Are Atheists Happy?

[dogsgod]

The church sermons basically consisted of telling us we were a bunch of worthless sinners that needed to get right with God and that not believing was enough to bring about a punishment after we are judged. Realizing that there is no cosmic tyrant is a bit of a relief that makes me happy. I mean, the world's not so effed up after all.

 

[gnostic]

But do you see a difference between temporary happiness and real long-term happiness?

Sorry, but did you or do you have a survey or stats that say atheists have only experience short-term happiness?

How many atheists have you interviewed in this regards?

I don't think you have any idea what make them happy.

In any case, how many Muslims do you know that are truly happy with their religion. Have you questioned those who live in poverty-stricken communities that they are happy?

 

[Rin]

And then there are those who would contend that there is no gap in the first place; god is more like, an appendage that gets added.

Or, a moustache.

I think I agree with you. I don't mean to imply anything meaningful by the lack of God. You could have been a theist who spent 20 hours of each day in silent prayer to your god. Whatever you do instead for those 20 hours, because you are not that theist, is what will determine whether you are happy or sad, not the fact that you do not believe in God.

 

[3.14]

i don't have to get up on a sunday for church
praying etc never wasted my time with
collection plate's never come past the door of my house
no need to behave if noone is around
if there is a problem i use logic instead of prayer to fix it
i don't need to denie myself access to food or alchol
i don't have less fun here because just soi might have more fun after my death
no word is offlimit to me
no peer pressure to just belief in things because others belief in them

remind me again why shouldn't i be happy?

 

[Enoch07]

i don't have to get up on a sunday for church
praying etc never wasted my time with
collection plate's never come past the door of my house
no need to behave if noone is around
if there is a problem i use logic instead of prayer to fix it
i don't need to denie myself access to food or alchol
i don't have less fun here because just soi might have more fun after my death
no word is offlimit to me
no peer pressure to just belief in things because others belief in them

remind me again why shouldn't i be happy?

These all are misconceptions. I am Christian and have none of these limits, except I do not say the "GD" word. Other than that I cuss like a sailor. I can drink and smoke long as I am not slobbering drunk or smoking 5 packs a day (moderation). My Church is in my heart therefore no collection plates. Prayer doesn't take up anytime, cause thats what I do after I lay down and wait for sleep to come. I use logic and prayer to fix problems depending on situation. And no peer pressure. Out of all my friends only a few are Christian. We all have respect for each other and have discussions on a regular basis because we do not try to force our opinions on to each other. That kind of view on religion is very narrow, biased and untrue.

 

[dogsgod]

i don't have to get up on a sunday for church
praying etc never wasted my time with
collection plate's never come past the door of my house
no need to behave if noone is around
if there is a problem i use logic instead of prayer to fix it
i don't need to denie myself access to food or alchol
i don't have less fun here because just soi might have more fun after my death
no word is offlimit to me
no peer pressure to just belief in things because others belief in them

remind me again why shouldn't i be happy?

Yes, I forgot to mention that one about not having to get up for church on Sunday morning. As a kid growing up I hated going to church more than anything.

 

[Im an Atheist]

A thread yesterday asked whether religion increases human happiness, and the answers included yes through worship, love for others and inner peace

A similar question for atheists:

Does atheism lead to happiness and inner peace?

What do you think?

Well for me, it doesn't make my life any happier, but it doesn't make my life any worse.

Its just something i believe in, it's not something you have to practice like buddism ETC.

IAA

 

[maro]

Whether we evolved our sense of beauty and morality or were created with it, the result is the same.

by what mechanism did we evolve our sense of beauty and morality ? Apparently not by " The survival for the fittest " law
And does that mean that the nowadays humans are more "human" than the previous generations ,regarding their sense morality and beauty ?

 

[Tristesse]

by what mechanism did we evolve our sense of beauty and morality ? Apparently not by " The survival for the fittest " law
And does that mean that the nowadays humans are more "human" than the previous generations ,regarding their sense morality and beauty ?

Morality has evolved, and you don't have to look very far. Not to long ago, slavery was considered perfectly moral and acceptable.

 

[maro]

Well yes, I agree humans are "more" than any animal. A snowflake is "more" than any water molecules. Humans are a unique and special case. But this does not mean there is an inseparable wall between humans and the rest of Nature.

Popular opinion is still catching up, but neuroscientists reached a virtual consensus long ago that all of our qualities, including intelligence and moral judgment, have an inseparable connection to the physical brain (genetics, development, evolution, neurotransmitters, etc.) That is why not all humans have intelligence, or moral judgment, and why there is variation and strange cases. It is why some animals have moral qualities. A great book on the experimental research is Biological Psychology.

As for values not having any meaning in a materialist view....I disagree. There's no logical reasoning, that I have seen, which says that I cannot love other people (for example) without Divine permission.

Thanks for the link , spinkles

but i have some questions for you if you don't mind...If morality is a mere outcome of genetics , neurotransmitterrs...etc. , does that mean people are determined to act the way they do ? and is calling someone kind and the other Evil meaningful ? and are the penal systems meaningful ?

