A reason why people remain religious
 

People who think they are special and such apply that perception to life itself and conclude that life itself must also be something special and meant for them. For example, someone who thinks "I am a very helpful and caring special person" might then conclude that this life must then be something special as well and offers a special "higher" reward for who they are as a person (a God and an afterlife). They are not willing to either accept that this is not the case and no longer complain about it, or they still insist on believing that there is a God and an afterlife anyway. I feel that the reason such people believe in such things anyway despite much scientific evidence is because they are just too much of a human being (someone great and special) to, again, possibly stoop so low as to believe or accept otherwise.

Edit: There are innocent people here just living their own fantasy world not harming others or causing wars and we should just leave these people alone and never tell them the truth of reality as long as they are happy with their fantasies. We should encourage their fantasies to make them even more happy. If your attitude is that we should convince these people otherwise because the more people we have who realize the facts of reality, the more progress we have in science and such, then what if they never wanted to be that way and being that way makes them disappointed and depressed? Not to mention, some people don't even care about science and supporting it--they are just fine living their own innocent happy lives. Therefore, it's not worth it at all to tell them the truth of reality just for the possible sake of getting a more few people here and there to support science when the fact is that science is already being well supported by many people.

Final Edit: Many people think that those who live in a fantasy world are somehow weak or useless to society, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. I am using my “living in a fantasy world” mindset to compose music. Composing music is something that greatly contributes to society (even pieces of music that have fantasy-like emotion to them since even these types of music are honored by many people whether it just be instrumental or even with lyrics and such). The mindset that I wish to live in a fantasy world is very important to me because I use that in composing music that has beautiful fantasy-like emotion to it and such and I do not want anything in reality to interfere with it. Although there are people who do use inspiration from reality and use that to compose music, I am not this type of person at all. I can use my inspiration from fantasy to achieve greatness and success in life just as good (if not better) than those people who do with inspiration from reality. Therefore, this right here says that my personal delusions of grandeur through fantasy will not have negative consequences and are just as good (if not better) than reality itself. Instead, I will be someone great and perhaps very successful in life through being a composer.

What the **** are you on about

I'm a whiner, bitcher, and most certainly a moaner that I am not immortal, and I can assure you, I am not particularly happy.

/endthread

You're aware there are decades if not centuries of research into the propagation and maintenence of religious belief systems, and that none of it is as simple as you're making out?

MMaaaatt, welcome back to a new thread that virtually says the same thing as the old one....

;)

Also, it is a scientific fact that who you are is your brain and all of your thoughts and emotions. Therefore, if you have the thoughts and feelings that you are all great and special, then it is a scientific fact that this makes you all great and special.

:rofl:

Nailed it. you really brought it home with this one. how did i ever doubt you?

i still don't know if you are trolling us or if you really believe this sh*t for real.
it's like you're so enlightened you've become delusional and can't even smell your own bullsh*t by now.

When it comes to something such as you thinking that you are some alien from another planet, then that would obviously be false. But when it comes to things such as personal opinions about yourself and such, then it would be a scientific fact that whatever personal opinion you have about yourself that cannot be scientifically proven false, then that personal opinion holds true for you and makes you that person.

I believe I'm the king of Australia.

I don't disagree (entirely, it's still more opinion than fact but I can understand where you are coming from), I use a different word: Confidence. I think your are trying to make something convoluted and philosophical out of something that just isn't.

You are all great and special but only to you, so by definition/fact of what the other words mean you are wrong.

If something cannot be scientifically proven then it is not a scientific fact since it has not been proven to be a scientific fact.

#sciencefail

Just to be a contradictory wiseass.

There are no facts in science.

#batlordfail

Not that can be proven to the same degree as a mathematical theorem, but I chose not to be a pedantic ass. Good job.

Even if you were someone who did bad deeds, based on my reasonings, you would still be all great and special if you think you are. I know that I am just talking here with no scientific evidence to back any of it up (aside from the scientific fact that who you are as a person is your brain and that I have based all my arguments on that scientific fact alone), but we can still at least argue about this anyway even without such evidence.

I believe this also...isn't that funny, we should start a movement. ..

I don't need a movement. I believe it so it's therefore true.

Well, let's say you believe yourself to be a great chess player. You could set up an experiment in which you play chess against a thousand opponents and see how you do. Perhaps your score will be ****. And then you could make the other players rank you with some score, and they will confirm that you're ****. And the whole world could basically tell you that you're **** at chess. Your statistical analysis might tell you that the probability of you sucking at chess is more than 99.9999%.

