(July 2, 2014 at 3:33 am)ignoramus Wrote: That falls in line with belief systems nicely.
You sacrifice your "intelligence" for the more pleasurable emotion, namely your belief that you are at one with god.
Also explains why most intellectuals and scientists aren't religious.
In my opinion, people can make two possible choices. You can choose to lack belief in any deities since there is no inductive or deductive evidence - This is the hardest path one can take, there are no fairy tales, no afterlife, no miracles, no one watching over your shoulder; or you can choose to believe in a supreme entity, it will give you comfort and probably make you happier, but it is still not the right decision, since there is no proof to believe a god exists, just like unicorns or dragons. I consider the first one to be the current (and probably will always be) truth, but like I've heard some people saying, a lot of people couldn't handle the truth.
I'll admit lacking belief was easy at first, but when I started to mature it certainly didn't make me happy. Sure the thought of no hell is comfortable, no superstition, no ghosts or haunted houses, but I had and still have a hard time coping with the fact I will cease to exist one day, everything that defines me will be gone and swift to eternal emptiness/nothingness, this is a problem that gave me a severe depression but I was ashamed to tell my family since I'm not an out of the closet atheist. After two years, I feel a lot better and have been doing progress, I'm getting comfortable and ok everyday with the thoughts of dying, it doesn't bother me anymore.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
