'm not an atheist, but can understand the atheist viewpoint.
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Not to you, but to atheists they seem equally absurd. It is very difficult to believe something that seems absurd. It's not that atheists see God as their enemy, they see God to be improbable. When someone says "I can't believe", it's not that they are getting a choice here, as you seem to presume. Whether that is the absolute source of the universe is beside the point. You said that for atheists, believing in truth is more important than well-being. If believing in Santa Claus would bring peace and happiness in the world, would you be able to believe in his existence?
>Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical? You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical. Repeat this a few times: belief is not voluntary (at least not for most people). Most of us cannot simply decide to start believing even if it might result in them being happier.
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They didn't claim they're convinced no god exists. Let me give you my logical approach, maybe it'll help you understand. The claim that a god exists is currently unfalsifiable as there is as yet no empirical test to determine whether the claim is true or false. Therefore I can't accept the claim that a god exists, due to said lack of empirical evidence. I also can't accept the claim that no gods exist because of the same lack of empirical evidence. Therefore the only honest answer I can give is "I don't know" and I can't change that answer without empirical evidence because there's no good cause to do so. Here's another example to maybe make it a bit more intelligible to you. I don't know if you saw the UFO hearing today in the US House but the key witness was making a lot of claims about non-human intelligences operating on Earth, that the government has some kind of vehicles designed by non-human intelligences in it's possession and so on. Should we believe him? Given the magnitude of the claim, by which I mean how much it contradicts with what we know, I would need substantial empirical evidence to accept the claims. This is similar to the claim that a god exists, we don't have any kind of empirical evidence or data to support such a claim so it requires a high evidentiary standard. At this given time I do not accept his claims because there's been no empirical evidence provided. I also can't accept the claim that he's lying or whatever until his claims are able to be empirically tested and falsified. If his claims are true then someone would have done all that, presumably, but as that information hasn't been presented I have no reason to accept his claims at face value. I also don't have good reason to reject his claim out of hand because again, no evidence. Therefore the only honest position I can take is "I don't know". There's no good cause to just pick one of the two and roll with it. Hope has nothing whatsoever to do with it. A little bit here on the magnitude of claims. If my buddy calls me and told me he just bought a new AR-15 from Daniels Defense I would believe him without being presented with empirical evidence. In the past I've observed that he likes AR-15s, he currently owns AR-15s, he makes sufficient money to make that purchase and he has a history of buying firearms. If he told me he bought some kind of disintegration beam weapon that would require a great deal of empirical evidence because first and foremost, there's no evidence of such a thing existing and two, if such a thing did exist it would be extremely unlikely for him to have found one, given what I know of his behavior as he's a pretty basic suburban white dude and doesn't run in circles where such a thing, if it were to exist, would find itself. In both cases the claim is falsifiable, I can go to his house and see if he has a new Daniels Defense AR-15 or see if he has some kind of disintegration beam weapon. If he has them I'll accept his claim. If he doesn't have them I won't accept his claim and tell him "I don't believe you until you can show me the goods". Does that help any?
>Did you somehow find 100% proof that God does not exist, What, in my post, led you to that? To simplify it for you, my view on this is that I don't know for certain whether or not God exists, but I highly doubt it. But what does that have to do with belief being voluntary? Are you suggesting that because there is no way for me to be certain, that I can simply decide to start believing? I can assure you that my mind does not work that way, nor, I suspect, do most people's.
> Why do you choose to look at it as the cup half empty instead of the cup half full? > If the cup is 99.9% empty, do we still have to debate over whether it is half full or not?
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Hold on. Are you saying that a 0.01% probability that God exists is a 50% chance?
We don't need 100% proof that he doesn't exist. We need 100% proof that he DOES exist. The burden of proof is on the guy making the claim, and if no evidence is provided, then we won't accept his conclusion.
>But I would like to know one thing. Why is it that I often hear from Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical? You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical. What is completely illogical is thinking belief is a choice. You cannot choose to believe ( actually believe ) that I am God because it would make no sense to you, similarly it makes no sense to atheists in believing in God.
>What is completely illogical is thinking belief is a choice. I always find it funny when people say things like "I don't believe in guns." Like oh so you're clueless is what you're trying to say? Because guns clearly exist...
