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Study shows atheists can't be happy
#26

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-13-2019, 12:33 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 12:23 PM)Alan V Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 12:11 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote: Expecting anyone to be happy in this world is delusional when so many atrocities have occurred throughout human history, and so many problems currently exist in the world.  Being a human being is a fundamentally difficult thing to contend with, especially considering you have to contend with that you are probably capable of the very same atrocities. The human being is a ridiculous animal and human existence is absurd.

Happiness is short-term and temporary, not long-term and permanent.

Humans have a remarkable capacity for selective focus and compartmentalization.  That being the case, happiness is possible.

Human existence is absurd?  Compared with what?  If you say everything is absurd, the word becomes meaningless.

You say that humans have a capacity for selective focus, yet your first comment implies we suffer more than we are happy, which isn't necessarily "selective focus", it's just the state of human existence. Of course the negative will be out-selected if there is more of it than the positive.

So I guess you define happiness as long-term and permanent, and therefore impossible.  I'm then just pointing out that that is a stipulated definition for "happiness."
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#27

Study shows atheists can't be happy
Just as it is stated that love is blind and illogical, due to the fact that it is merely a concept given meaning from the chemicals our bodies produce, happiness is also a philosophical concept upon which we find comfort from the harshness of reality. In the end, to be human, cannot be fully escaped. Just as it is logical to understand religion is folly, it would also be logical to understand that love and happiness are long-term escape mechanisms.
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#28

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-13-2019, 12:37 PM)Alan V Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 12:33 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 12:23 PM)Alan V Wrote: Happiness is short-term and temporary, not long-term and permanent.

Humans have a remarkable capacity for selective focus and compartmentalization.  That being the case, happiness is possible.

Human existence is absurd?  Compared with what?  If you say everything is absurd, the word becomes meaningless.

You say that humans have a capacity for selective focus, yet your first comment implies we suffer more than we are happy, which isn't necessarily "selective focus", it's just the state of human existence. Of course the negative will be out-selected if there is more of it than the positive.

So I guess you define happiness as long-term and permanent, and therefore impossible.  I'm then just pointing out that that is a stipulated definition for "happiness."

By the way I do still consider my own life to be worth living, and I'm not going to suggest other people should stop valuing their lives, but overall I'm pretty pessimistic about humanity's situation, at the moment.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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#29

Study shows atheists can't be happy
Nothing wrong about misanthropy. Wink
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#30

Study shows atheists can't be happy
Thus far everytime a happiness poll is taken the happiest people turn out to live in countries with the highest rates of atheism.  Some of that is due to socalized government and health care but the reason there is more social programs and health care is because the majority of people are atheists who aren't going to wait for an mythical afterlife to make them happy.
                                                         T4618
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#31

Study shows atheists can't be happy
I wonder how many times they've prayed atheists would stop making jokes about their religion? Consider
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#32

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-13-2019, 03:38 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: Thus far everytime a happiness poll is taken the happiest people turn out to live in countries with the highest rates of atheism.  Some of that is due to socalized government and health care but the reason there is more social programs and health care is because the majority of people are atheists who aren't going to wait for an mythical afterlife to make them happy.

I disagree with this assesment. If you refer to Scandinavian countries which have a high rate of atheism and happiness, their economical and political systems were developped and established at the beginning of the century and soared right after WWI back when those countries were still overwhelmingly religious. Your argument also presuppose or imply that the more religious people are, the less likely they are to invest in charitable work which is also false. Charitable work used to be and is still largely dominated by religious people and organisation. Charity and helping people in need remains a staple of many religious doctrine. 

