Why I would rather believe in the afterlife

47 posts / 0 new
Last post
Mozart Link's picture
Many human beings are

Many human beings are hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain while others are hardwired differently. I happen to be the type of person who is permanently hardwired in the hedonistic way which is obviously to pursue pleasure, avoid pain/death, and to only find good meaning and joy in my life through living a life of as much pleasure and as little pain/suffering as possible. Nothing can ever change this.

Kataclismic's picture
As a rule, we as humans tend

As a rule, we as humans tend to avoid dis-pleasure, as it is counter-productive. The very idea that you attribute your feelings/emotions to your genealogy indicates exactly what a learned behaviour it is. Your own experiences describe your affinity for a hedonistic lifestyle, not your DNA. It would be like saying that your genes are responsible for your habit of brushing your teeth before you go to bed each night. It has nothing to do with your genes at all, it has to do with learned behaviour.

You want to convince me that your physical structure is responsible for the thoughts that you generate and I'm sorry, it isn't going to happen. I might as well say that my pet bird was born to talk or that she is hard-wired to mimic the phone so I pay attention to her. Unfortunately, it will just irritate me to argue so let's change topic and see if I can get an answer to a question I asked in a previous post:

"If some-one you cared about needed a kidney (and you happened to be a perfect match) would the satisfaction of helping them overrule your discomfort (possibly death if something goes horribly wrong in the removal) in giving them one?"

Mozart Link's picture
@Kataclismic: The only

@Kataclismic: The only satisfaction here for me in this life is my pleasure (good moods) and living for all eternity in a good mood with no suffering in my life. So, no, as long as I am not living such an eternal blissful life, then my life is not satisfied and fulfilled. In the past many years ago in which I had my full good moods and my belief in the eternal blissful afterlife, this was the most fulfilling and profoundly great life for me. But now I have lost that life.

I am different. I am a different type of artist. One who does not find any value in suffering, despair, and death. This entire life and my composing is very personal to me. It is all here for my personal enjoyment (pleasure) and this is my one and only reason for living. This entire life and my composing is like a personal possession to me that I wish to have all to myself and live it however I want to.

It is no different than how if I had a personal movie or game to play. It is mine and I can just sit down and enjoy it all I want. The same thing applies to life itself for me. I also see life as being a place for my enjoyment. I should be able to live it however I want to and to live for all eternity in eternal bliss with no suffering and no death in my life. But such is not the case since this is not how life works.

It is for that very reason this life is now empty and meaningless to me since I can't derive any pleasure (enjoyment) from my composing nor from this life since I now struggle with depression and anhedonia. On top of this, I am a materialist who believes there is no afterlife. So far be it from this life being meant for me. It is for this very reason that there is nothing here for me in this life now.

My one and only reason for living and my one and only way of finding meaning and joy, happiness, love, and inspiration in my life is having no suffering, no depression, no absence of my good moods (anhedonia), and no death in my life and living for all eternity in a good mood. My good moods are the only profoundly spiritual experience for me in this life and you have to understand this. Please do not just ignorantly blow off this statement and still insist on telling me things such as that rationality is better and more profound or that I still have other things in this life to give me meaning.

Never once have I ever had any profound meaningful experience in my life through my thinking alone without my good moods. Sure, I can still acknowledge my family as being great to me while I am depressed and don't have my good moods. But that is not the same thing as having meaning, love, joy, happiness, and inspiration in my life. My thoughts alone without my good moods don't give me those things. Only my good moods inspire and transcend me and my life into something far greater.

My good moods are the one and only things that give me every reason to live on and compose for myself and others. Without them, then it doesn't matter how I think. My life is still empty and meaningless no matter what. It's as if the good moods themselves are an unspoken perception of good meaning, love, joy, happiness, and inspiration in my life. It's as if they, alone in of themselves, allow me to perceive meaning in my life completely independent of my way of thinking.

I have every reason to believe that our good and bad moods themselves dictate the meaning in our lives and that our way of thinking does not. Others are only brainwashed into thinking that somehow living a life in which you are crippled by depression and moving on is somehow supposed to be a meaningful life full of joy and happiness. That to me is just plain nonsense.

It is for this very reason that I personally deem heroic tales passed down unto generations in which the hero puts himself through pain and misery for other things and people is really just living an empty meaningless life and just forcing yourself to live through all that suffering and nothing more. It is for this very reason I would choose to be the self-empowered villan. But not the type of villan who harms and demeans innocent people.

What I mean here is just someone who lives for himself and for his own personal pleasure because that is all he really has in this life. Even despite the fact that he has a loving family and other innocent people looking out for him and encouraging him to live on, it is actually only his own personal pleasure that gives him every reason to live on and is the very thing that encourages and inspires him.

Many people would say to me that living for life without your good moods to help others and other things is the greater person with the greater meaningful life. But that to me is the lesser person with the lesser life. This is because, in my eyes, you are nothing more than some lifeless drone just choosing to live for others and nothing more.

As long as you are depressed and don't have your good moods, then you are a lifeless drone in my eyes who lives a life of no meaning in which his/her greatness as a human being has been hopelessly sapped out of him/her. You would only be fooling yourself into thinking that this is a meaningful life. You are brainwashed into thinking so by this modern moral society in my eyes.

hermitdoc's picture
I happen to agree with you on

I happen to agree with you on this one. Except in medical/psychological circles, we call this narcissistic personality disorder. In the sense that you have a personality disorder you are hardwired to think and behave the way you do. This is in contrast to other psychological problems such as major depression, anxiety and even schizophrenia, which are related to biochemical aberrations in the central nervous system which many times can be manipulated with medications and cognitive behavioral therapy. Due to early life events, your brain is hardwired simply think you deserve more than those around you and when you don't get what you feel you deserve (in your case, unending happiness and bliss) you become irritable and depressed. I've commented on your posts before, but I will repeat myself. With all due respect to you,I urge you to seek out qualified psychological help.

