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Hi. I'm arguing with a Christian. They derive enormous utility from their religion, and want to know how they would be better off as an atheist. I responded that they would have more self esteem. They didn't buy that, and started critically examining that claim. Consequently, these questions have become relevant to our debate:

Why is self esteem important, at all?

In what specific respects does having high self esteem make life better?

How do we know religion lowers a person's self esteem?

How do we know that having faith and believing without evidence lowers a person's self esteem?

I would like serious answers to these questions. By serious, I mean the quality of answer you would give if you were handing it in to a particularly demanding professor for a grade. Good logic, and good support for all factual claims, please (primary sources are preferred for factual claims).

If you know of an *authoritative* book that addresses these issues, I would appreciate it if you pointed me to that book.

Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

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Self esteem is basically the confidence a man has in his own ability to do the things he wants or needs. It is his confidence in the belief that his mind is competent to deal with reality.

That definition ought to tell you more than enough for all of your questions, but I'll elaborate.

"Why is self esteem important, at all? "

Man must deal with reality using his mind. That is how he survives. Man cannot live by brute force, and so he must use his mind to produce the things he needs to survive, and the means by which he does this is reason. A man without self esteem has no confidence in his ability to use his mind, no confidence in his ability to reason. Essentially, he is handicapped. He is left without the tools to do even the most menial tasks required to continue his existence. If he does not have self esteem, if he does not believe his mind is competent and capable of dealing with reality, he essentially has lost the one tool required for him to live: reason.

"In what specific respects does having high self esteem make life better?"

My answer to the former question basically applies here, but I'll elaborate. The mind is what makes possible every single accomplishment throughout man's history. From the most basic of tools, such as a knife or a hammer, to the complex machines that we use in our factories, all of these are results of our mind. If humans were not capable of self esteem, if they did not believe in their own minds and ability to deal with reality, in what manner would we have achieved any of the comforts we have today? In what way would we have survived at all?

"How do we know religion lowers a person's self esteem?"

What is religion based off of? Faith. Does the mind operate by faith, or by reason? You ought to know the answer to this one - you have almost 180 posts, so I assume you've been here sufficiently long enough to know.

Reason gives us the means of dealing with reality. By means of reason, we can learn that "this does this by means of this because of this and I can manipulate it in this way to achieve this." Faith, however, tells man "you don't know how this works, just accept it." Which of these alternatives gives man the ability to deal with reality and live his life?

Not only this, but all the virtues and sins professed by religions such as Christianity do a hell of a job of ruining your self esteem. Humility as a virtue leads to man believing that he ought to take shame in what he does. If he's not allowed to be proud of the things he does, what alternative is there? Why will he do anything more than barely get by if he can't even be happy about the things he achieves? Selflessness as a virtue has the same effect - how can a man make himself happy if it's strictly forbidden to him as innately evil, and that his only alternative is to serve the whims of others with no benefit to the self?

"How do we know that having faith and believing without evidence lowers a person's self esteem?"

See the above answer.

I'd also recommend you read any of the books on this page, and preferably all of them: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/self-esteem.html

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Everyone I know who is religious and doesn't live with an extensive social support/reinforcement network, grows more and more depressed and isolated over time.

Now, a religious person would argue correctly that principles shouldn't be abandoned for the sake of fitting in. But the issues at hand are broader in scope. What sort of career should you have, what constitutes productive happiness and why, what to do with free time and why, and the key issue: who am I and why should I feel like my life matters, why should I try?

Religion temporarily answers these questions, but leaves so many contradictions that faith must become the final resort of the religious. Faith creates more problems then it solves, hence the social support network to reinforce untruths and truth.

Of my friends who started out religious - almost none have remained so. They also seem to have a harder time finding out what to do with life then my other friends. It's almost as if religion let them down, spoiled them. I could speak for myself here too, having once been religious.

Religion makes you skeptical of happiness, because it promises the fullest measure of it, but never delivers.

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I appreciate the responses people have given me so far but, while they have plenty of theory in them, I see little Hard Evidence for the claims being made.

Man lives by the mind. But how do you know? How do you know you can't live by faith or emotion? How do you know he can't live by brute force? Where are the statistics on the relative survival rates of people who are and are not emotionalists? Or failing that, where are the statistics on how happy people are as emotionalists and rationalists? How would you even determine, objectively, whether someone was an emotionalist or a rationalist? And so on.