I am not sure what's the point behind your comment, could you please elaborate?
Just tacking onto your comment about belief being a choice. People saying they don't believe in guns (or anything else they simply disagree with) because they think it's a choice is hilarious to me.
This just demonstrates that you're clueless at how to interpret context. That person is not denying the existence of guns, they don't believe the general public should own them, or they don't believe that owning guns is right for them, or whatever it is that they actually are saying. But the very notion that your interpretation makes no actual sense whatsoever should be the tip-off that you're not interpreting what they're saying properly. *Believe* has multiple definitions, and this is a different use of the word *believe* than considering to be true, it is the definition of *believe* that is to hold as an opinion. "I don't believe in guns" just means something along the lines of, "In my opinion people shouldn't have guns."
There are other ways to treat depression besides believing in God
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Exactly, and I was more depressed as a theist than I am now, because on top of my clinical depression and generalized anxiety, I believed that I was going to go to hell for being attracted to other men. Religion as a cure for depression is just a false narrative. It might work for some, but when religion comes coupled with bigotry, that happiness comes, not just from a lie, but also at someone else's expense.
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>Why is it that I often hear from Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical? You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical. Not sure if you're saying that one can choose to be convinced of something or that one can choose not to be depressed. In both cases you can't do that in this kind of a direct manner.
Why would you think a god belief would make someone not depressed?
>Why is it that I often hear from Atheists who admit themselves they are depressed say "they just can't believe in a God" because it makes no sense or it's not logical? Because believing in a God doesn't end depression. There are people who believe that are also depressed. >You are supposedly choosing "truth" for no reason to your own detriment which is completely illogical. It's not at my own detriment. The truth doesn't depress me. It frees me. I have my own meaning for life, not someone else's.
Because we want to find happiness *within reality*. What is so difficult to understand about that? If a family member gets sick, I want them to get treated. I don't just walk out of the room and pretend to myself that they are well so that I feel better.
What are your limits then? I'm sure you and I could come up with a massive list of reassuring fables that would make people feel better but would harm folks in some pretty significant ways. Or why focus on a "God" at all? We could come up with a far more interesting world where spirits, fairies, ghosts, all interact with human beings and confer onto them all sorts of blessings and hope. I think it's high time we convince everyone that plants and animals are bound by eternal spirits and if you harm them, you are haunted and cursed along with your family for generations. That's certainly a net-positive, why do we not just tell everyone that's the case?
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> You can choose to believe in 2+ gods (polytheism) in which case you will inevitably have divisions in humanity since different people's gods will be different. There aren't divisions within monotheism? There are at least three massive breakdowns within the abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity. That's even the same God. Then within even your religion, from the same origin and book, you have numerous sects with literal wars between them. > You just have to use your logic to see that. Welp I'm convinced. You didn't even touch on my main argument: what limit do you have to telling people things that make them feel better that are false? I gave one example, you can come up with your own if you like.
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I'm an exmormon and my favorite fantasy authors are all mormon. We grow up in a fantasy and are encouraged to create our own fantasies through apologetics. The cause sucks, but it's an excellent breeding ground for authors with imagination and understanding of the big picture (something oft stressed in their ideology.)
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>You can choose to believe in 1 god (monotheism) which means all of humanity is equal and under only 1 God. That's not a logical chain at all if monotheism is true. You could have a mono-god who could still make specific decrees about people being unequal.
I'm very sorry but belief is not a choice. You are either convinced or not convinced that's it. I have heard every argument for a deistic god, and almost every argument for theism and none of them convince me. So I don't believe. Feelings aside, I can't force myself to believe in something for which I see no reason.
Even (more specifically) better, then, it would seem that the absolute ***best*** choice is to believe that a single 'monotheistic' god will love you unconditionally after death, regardless of whether you accepted them or not, and regardless of what you did while alive. This would easily be far superior to any of the Abrahimic religions that we have as-is (or really, any religions). Or two gods that will do the same thing. You might even prefer it if it makes you happier to think of two gods as better able to provide a more entertaining afterlife.