Conan's picture
I think Mozart is just bored.

I think Mozart is just bored.

When you grow up and are faced with the daily grind of hard work and possibly kids, you will no longer have time for self-pity.

Life is good when you stay busy.

Buck up; we atheists need to stick together.

Robert Kelley's picture
You seriously need to look at

You seriously need to look at both Stoicism and cognitive behavior therapy. We cannot control everything in our lives or in the universe, but we can control our emotional reactions with training and discipline.

Attachments

Attach Image/Video?: 

No
Vincent Paul Tran's picture
I think you're pigeon-holing

I think you're pigeon-holing yourself, mozart link. There is more to life than sensation. It's not real, but it can bring greater fulfilment to explore and contemplate these things

Antti Heikkinen's picture
Afterlife would render life a

Afterlife would render life a mere foreplay.

A rollercoaster ride happens, and is over. Often never to be repeated, like on a trip abroad. Was it meaningless to take, then, if nobody recorded it for ever to behold by those who follow?

I find your thinking convoluted and strange. Life's a rollercoaster ride, for us to enjoy and explore, nothing more. Try to make the best of it.

MCDennis's picture
So it sounds like you don't

So it sounds like you don't care about whether what you believe is true or not.

Jonathan Moore's picture
What gets me about this is

What gets me about this is that the OP just assumes he would be going to Heaven or something similar, and not Hell if there was an afterlife. Or be reincarnated as a cockroach.

Usagi's picture
Damn, reading the main post

Damn, reading the main post makes me want to snap my fingers and say "It's all about me girlfriend!" I'd love to feel pleased with myself 24/7 too but unfortunately, co-workers, bosses, patients and just normal people around me aren't so keen on catering to my every need for happiness and pleasure. Bummer huh? lol

William W's picture
Some of us care about the

Some of us care about the truth and want to find it no matter where it leads. Life has just as much or more value if it is finite. Just because we won't float on a cloud playing a harp forever doesn't devalue life. If some find comfort in believing in an afterlife, then so be it. Immortality to me seems like nothing more than eternal boredom.

MCDennis's picture
I someone does not care about

If someone does not care about the truth and only cares about believing whatever makes them happy, there is not much to say to that person. You could choose to believe there is a diamond in your back yard the size of a car making you a billionaire. That belief is irrelevant to anyone but you until and unless you decide to act upon that belief by, for example, quitting your job and buying a ferrari. The same is true of your existential beliefs about heaven or gods or the afterlife. No one I know cares what you think; but I for one care about how you act on your religious beliefs

publicab12's picture
What do you think about NDE

What do you think about NDE(near death experience).
NDE can't be a proof of afterlife,even though some(usally religious people) regard it as a proof or at least evidence.
many materialists regard the experience of NDE just as a brain phenomenon.i neither reject NDE nor accept it as a reality .
if materialistic assumption that mind arises from the substance of the brain, say,protons,electrons,neutrons)is right.NDE would almost certainly false.but we don't know from what substance mind is produced,apart from how it is produced.

i don't suggesting that there are material substance(like protons) which can't produce mind
and nonmaterial substance(like soul)which can produce mind.

Nyarlathotep's picture
UV teM - if materialistic

UV teM - if materialistic assumption that mind arises from the substance of the brain

If you don't think the mind arises from the brain; then you don't need to wear a helmet when you do dangerous stuff.

publicab12's picture
you misunderstood me.

You misunderstood me.
It's somewhat difficult to express my intension without misunderstanding,

in detail,...

I will expalin by anology.
there is an elementary particle called a muon that has the same electric charge with an electron,but is 207 times more massive
than the electron.The usual matter is not made of the muon because its half-life is about 2.2 microseconds .

For argument's sake,let's assume the muon and the electron have nearly the same masses(say,the electron has 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999...9% mass of the muon)
and muons can move in the conductive materials like electrons.

materials containing muons(M) could behave differently from materials containing electrons(E) due to the mass difference(Let's assume).
and also assume the materials containing muons is rare than the materials containing electrons.
However,if the mass difference (or muon itself) has not discovered yet because the electron and the muon have practically the same mass.
or people ignores such a slight mass difference as an
impossibility ,albeit possible in reality.
people would say the different behavior of M can be explained by unsual behavior of electrons due to some unknown reasons.They are right when
they said "some unknown reasons".but they are wrong when they said " unsual behavior of electrons "
it is not behavior of the electrons"
it is behavior of muons.

likewise,it's not certain that the brain consists of nothing other than electrons,protons,neutrons,
therefore, assuming there are some mechanisms which transform some electrons into some muons in the brain.

if people say consciousness is a product of the brain (a product of electrons,protons,neutrons).

they are not right.
they had to say consciousness is a product of the brain which is made up of muons,protons,neutrons and electrons).

many(or most?) don't consider muon or muon's property or consider it a tenable option.

is there any probable mechanism which transforms electrons into muons in the brain?
No! Above was just an assumption to illustrate,as said above.
there are many properties like mass,charge,spin,opacity etc.
Wikipedia gives a list of over 50 properties.

if a certain property changes or a substance doesn't have certain property ,it can be difficult to prove its existence.
for example,dark matter is not interacting with electromagnetism,it can't be observed directly like stars and galaxies.

..... later....

Pages

Donating = Loving

Heart Icon

Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.

Or make a one-time donation in any amount.