Of course you could live in a comfortable delusion believing that you're still a great chess player, but I'm not sure I'd call it a scientific fact. It might be a fact that you're delusional.

Life is about finding your own path, empowerment, and strength in life and not giving a **** about what others think of you and any "selfish" beliefs you might have (and, of course, helping others only if you wish and not caring about what others think if you instead choose not to help others and instead focus on yourself). This is all your own brain and your own life and you make whatever you want to make of it--not what others think who have a negative opinion of any "selfish" views you might have and such.

Busted. Chess players don't get "*" ratings, restaurants do. In Chess you get a numerical rating. e.g. Magnus Carlsen has a peak rating of "2882." (His peak rating is the highest in history.) and he is NORWEGIAN! I thought you should know that. For compirson Bobby Fischer's peak rating was 2785 in 1972. Gary Kasparov peak rating was 2851 in 1999.

Magnus Carlsen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look who is all superior n ****^

people stay religious because when times get tough, they need someone/something they can rely on..its "his" will and we have no power over it, i guess it makes life easier to some religious people, knowing that theres something that can bend their life in a good way as well as bad..thats also why people tend to love and cherish god when life gets tough.. they "find" god then..

just my pov

There are tons of reasons to remain religious. Way too many to summarize with a simple paragraph in a forum post. Your beliefs are tied up with your very identity, especially if they're beliefs passed down to you from your family at a young age. You have external reasons to remain religious and you have your own internal, personal reasons. And for every religious person, there' a multitude of reasons in each of those categories, from philosophical to social to psychological to whatever.

Unfortunately for your argument, we're social beings and all our success at life is dependent on how we do socially. People who are alone are not happy. Thus, it does matter what others think.

We also have eyes and ears and perceive the world around us, so if people call us morons and treat us bad, that's kinda hard to ignore.

Way to argue against all common sense and experience ..

I feel like whenever that happens most people tend to shy away from religion as they grow older. Of course there are people that end up just going along with it too.

To comment on your wording. It's very fluffy. So I'm going to resummarize again for reference. Religious people have a false sense of entitlement (To a deity and afterlife) but believe firmly so from arrogance.
This is just a generalization that doesn't even sound like it applies to a small percentage of people.

I've found that the people who harp on about not giving a **** about what anyone else thinks about them, especially those who specifically use the word "****" in the sentence, are generally people who might benefit from a little criticism. It's a very simplistic world view that suggests a certain amount of self-absorption that has no room for outside views.

This is a garbage statement. I am not point fingers at you Hellcell btw.

Some people noo matter what they believe are just arrogant pricks.

I don't think it applies to a large percent of people who are religious. They believe what they believe because it works for them. Why else would you do something if it didn't work for you. And what does it really matter what someone else believes, what I want to understand Matt is why the hell you are up in other folks kool -aid and don't know their particular flavor? You generalize and make broad statements and have no facts to back them up, and yet you come across just as arrogant if not more so then the people who knock on my door and bother me on a Tuesday afternoon because they feel like what they are doing is right. This is America, bro (at least I think you are in the USA, anyway I am American and I comment on the things that happen here.) You can believe what you want to, and it's beautiful thing. And nobody has the right to trash another person over what it is they believe in their heart of hearts. And if their religion is what gets them through the day and helps the to actually be a better person, by being kind to others etc then more power too them. You sound like someone that has a massive chip on their shoulder toward people who have something in their lives, no matter how inane , nonsensical, or improbable it is. If you were truly confidant about your choices in your life you wouldn't need to make thread after thread on this in hopes people will respond to your long winded craziness. You would use the religion thread. But to quote myself, "IMO I DON'T KNOW JACK **** SO DON'T LISTEN TO ME"....

It all depends on the situation and also the disposition of the person being called a "moron." While it might be hard to ignore one can also reason away the insult to make it ineffective. There something juvenile and/or mean-spirited about someone calling another person "moron" or any other pejorative. The name-caller really isn't proving any thing through reasoning with an explanation to show that he has a better point of view on the matter. The name-caller is just hurling names to get an emotional response. The name-caller is trading reasoning for vindictiveness.

Matt, buddy...

You're kind of a dumbass dude.