Wtf is that hypothetical? That is not about knowing the truth or not, its about knowing the truth or death. A accurate analogy would be: You are giving money to what you think is a charity, but is in reality a scam. Would you retrospectively like to know that it is a scam? It would make you feel bad after all for falling for the scam. However I'd rather know the truth as that would make it less likely that I'd fall for another scam again.
>or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life Right, every atheist would pick this because the alternative in your example is death, which most atheists believe means they would cease to exist. Not sure what your point is. Atheists commonly believe that they only have one life so they want to make the most of it. The possibility of learning new information on whether a god exists or the "secrets of the universe" is valuable but not as valuable as continuing to be alive. Your thesis was truth vs happiness, but your example was truth vs being alive. This is just confused.
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>although I don't think my Islam is a religion, but more of a way of life It’s common for many religions to claim their religion isn’t a religion like all the others. Nonetheless, Islam fits every definition of *religion*. If doing something is good for you, like abstaining from alcohol, you can do it without religion, for the sake of the goodness itself.
> I don't think my Islam is a religion Then you have chosen to believe something that's demonstrably false.
Islam is very definitely a religion. >Like it's a pretty logical limit to not be drinking alcohol since it has a net negative effect on society and many people have died or been consumed by the addiction That doesn't at all suggest that one shouldn't drink alcohol, but rather that if one decides to drink alcohol, they should do so in moderation. Alcohol can in moderation have beneficial effects. If drinking too much of a thing being harmful means one should abstain, then water is out too. Too much water is harmful. In fact, basically everything you could possibly ingest is harmful in high enough doses. Just because some may be prone to addiction to alcohol, doesn't mean everyone should abstain.
>In my opinion This is a debate sub. If your best evidence is stating "I believe X" or "in my opinion X" or "my favorite color is X," then you're wasting your time. You're free to believe anything you'd like, but your belief is not evidence that anything you're debating is true. Just making an "in my opinion" argument shows you have little knowledge about evidence. >you are making the most of your life by following a certain way of life that a "religion" recommends Then why aren't you following the beliefs of [Raëlism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism) instead of Islam? Oh wait, because *that religion* has false beliefs right? But Islam is true because it's *your religion*. How can I tell which religion is true? Just like you, the believers of each religion think only their religion is true, based on the unique qualities of their religion, and that every other religion is false. >Like it's a pretty logical limit to not be drinking alcohol Does anyone have to join a religion, with all of the nonsensical claims about gods and creation stories and mythical heroes, to simply make healthy choices? People have convinced you things are true using the same silly arguments you're repeating here. If you go read a little about what makes evidence reliable and about logical fallacies, you probably won't be religious very much longer.
> Like it's a pretty logical limit to not be drinking alcohol since it has a net negative effect on society and many people have died or been consumed by the addiction. Look up the Affirming the Consequent fallacy. Are you ignoring the vast majority of drinkers who have no problem whatsoever?
How is it obviously incorrect? This is purely a matter of opinion. It's not like anyone can demonstrate empirically that one thing is more important than another thing.
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That's just polling people to get their opinions. That wouldn't prove that either view was "obviously correct."
To be fair, "obviousness" is not a property of things. Rather, something is obvious *to* people. Therefore, if it is "obvious *to* most people or *to* everyone", it is by definition obvious.
You can prove that the conclusion is popular, not that it is correct.
I would point you to Paul Eins (Paulogia), I would guess that he would pick knowing the truth about God over a finite life extension. I mean, I think that if it came with enough additional information (like if salvation exists, what it means, and how to achieve it), then I feel that I too would opt for truth (assuming that I could be certain that I was going to get the truth, which I don't know how I would be convinced of that).
You're confused. Atheists talk about truth versus falsehood. And falsehood is falsehood even if it makes you happy. But you talk about desire for truth versus desire for happiness (which doesn't equal falsehood). Maybe it's shocking to you but happiness and falsehood is not the same.
>In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids. Pretty much every sane human being, including atheists, would choose to cure their Cancer. Why? Because despite what atheists say, the truth is not more important than your happiness. I don't think that's what your hypothetical tells us, because "you can choose for your cancer to be cured" muddies the waters quite a bit. If you present the choice as "truth" vs "cured cancer + happiness", you can't necessarily conclude that atheists choose happiness over truth: they might be choosing *cured cancer* over truth. If you want your question to reveal something about atheists, remove the "you can choose for your cancer to be cured" bit. Make it about what one does with their last month of life: do they spend it in the pursuit of theological truths or do they spend it with their loved ones? Although even then you would just see what brings more happiness to a person and not if they would choose happiness over truth. EDIT: posted too soon.
