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I think chasing happiness will always leave you disappointed. I mean, eventually you die, right? Then what was it all for, if you spent time trying to be happy?

• _dark_matter_ 9y ago
  > I think chasing happiness will always leave you disappointed. I mean, eventually you die, right? > What God offers is peace, which is what I know a lot of people are looking for Not only do I think you are wrong on the former count, I don't think this is the appropriate forum for the latter - but I'll let the mods decide about that. On the former, there's nothing to say but "you're wrong". Sure we die, but then we don't care. Happiness is it's own reward. Existing, living, breathing, loving, creating, thinking - these all cohabitate uniquely in humans. To say other things don't matter is to say life itself isn't worth living. If the peace only comes in death, then why not end it now? > Then what was it all for, if you spent time trying to be happy? "What was it all for, if you spent all that time waiting for peace in the afterlife?"
  • gagege 9y ago
    > I don't think this is the appropriate forum for the latter - but I'll let the mods decide about that. I would hope they decide in my favor since there seem to be other people offering their own brand of semi-spiritual advice. > Happiness is it's own reward. I don't deny that at all! I love happiness. I try to do things that make me happy every day. What I said is that simply searching for happiness will always leave you disappointed. > "What was it all for, if you spent all that time waiting for peace in the afterlife?" As I said before, that wasn't my point. So many people have terrible things in their lives, as the OP said. It's nearly impossible for some people to find happiness, and if they do, it'll end someday, when they die or when they hit hard times again. I would suspect that most people, if they've thought about it long enough, have realized that true lasting peace, if it exists, must exist outside of this life. I'm just trying to point out that that's true.
• zzzeek 9y ago
  > These all work, to an extent. But there's really only one way to deal with the problem once and for all and that's what Jesus did 2000 years ago. I respect that you've stated this is your perspective as a Christian. However, I think most people on this community are coming from a perspective of empiricism. I'm not a die-hard empiricist in general, but when I'm posting on Hacker News, i try my very best to stay within the lines of that tradition. Within that scope, would you find value in being able to cite empirical research supporting your assertion that religious faith is the "only" valid method of being happy? Not to mention, exactly one religion? Does your religious belief grant you more happiness than a devout Hindu or Muslim? How do you measure it? Also, considering "unhappiness" to be a "problem" which you've "solved", does that mean you are never unhappy? I don't mean these questions to be demeaning. I have actually been in very deep depressive episodes where at some points, I decided that I would have loved to get deep into some religion and just turned on whatever solace those folks seem to get. But it was impossible - the contradictions are so glaring that I continue to not really understand how people who otherwise have very good problem solving and logic skills can be absorbed into such religions. This is all given that I also had experience with the so-called "mind control cult" phenomenon, that you'd see in a group like Scientology or the Moonies - in those scenarios, you develop an emotional block that prevents you from applying any critical thinking to the religious doctrine in question. Everyone is supposedly susceptible to some form of mind-control-based disabling of critical thinking. I can only assume that we all are regularly slipping into small forms of whatever critical-thinking pits we are susceptible towards - even super rationalists...but I lack the intellect to prove it :) (perhaps this is my personal critical thinking pit).
  • gagege 9y ago
    I'm curious, in your periods of interest in religion, did you ever come across systematic theology? Systematic theology applies critical thought, and yes, even empiricism to the study of scripture. I would recommend R.C Sproul's "Foundations" lecture series to anyone who is interested in the subject. No, I don't consider unhappiness to be a problem to be solved, or that anyone can solve such a problem. That's the opposite of what I said actually.