Also , you said that acting in a certain way (morally ,according to you ) brings happiness ? Are you aware of any logical reasoning behind that ? can this inner happiness be explained within the context of the evolution theory ?

 

[maro]

Of course... just the same way that a book is more than a bottle of ink and a stack of paper. But neither position is in conflict with a strict materialistic worldview.

Unless it's your position that books have souls; is it?

yes I say that every book borrows something from the soul of his" human" writer...it's not something material...you can't trap it in a test tube or measure its molecular wieght...You can only feel it...
don't tell me that you didn't cry while reading a certain book , smile while reading another....i believe that what caused those feelings is not the bottle of ink or the stack of paper...but something higher than that...something that doesn't belong to the material world and is not a subject for evolution !

 

[maro]

one more question for those who don't believe in the soul , why don't humans become happy after satisfying all their bodily needs like food ,sex...etc . I heard that the swedish suicide rates are the highest although they don't suffer from economical problems at all

And what do music ,artist , love and frienship satisfy in humans ? why morality brings happiness ? Is there any scientific logical reasoning behind that ?

 

[Smoke]

one more question for those who don't believe in the soul , why don't humans become happy after satisfying all their bodily needs like food ,sex...etc .

There's more to satisfaction than simply satisfying one's bodily needs, and that's true of everybody, whether you believe in a soul or not.

oI heard that the swedish suicide rates are the highest

People are always saying that, usually when trying to make a point about the importance of religion or the evils of welfare. However, it's not true.

 

[Rin]

one more question for those who don't believe in the soul , why don't humans become happy after satisfying all their bodily needs like food ,sex...etc . I heard that the swedish suicide rates are the highest although they don't suffer from economical problems at all

And what do music ,artist , love and frienship satisfy in humans ? why morality brings happiness ? Is there any scientific logical reasoning behind that ?

Sorry to ask but are you considering the question or asking it rhetorically?

If you are considering it then there is a lot of interesting research done on this subject. To paraphrase what has been discovered, it seems there are two factors that are relevant to a person's life when considering happiness: pleasure and satisfaction. Pleasure is gained when a particular desire is fulfilled. Most people are strongly motivated towards desire fulfillment and so attempt to lead pleasurable lives. However, pleasurable things have short shelf lives resulting in a lack of satisfaction. So the more and more you have lustful sex, the less and less it will satisfy you. The more and more cake you eat, the less and less it will satisfy you.

Conversely people tend to be happy when they do two things: live according to the golden mean (not too much, not too little) and lose themselves in the things they are good at (like the "zone" of athletes).

Why are we just figuring this out now? Positive psychology (i.e. helping normal people get happier rather than helping unhappy people get normal) doesn't get the funding...

 

[Seven]

by what mechanism did we evolve our sense of beauty and morality ? Apparently not by " The survival for the fittest " law
And does that mean that the nowadays humans are more "human" than the previous generations ,regarding their sense morality and beauty ?

Good question. In fact evolution does explain how these characteristics could be selected. However this requires an understanding of natural selection on the genetic level. I'm no expert on the subject so I hesitate to try and explain it. 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins deals with this subject beautifully. (this was written before he became so outspoken on religion). Trust me it's worth a read. I didn't realize how little I understood about evolution until I read that book.

one more question for those who don't believe in the soul , why don't humans become happy after satisfying all their bodily needs like food ,sex...etc . I heard that the swedish suicide rates are the highest although they don't suffer from economical problems at all

And what do music ,artist , love and frienship satisfy in humans ? why morality brings happiness ? Is there any scientific logical reasoning behind that ?

There's another book that deals with this problem beautifully - 'Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life' by Daniel Dennett.

I was always dismissive of evolution for religious reasons, but It really is a beautiful and awe inspiring process, and I'm glad I eventually decided to look more closely at it. I hope you do the same

 

[linwood]

I heard that the swedish suicide rates are the highest although they don't suffer from economical problems at all

According to Wiki Lithuania has the highest suicide rate.
Lithuania is 80% Catholic.

Why do all these people who believe in a soul want to kill themselves so badly?
(That`s not really my argument I just wanted to show how silly it sounds)

Suicide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scroll down just a little there`s a graph with the top 8 suicidal countries.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Thanks for the link , spinkles

You're welcome!

but i have some questions for you if you don't mind...

Of course not! I am happy to answer your very excellent questions. However, to work out truly satisfying answers to all your questions would require a lot of work, and you wouldn't want to read pages of my ramblings anyway. So if you don't mind, I'll give you the basic sketch of what I would call a "good start" to an answer to your questions, but I won't justify my answers 100%, or keep track of every subtlety and exception. I won't anticipate your additional questions/objections, although I probably have an idea of what some of them will be, and I will answer them if/when you raise them.

The first thing is to separate two different kinds of questions.