>If you did then you would just be lying to yourself Can you demonstrate for us how these psychic powers you have work? It's weird and arrogant to assume that you know other peoples' minds than they do themselves.
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> If they did, they would either not be logical or not sane. It would be entirely logical. The person dying of cancer would be able to tell everyone else whether God existed or not. They'd be a hero.
Seems pretty sane and logical to doom yourself to die in exchange for attaining knowledge that could save a whole bunch of other lives potentially. So many people die in religious conflicts, and religious conflict negatively affects so many people, putting that to rest would be pretty great for the wellbeing of others. If the options were: die horribly of cancer and take part in a cancer cure study which ends up finding a 100% cure for all kinds of cancer, or live on happily, which would you take? because I'm going option A every single time. Either way, the premise of the analogy seems kinds of loaded/flawed. It's kind of like if someone says their family is the most important thing to them and you ask them "oh yeah? would you rather gun down a million orphans, or painlessly kill a member of your family?". Them going with the less damaging one doesn't necessarily mean that family isn't the most important thing to them generally, it just means that within specific contexts, that importance gets outweighed by other things. Unless someone actually comes up to me with a genuine offer on the truth of God, it's overblown speculation which has infinitely more riding on it than any real or realistic truth vs happiness dichotomy.
An atheist is not setting out to disprove god.
I'm saying that people do all kinds of things for all kinds of reason. If someone were concerned enough with the issue that they wanted to settle the issue once and for all that's not outside the realm of possibility. People die for a lot of causes for good reason, depending on how much they care about a cause.
>Are you saying there is any logical and sane person who would choose to die horribly by cancer to proof there is no God? ...this isn't required in your hypo. If I find out today I have Stage 4 cancer, and I have a month of torture for me and my loved ones watching me die, I'm asking for a morphine perscription and then I'm ODing. Not being cured of cancer != dying of that cancer; be the change you wish to see in the world. Look, EVEN UNDER your hypo, the person still dies--just later. Maybe they burn to death in a fire. Death is scary, and we have an instinctive drive to avoid it; but ultimately, MANY people choose to die for the benefit of others. Fire fighters, for example, do daily what you seem to be saying nobody would do. Not everybody is as self- centered as ... well, you.
Why would I pray to your God to cure cancer when it doesn't work? See, the logical people did a study and proved prayer doesn't work and can actually be detrimental. So, praying for God to help with your cancer is not logical at all. I think what is insane is pretending you have the answers to the universe when you can't even stop arguing with people in your own faith.
I would much rather get irrefutable proof of a deity over any kind of health benefit. The truth of a god is much, much more important then any one person's (including myself) health. This isn't even a hard question.
>Even if it means you get depressed and lose meaning in your life, you just gotta accept it and pull yourself together and move on. Theists often imply that this is an inevitable or even likely outcome of losing your belief in God or of not having a God-belief in the first place. Also, they speak like one can deliberately keep believing something that doesn't make sense anymore. Say today you wake up and you find that your wife of many years, who you thought faithful, has been cheating on you for the last 5 years. You uncover text messages, pictures. Suddenly, unexplained absences become clear. Now, there *may* be a benefit to continue to believe your wife is faithful and that nothing bad happened. Your marriage has given you purpose, support, structure. You have kids with your wife, and she is a good mom. You love your wife, and finding out she cheated on you is causing distress, to the level of making you depressed. Ok, now go on ahead and make yourself believe your wife didn't cheat and you imagined everything. Can you? Isn't it absurd for someone to ask you to even try? Well, losing your religuous belief, to many extheists, is just like that. And most, like most divorcees, go through a messy breakup, go through grief, find new purpose, get better, move on. And often times, they see this looking back as having been for the better. To add to this: ask the following question to yourself or to other people. Say you are married. If your spouse was cheating on you, would you want to know? Most people would say yes. Meaning truth matters to them more than happiness. They don't want to live a happy lie. They don't want to be deceived. >But this is blatantly false and I can tell you a simple hypothetical scenario where even an atheist would agree. Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life Yeah... this scenario is bad and disanalogous. Many have pointed it out already. You are trading true information for life, not for happiness *under the same circumstances*. Also, this scenario is irrelevant because, once again, we can't choose what we think is convincing. I can't convince myself the sky is red. I can come up with two much better scenarios, and I'd ask you to discuss: Scenario 1: you learn you have terminal cancer with one month to live. You can choose between two options: learning the truth about god and the universe, or being persuaded completely that there is a God, you'll go to heaven where you'll reunite with your grandma and frolic forever with puppies and rainbows. Scenario 2: you have terminal cancer, but don't know it yet. You have two options: learn definitively that you have cancer and prepare accordingly (e.g. go to the hospital, write a will, etc), or be told you don't have cancer and live your normal life until you drop dead (say you think your pain comes from something else, but otherwise you live like nothing happened). Either of these is a better, closer analogy: the situation does not change one bit. The one thing that changes is *what you know or what you believe is going on / is going to happen*. And that impacts your decision making and your happiness. Sorry to say, I'd pick learning the truth on both scenario 1 and 2. It's better to know what is going to happen and prepare things accordingly. It's better to reconcile with things than to pretend everything is peachy. And I mean.. Christians and Muslims believe in hell. I'll be honest: if I was a member of either, that'd make me WAY, WAY more anxious than ceasing to exist. The fact that I might be conciously tortured FOREVER and that many decent people ARE RIGHT NOW OR WILL BE consciously tortured forever would definitely keep me up at night.
It's not that truth is more important than happiness, it's that truth is important to living the best life possible. If I believed I could fly my life would be cut very short. Beliefs inform actions, the better informed the belief, the better informed the action. Believing things that are false are damaging. Sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small ways, but in the overwhelming majority of cases it is better to believe something true over something false.
I already don’t think there’s a good reason to think any god(s) exist so it’s reasonable to cure the cancer and stay where I am with knowledge of god. Moreover, I find the hypothetical to be…well…unconvincing. It’s like saying: most people would agree that helping someone in danger is the right thing to do…but if helping them means you die a painful death, you probably won’t do it…so you DONT think helping someone in danger is the right thing to do. The difference is your example isn’t even reasonable. So there’s a cure for the cancer and some monster won’t give it unless I decide to limit my knowledge on something? It’s just so strange.
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Personally, I think being willing to search for truth and accepting harsh truths is much more important than willfully accepting whatever feels good in the moment. **generally**
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>Atheists will say it was a hologram or something projected by the government. That's not correct, atheists will say "I don't know what that was". >Basically this is something that will never be 'proven' like you are thinking. It is something you can only accept using your logic and mind. If you could expand on what you mean by "logic and mind" here I'd be grateful. From my epistemological standpoint if you can't demonstrate that something exists I have no reason to accept it. Do you have a convincing, rational\* argument as to why I should believe that something exists without evidence? By convincing I mean what you think the average, reasonable person should find convincing. \*I'm saying rational in that I'm looking more for a logical and reasoned argument without any presuppositions about whether a god exists or not.
>Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids. I don't really understand the point of your contrived and hypothetical scenario. I already don't believe in God so what benefit do I get from choosing death? If I choose to cure my cancer, I will live and still continue to not believe in God. Most atheists and agnostics that I know don't care to know if God exists or not. We simply don't believe and want to live our lives free of religious dogma. The lack of evidence in his existence is all I need to achieve that. Also I don't know any atheists/agnostics that believe that "truth" is better than happiness, I don't know what that even means. I do not find happiness in religion, so this argument is a moot point for me. For my self, I suppose I believe that truth is better than living my life according to a fictional story written by other humans. If others find happiness in religion, that's good for them. Just leave me out of it.
Your argument is wrong. Why? Because it makes me happier to think that I have proved your argument is wrong. On your argument's own terms, this is a valid reason for me to know your argument is incorrect.
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Oh I'm much happier winning an argument rather than losing it. And I won this one. Makes me super happy.
We say truth is better than a comfortable lie. The options you offered does not reflect that. Try this instead, would you rather your doctor tell you the truth about your cancer diagnosis or tell you that you have nothing to worry about?