I don't think we can say there is a cause-effect link between atheism and the number of social programs a country has. Even in terms of correlation, it's relatively weak. Scandinavian countries have a much higher level of atheism then Canadians, but both have a similar number of social programs. BTW, the "atheist capital of the world" is China and by a long shot at 61% of atheists, France is the European "atheist capital" at 40% (though on one poll they were passed by the Czech Republic at 59%, Baltic States also have a higher average then the EU). In America, it would be Uruguay at 24% (the US is also one of the most atheist friendly country at 10%, the third best score, while Canada sits at number 2 with 12%). Africa remains, and by far, the most religious continent in the world. South Sudan would be the country with the highest level of atheism at 6% followed by South Africa at 4%.
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#33

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-13-2019, 07:10 PM)epronovost Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 03:38 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: Thus far everytime a happiness poll is taken the happiest people turn out to live in countries with the highest rates of atheism.  Some of that is due to socalized government and health care but the reason there is more social programs and health care is because the majority of people are atheists who aren't going to wait for an mythical afterlife to make them happy.

I disagree with this assesment. If you refer to Scandinavian countries which have a high rate of atheism and happiness, their economical and political systems were developped and established at the beginning of the century and soared right after WWI back when those countries were still overwhelmingly religious. Your argument also presuppose or imply that the more religious people are, the less likely they are to invest in charitable work which is also false. Charitable work used to be and is still largely dominated by religious people and organisation. Charity and helping people in need remains a staple of many religious doctrine. 

I don't think we can say there is a cause-effect link between atheism and the number of social programs a country has. Even in terms of correlation, it's relatively weak. Scandinavian countries have a much higher level of atheism then Canadians, but both have a similar number of social programs. BTW, the "atheist capital of the world" is China and by a long shot at 61% of atheists, France is the European "atheist capital" at 40% (though on one poll they were passed by the Czech Republic at 59%, Baltic States also have a higher average then the EU). In America, it would be Uruguay at 24% (the US is also one of the most atheist friendly country at 10%, the third best score, while Canada sits at number 2 with 12%). Africa remains, and by far, the most religious continent in the world. South Sudan would be the country with the highest level of atheism at 6% followed by South Africa at 4%.

I agree that there are so many reasons for people to have rational or irrational policies and social conventions and framing of ideas that it's a fool's errand to associate them with atheism, beyond some general observation that relatively high levels of atheism can be demonstrated to NOT result in nihilistic despair; quite the opposite, in fact. One can also make the inverse observation: relatively high levels of theism can be demonstrated to be no antidote whatsoever to nihilistic despair.

People have their various bogeymen that they use to "prove" that impiety or "socialism" or immigrants or Jews or just about anything else are at the bottom of all the misery in the world and if they could just be made to go away everything would come up roses.
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#34

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-12-2019, 05:10 PM)Glossophile Wrote: LOL!  I just skimmed the text, and even I noticed that, from the very first line, the article sounded at least a bit more biased than any scientific paper has any right to be, and it only got worse.

You've never read Kent Hovind's "Ph.D." thesis, I see. Weeping
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#35

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-13-2019, 07:07 PM)TheGulegon Wrote: I wonder how many times they've prayed atheists would stop making jokes about their religion? Consider

They've never prayed that something would come along to PROVE their religion. A true Christian get's their prayers answered.
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#36

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-13-2019, 10:55 PM)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 07:07 PM)TheGulegon Wrote: I wonder how many times they've prayed atheists would stop making jokes about their religion? Consider

They've never prayed that something would come along to PROVE their religion. A true Christian get's their prayers answered.

I was just wondering what they made of the condescending smiles we show them, regularly. Tongue

Can one be happy within condescension? Consider
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#37

Study shows atheists can't be happy
(07-13-2019, 10:58 PM)TheGulegon Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 10:55 PM)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 07:07 PM)TheGulegon Wrote: I wonder how many times they've prayed atheists would stop making jokes about their religion? Consider

They've never prayed that something would come along to PROVE their religion. A true Christian get's their prayers answered.

I was just wondering what they made of the condescending smiles we show them, regularly. Tongue

Can one be happy within condescension? Consider
The cousins pretend condescend with me, assuring me they'll wave from Heaven when I'm in Hell. I tell them I'd rather be in Hell than in their company for eternity.
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