Type #1: How did X come about?
​

Type #2: Given the fact of X, what should we do?
​

(Where 'X' could stand for human characteristics, etc.)

Type #1 questions are about facts about the world, which we may discover, but we cannot change. Such questions are best answered by careful scientific study. We may not be able to derive them "logically" but we can discover them as facts. (For example, it is not "logical" that humans should have 5 fingers instead of 6; but it is a discoverable fact).

Type #2 questions are a bit different. The answer is not strictly about discoverable facts. And you can use logic and evidence to figure out what you "should" do, but only if you start with some goals or objectives in mind. We have to discover our own goals by introspection. At some point we must arrive at a few basic goals, or values, which are not logically derived from anything more fundamental. I agree with Aristotle, and other philosophers, that "happiness" or "flourishing" (in the broad sense, not in the narrow, naive sense of the words) is our fundamental human goal, which cannot be denied any more than we can deny being human. Once we've established some fundamental goal(s), facts such as " X " and logic can be used to try to answer type #2 questions; that is, what course(s) of action, or general rules of behavior, will best accomplish our goals?

You may be interested in Aristotle's ethics
I most recommend How are we to live?

It's worth keeping in mind two points:

1. It could turn out that the truth about type #1 questions seems to have disagreeable implications for type #2 questions. Unfortunately, we cannot change the facts about #1 questions based on how we would like to answer #2 questions.
2. The answers to type #1 questions will often seem to have certain implications for #2 questions, but the superficial appearances are often deceptive.

If morality is a mere outcome of genetics , neurotransmitterrs...etc. , does that mean people are determined to act the way they do ?

This is a type #1 question. Ultimately, yes, our behavior is determined, although obviously it does not feel like it to us, and as a practical matter it is impossible to predict human behavior (or even chimpanzee behavior) on a day-to-day basis. No animal, including humans, is capable of behaving in a way which contradicts the outcome of genetics, neurotransmitters, etc. This is a very humbling fact, but we must accept it because overwhelming evidence supports it, even though we may dislike its apparent implications.

and is calling someone kind and the other Evil meaningful ?

It can be meaningful, or not meaningful, depending on usage and context. Also, the question of the words "kind" and "evil", and how accurate they are in describing the facts, is a different question than the act of calling someone kind or evil, which may convey an emotional meaning to them (or others) that is useful, or has desirable effects, even if it is not strictly an accurate description of the facts.

and are the penal systems meaningful ?

They can be, yes.

Also , you said that acting in a certain way (morally ,according to you ) brings happiness ? Are you aware of any logical reasoning behind that ?

There is no logical reason, a priori, that any sort of behavior would bring us any feeling. There is no logical reason that eating should make us feel less hungry, or sleeping less tired. However, it is a discoverable fact that this is the case for physiologically normal people (not for everyone!). Of course we don't need advanced experiments to discover this fact, but some of the recent findings are very interesting. For example the brain releases more dopamine (which makes us feel good) when we cooperate with other people to do some task, than when we act by ourselves, even if the reward for the task (some candy, or some money) is greater by ourselves, than during cooperation. So this is sort of a type #1 question.

This fact (X) seems to have simple enough implications for type #2 questions.

However, there are other facts to consider. Sometimes, we get satisfaction from cheating, stealing, lying, etc. Sometimes we get satisfaction from killing a hated enemy, etc. This is why there is so much killing, etc. in the world. This is a fact, and questions about how it comes about are type #1 questions. But for type #2 questions, this fact only seems to imply that, therefore, we should cheat, lie, steal, etc. in order to increase our happiness. This is one of those "deceptive implications" I mentioned. Careful thought, and careful observation of history and societies, will reveal that the real implication is that in order to be happy we need laws, and we need to educate and train our children to embrace their better impulses, and reject the worse impulses.

can this inner happiness be explained within the context of the evolution theory ?

Yes. Read about the fields of ethology, sociobiology...read How Are We to Live? (cited earlier), the Selfish Gene...
Evolution of morality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Altruism in animals - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Altruism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[rojse]

Haha

Even so, you're just one man without a mustache. From there you can't conclude that everyone without a mustache is unhappy, and everyone with a mustache is happy. I don't have a mustache, and I'm perfectly happy.

The real question here is not whether you are happy without a mustache, but whether you would be happier or not with a mustache, and I think it reasonable to conclude that you would be.

 

[rojse]

But but but I'm a woman! I can't even ever grow one (without hormones added or subtracted)!!

Moustaches are bogus. There IS no moustache.:computer:

Have you not ever seen bearded women at a circus? Obviously, you are not willing yourself to grow a mustache hard enough.

 

[Heneni]

According to Wiki Lithuania has the highest suicide rate.
Lithuania is 80% Catholic.

Why do all these people who believe in a soul want to kill themselves so badly?
(That`s not really my argument I just wanted to show how silly it sounds)

Suicide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scroll down just a little there`s a graph with the top 8 suicidal countries.

All men seek happiness. Even those who hang themselves.