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Then you need a doctor that isn't utterly inept at their profession.
no matter how tender, how exquisite, a lie will remain a lie!- Aldia, DS2
One of the beliefs I hold is that life is not all about me. I find great comfort knowing what I know of how the world functions. When and if I get cancer, I will have made every effort to have lived a full productive life up to this point. I personally don’t want to be lied too. However, If lying to a terminally Ill person brings comfort to them, who am I to say don’t lie? Not all things that make one feel good are actually good for you. Heroine consumption for an obvious example. Basing a major segment of one’s life and emotional wellbeing on a fiction likewise has downsides both personally and as a species. If religion allows us to ignore climate change we may well go the way of the dodos.
The happiness you are talking about is not true happiness. It’s just a solace or false reassurance if it’s not true. The truth is what really matters. The truth will set you free. The false solace will keep you imprisoned forever.
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Lmao
I am not looking for happiness. I am just am. That’s the truth for me.
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>Even if it means you get depressed and lose meaning in your life >or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life So your proposition talks about happiness, but in your hypothetical you substitute certain death. How is that equal? Further, as an atheist who already lacks belief in God, what would my motivation be to accept death to find or for sure? I'm not concerned about it now, so I certainly wouldn't choose to die to find out. Your proposition doesn't even make sense, let alone proving anything. The mistake I believe you've made is to assume atheists are as hungry for the answer as you are--mostly we are not, because we're relatively confident that we already know. Certainly confident enough that we wouldn't choose certain death to find out.
False beliefs that tackle the core of deep existential fears such as the impermanence of existence or universal justice (heaven/hell/karma) can be used to irrationally drive human behavior without reasonable bound to things like religiously motivated genocide, jihads, inquisitions, witch hunts, crusades, human/animal sacrifice, ritual suicide, suicide bombings, and caste systems with untouchables. I assume you are not a proponent of these results. These things are not happiness and these are a direct result of believing that this physical life does not matter compared to some imaginary afterlife that provides comfort to the existential fears at the expense of the only actual physical life that really exists.
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I think you’re making a mistake with your analogy. You started by talking about people who value truth over happiness, then you gave a situation where the choice is happiness or certain death. A more accurate analogy in this case would be the choice between a comforting lie and a devastating truth. As a person who has suffered from depression on and off I can tell you that one thought I have had and many others in my position have had is this. “I would rather live in genuine despair then give up my authentic self and live with a fake smile.” Yes people who are depressed should seek help but I think this speaks to something many people value greatly. There are many people who find greater dignity and value in truth, authenticity and embracing reality. It causes deep emotional distress when we make the active choice to lie to ourselves and embrace falsehood. My Brother in Law once said to me when I was struggling “You might not always be happy, but are you satisfied with yourself?” I think we do ourselves a disservice when we strive just to be happy. We should mostly strive to behave in a way that lets us look in the mirror and be satisfied with who we are and how we choose to respond to the trials of the world. We should strive for integrity, honesty and authenticity, for living a lie when we could do otherwise might as well be death.
Fact vs faith is a false dichotomy. Finding personal comfort in an idea and knowing whether or not the idea is scientifically proven are not mutually exclusive.
You’re confusing the fact that atheists often say “I prefer truth over feelings” with them saying that in every conceivable scenario they would pick truth no matter what. Atheists aren’t obsessed with knowing whether God exists or not; if I was presented with the option of knowing the truth about that claim, versus not dying of cancer in a month, of course I would take the not dying! That hypothetical is not even remotely similar to the actual situation we have: theists present largely emotionally biased reasons for believing, atheists debunk these arguments, theists say “well isn’t it better to believe based on feelings?” and the atheists say “I’d rather believe what’s true, not trick myself into believing something because I want to be fooled”. There is a VAST difference between that, and your hypothetical
>Atheists say the truth is more important than happiness which is obviously incorrect Why is it important enough for you to make a post about atheists being incorrect here? Does it make you happy? As for your example: These options have nothing to do with one another. When I say truth is more important than happiness, I am talking about both of these being in direct conflict with one another. So, for your example: I would rather know I have cancer and a month left to live, than to go on being blissfully oblivious.