Take it from a fellow dumbass, you're a dumbass. Quit actin like ya know it all, s'quite the opposite bro

Sounds just like my mother, who became a "born again" Christian about 10 years ago. She's got problems like you wouldn't believe. Physically disabled to the point where she can't walk unassisted, just got diagnosed with spinal arthritis, had her gallbladder removed recently due to an aneurysm, struggling with anorexia (like daughter like mother) and she's getting a little senile but OH JESUS. JESUS CHRIST IS HER SAVIOR. HER LAWD. OH LAWDY LAWD IN HEAVEN JESUS WILL FIX US ALL.

I don't swear when I text/call my mother because she is so Christian. I live almost 2,000 miles away from her and I will absolutely not offend her like that because she will never let me hear the end of it. Her life is miserable as hell but apparently it's ALL GOOD because she's got JESUS CHRIST.

I just... I don't understand. Good on her for trying to cope with the fact that her life sucks but I can't help but feel like extreme Christianity is some sort of mental illness.

It doesn't really depend on the situation. The point I was making is that we're social beings. That's programmed into us. If you are a healthy, normal human being and you are all alone in your life, you would feel lonely and that would gnaw at you. You could have all the riches in the world and your life would still feel like it's missing something.

Social interactions form a very basic need for us and without it, we are less happy. That means we are reliant on others, hence it matters what others think of us. You can do your best to rise above this with reasoning, but you can't just opt out because it's in your very being. Someone calling you a moron is still gonna trigger some stress in you, even if you use reasoning and training to keep that stress to a minimum.

So I see that some people are fine with being inferior beings. But there are people here (including me) who, again, can not stand being a lesser person in any sense (whether it be through humility, through the perspective of this universe in that we have no grand special purpose and are not that special, etc.) and wish to have a sense of superiority through self-empowerment and grandeur and wish to have power and control in their lives. It's like I said, humility is utterly inferior since it demeans yourself (views yourself as not that great or special) and should not even exist and should be exterminated from existence. Pride is the real and ultimate "power" of self here.

I will now quote one of my posts that points out my reasonings for why having a sense of self-empowerment and grandeur makes you the better person. See if you are fine now with your inferior self and life and wish to become someone greater after reading what I have to say here. But if you are still fine anyway even after reading this, then so be it:

Im sorry how do figure humility is demeaning?

It's a very attractive quality in another human being. You are confusing poor self esteem and humilty.And quite frankly it's funny to watch. Because instead of sounding ahead of your time, or like a free thinking person.You come across as a megalomaniac, that has a library card or acess to a computer.

One day brother you may find yourself in a situation where you are knocked down into the basement of where you thought you were in life and you will ultimately learn what the definition of true humility is.

Until then, you sound like one of the most uneducated people I think I have EVER heard in my life.

I am severely knocked down now with depression and anhedonia (emotional numbness) and I can be knocked down with any event in my life, but the only thing that matters to me is maintaining my sense of superiority, self-empowerment, etc. in life and never having humility regardless of what hardship I am going through in life.

As for how humility is demeaning, just by giving yourself the message that you are not all that great and special is demeaning in itself regardless of who you are as a person and regardless of how much you help others and such.

Well, whatever religion you practice you sure as hell aren't a Christian.

Matt, you strike me as a kid who's probably watched too many animes. You know nothing of life, and it shows. You should go and live life for a while and then you can review your thoughts when you've actually got some life experience and see if it still makes sense. If they don't, there may be hope for you, and if you still feel the same, well .. then I think you're special only in a negative sense.

Humility for exsample is not letting your ego accept praise for something you did because you felt the need to do. Not telling yourelf you are un worthy of praise.
Again you are confusing ****ty self esteem with humility.

And being knocked down by depression is not the same thing as say your house burning down and you needing to accept help from others when you have always been self reliant.

When you have become so full of pride, (dont confuse that with positive self esteem bc you seem to mix these things up) and arrogance and you get to a place where you realize you are not evetything your ego has lead you to belive THAT is humility.

There is medication for depression, there is not a pill you can take for arrogance, selfishness and pride.

You really just come across like the main characters in Alred Hitchcock' s rope.
I have actually stunned by the arrogance in your statements.

How old are you?

i think that's wrong a little self doubt and humility are healthy for a well balanced personality.
it keeps you humble and nobody likes a one dimensional arrogant assh*le who can never admit he is wrong cause you can't rationalize with ppl like that.

:laughing:

And @Tore you sir just pin pointed it.:clapping:

Edit:I love you BF.

I've been on internet forums for a very long time and this might just be the dumbest thread I've ever seen in my entire life. And for that, I congratulate you, MattMVS7.