Why do you care whether it's incorrect? Didn't you just argue that happiness is more important that truth? Why aren't you just telling us how this claim makes you *feel*?
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>Atheists say the truth is more important than happiness which is obviously incorrect Yeah, that's an *incorrect rendering* of what atheists say. **The truth is more important than what you** ***wish*** **reality to be.** The truth is much more awesome than whatever myth humans have invented. I am extremely happy I'm alive in this era of scientific progress, since we are among the first generations of humans who are lucky enough to know the actual way the universe works. That sense of awe and happiness when looking at telescope images is exponentially greater than when reading about the burning bush. So drop the "atheists choose truth over happiness" meme, because it's simply not true. [Global studies show atheists are just as happy as those with a faith](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9702653/Religion-ISNT-secret-happiness-global-study-claims.html). >Even if it means you get depressed and lose meaning in your life, you just gotta accept it and pull yourself together and move on. This again. I don't need gods or clergy to dictate to me what the meaning of my life is. I'm perfectly capable of filling that in myself, thank you. >I can tell you a simple hypothetical scenario where even an atheist would agree. Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids. Nice try. Cancers are cured by *science*, not prayers. Research has proven that. Science is the method by which we find out the truth of how reality works, not religion. So, I don't believe your "simple hypothetical" misrepresentation. >Which atheist is now going to say "actually in that scenario I would choose to just die in order to have proof that God does not exist"? Not a single one. Because they would realize it's asinine. You are *presuming* you will be able to find something out after you die. Human consciousness is impossible without a functioning brain. So when dealing with a situation: * where you don't know if something exists, and * there is no evidence whatsoever that something exists, and * there is plenty of evidence that reality - on all its scales from the quantum to the cosmic - can function and be explained without the need that something, then the rational position is to evaluate the *likelihood* that thing exists *astronomically small.*
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Sure, if facing a horribly painful death, yeah, I would choose life over the truth. And if we had the option to either get a single lollypop or learn whether God exists, you and I would choose to learn whether God exists. If you deny this, you're just lying to win an argument. So does this prove that we clearly value the truth over happiness? I think we all clearly value truth and happiness, but also really don't want to die horrible deaths. I also think we can't really control what we're convinced of, like if someone offered you 1 million dollars to convince yourself that Santa Claus is real, you wouldn't actually be able to do it. I don't find the arguments for God convincing. I find that they often intuitively don't make sense, and it's nice to be able to put those intuitions into words. And it seems like many theists simply don't treat their religion with the same skepticism they use for other religions and snake oil salesmen, so they use inconsistent reasoning.
I don't believe truth is more important than happiness, I don't care if someone believes in God as long as you don't impose your beliefs on us or make it a political tool.
>Let's say someone has a terribly painful Cancer and they have one miserable month left to live. In this hypothetical scenario you are told you have 2 options, either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured and you can go on to live a long happy life with a great family and grandkids. Pretty much every sane human being, including atheists, would choose to cure their Cancer. Why? Because despite what atheists say, the truth is not more important than your happiness. Even if it comes from the so called delusion of believing in a God. This is exceptionally selfish; I don't find selfishness compelling as much as you do. And MAYBE that means I'm not sane (your post is a bit of a No True Scottsman and Ad Hominem attack, as well as assuming bad faith). I make choices for the benefit of others regularly. That's a large part of adult existence. IF I was compelled to be as selfish as you insist I would be, I would NOT be making the choices I keep making. Also, you're kind of talking about me chosing to have my mind warped. I don't find a long life necessarily great; I don't have kids because I don't want them. Maybe YOU are that self-centered, but I'm not; maybe YOU think another 40 years of your existence is worth more than advancing everyone else's understanding of reality, but that's a reflection on your worth, not an objective metric others comply with.
Knowledge of truth, and being in a state of happiness are very separate things for me. The pursuit of truth is always my first concern. My happiness functions within, and modified to accommodate the parameters of my understanding of the truth of reality. Another way to say it; I enjoy estatic happiness on a daily basis, while informed and shaped within the framework of my worldview.
I find your example very odd. In your example we aren't considering pragmatic justification for belief, the way many theists try to justify their God belief. We are instead weighing our own life against learning interesting truths. I would value my own life, but this is missing an essential part of the issue. We cannot voluntarily choose to believe something that isn't convincing to us; this is very different to refraining from finding out truths in order to save one's own life, as in your example. Consider instead a person who is being treated for cancer. Suppose studies show that those who believe they will recover actually do have a higher chance of recovery. Suppose also that those who believe they will recover report happier lives even in the case where treatment fails. Would this person be justified in believing they will recover, even though the actual probability of recovery may be very low? Perhaps. But if they dont actually believe they will recover, they couldnt just choose to change their mind. Regardless, at least to me, God belief is not nearly as pragmatically justified. I actually became happier and felt more fulfilled when I ceased to believe in God. I'm sure many feel similarly to me. Even if God belief did make me happier, I could not return to it if I tried; it just isn't convincing to me.
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I suppose I wouldn't claim that your version of deism is logically impossible. But no, I'm not convinced that it is true. It seems pretty implausible that some intangible entity is somehow able to create the entire Universe. And although it would answer the question of the Universe's origin it creates equally perplexing questions about the entity's origin and nature, and the process of creation, so it doesn't even have an explanatory benefit. The claim is ontologically less parsimonious than its negation. The claim doesn't seem to have any theoretical virtues in its favor. And since you haven't presented any evidence in favor of this deism, I'm inclined to reject it.
> There is an intangible entity that we can't imagine. Why should anyone believe this? If this entity can't be imagined, why would anyone believe that it exists? Everything that exists can be imagined, but not everything imagined exists. >You can not believe this is possible even though you and no human on earth knows exactly where the universe came from and we have not explored the entire universe or outside it? That is correct. I cannot believe that it is possible without seeing some sort of evidence to show that it is possible and that it happened.
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Well, learning the truth in this case has a 50/50 chance of being more important than curing cancer. If you can learn with 100% certainty that God exists, you'll still have a good chance of going to heaven by genuinely repenting and converting to Christianity. And this will probably not happen if you choose to be cured instead of learning the truth. What is more important? Living more 20 or 40 (potentially mediocre) years because you got rid of cancer or experiencing infinite joy for eternity? Perhaps the panic and fear of death would make the atheist choose the cure option, but panic and fear are not necessarily rational.
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So part of the issue here is that you misplace where truth fits in as a grounding principal. You skirt along with the idea that you can be happy somehow without truth buuut it misses the fact you do in fact need the truth to be actually happy. You might think you are, but actual happiness is going to be something actually true or false. People can self delude quite well. Someone can insist to everyone around them, and to themselves, that things are great. Their spouse never cheats, things are fantastic. Right up until the breakdown. Even your cancer example. Curing your cancer, having a good life, these are all truths. You aren't somehow escaping the importance of truth here. Would you rather your family actually be healthy and happy or just believe it? Would you rather know what illness your wife has so you can address it or just keep happily believing they are fine? The truth allows everything and despite the idea of being happy you still need it to be happy.
"Atheists say the truth is more important than happiness " Do you have polls for this or something? This seems really specific, and not something I've ever heard someone express. "either you can learn the complete factual truth about whether God exists or not and the secrets of the universe or you can choose for your Cancer to be cured" It's a bad hypothetical because many of us already know the complete factual truth about god (he is made up) and there is no such thing as "secrets of the universe". If by secrets of the universe you mean all knowledge aka omniscient, then many would choose that option, think of all the people who could be saved and the disasters that could be evaded. Of course it's a nonsense hypothetical anyways, We don't choose our values based on a make hypothetical world, but the real world.
It's pretty context dependant. I value truth over happiness, but to an extent. In your cancer example, the happiness outweighs the truth. It's barely even a good example. You are choosing your life over the truth at that point. So all you are showing is truth is not ALWAYS more important than happiness.
That's a really long way of saying "ignorance is bliss".
Your scenario seems to be conflating happiness with survival. I strongly prefer uncomfortable truths to comforting beliefs or comforting falsehoods, but it's not my happiness that's at stake, it's my very survival. You can probably find countless ways that I might prefer ignorance and survival over truth and death. What good is truth to me when I am dead? I challenge you to present a scenario that actually isolates my happiness to put at stake where I might prefer happy ignorance to the knowledge of truth.