Maybe most of the people you know have done worse as religious people than they did as atheists. But how do you actually know they were doing worse as religious people? And how do you know this is true in general? My family is religious, and they've done fine. All the Mormons I've spoken with seem happy with their religion, as do all the evangelicals.

My point is, this isn't going to fly with the person I'm speaking with. I would like solid logic, and solid facts, studies, statistics, and authoritative sources illustrating the Objectivist position on these issues.

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I don't know how believing that you are born inherently evil and being commanded to beg forgiveness to an all powerful cosmic dictator for the guilt of your existence lest you be thrown into fire and tortue "for all eternity" and practice a morality that teaches you self-sacrifice can by any stretch of the imagination impart a shred of self-esteem to you.

Tell them to read Atlas Shrugged, if they don't understand the case for self-esteem as a rational value then there's no amount of studies or statistics that are going to convince them.

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I don't know how believing that you are born inherently evil and being commanded to beg forgiveness to an all powerful cosmic dictator for the guilt of your existence lest you be thrown into fire and tortue "for all eternity" and practice a morality that teaches you self-sacrifice can by any stretch of the imagination impart a shred of self-esteem to you.

Tell them to read Atlas Shrugged, if they don't understand the case for self-esteem as a rational value then there's no amount of studies or statistics that are going to convince them.

Atlas Shrugged, while a very enjoyable book, does not prove the proposition that self esteem drops when a person becomes religious. Nor does presenting a slanted view of Christianity prove that proposition. You need empirical evidence to say that self esteem goes up or down when you do something, as my debate opponent knows. I'm a little disappointed by this response.

Isn't there anybody here who bases their beliefs on serious study of the Facts?

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Atlas Shrugged, while a very enjoyable book, does not prove the proposition that self esteem drops when a person becomes religious. Nor does presenting a slanted view of Christianity prove that proposition. My debate opponent knows that you need empirical evidence to say that self esteem goes up or down or sideways when you do something. I'm a little disappointed by this response.

Isn't there anybody here who bases their beliefs on serious study of the Facts?

AS has a sizeable amount of text devoted to proving exactly that there is no self-esteem to be derived from religion, certainly not the religion of Original Sin.

Wow, your debate opponent knows that you need empirical evidence to say things? He demands a serious study of "the Facts" to justify nonbelief in non-Facts? Waste of time imo.

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AS has a sizeable amount of text devoted to proving exactly that there is no self-esteem to be derived from religion, certainly not the religion of Original Sin.

Wow, your debate opponent knows that you need epirical evidence to say things? He demands a serious study of "the Facts" to justify nonbelief in non-Facts? Waste of time imo.

You are skilled in rhetoric but that's not going to help me out. I think my opponent is reasonable to ask for some evidence to verify the claim that his religion is lowering his self esteem. I'll go back over the relevant parts of Galt's Speech, but I don't expect to find any evidence there in the typical sense. Galt's Speech is based on the premise that failing to live by the mind lowers your self esteem, which is an empirical claim that my opponent would ask me to support with studies and so on.

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You are skilled in rhetoric but that's not going to help me out. I think my opponent is reasonable to ask for some evidence to verify the claim that his religion is lowering his self esteem. I'll go back over the relevant parts of Galt's Speech, but I don't expect to find any evidence there in the typical sense. Galt's Speech is based on the premise that failing to live by the mind lowers your self esteem, which is an empirical claim that my opponent would ask me to support with studies and so on.

The problem is his belief in God. There's no way to convince someone that rejects reason as the only means to knowledge of anything he doesn't feel like believing, much less to provide him with a reason to stop rejecting reason, or a fact you can point to to make him start accepting facts. He has to accept reality and reason as a precondition of being able to discuss anything, otherwise it's a mistake to debate anything with these people and you can't win. God exists and if I don't serve him I will go to Hell. What possible "Facts" about "athiest utility" could I possibly give a damn about?

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The problem is his belief in God. There's no way to convince someone that rejects reason as the only means to knowledge of anything he doesn't feel like believing, much less to provide him with a reason to stop rejecting reason, or a fact you can point to to make him start accepting facts. He has to accept reality and reason as a precondition of being able to discuss anything, otherwise it's a mistake to debate anything with these people and you can't win. God exists and if I don't serve him I will go to Hell. What possible "Facts" about "athiest utility" could I possibly give a damn about?

Most people who have only partly rejected reason can be reasoned with, in my experience. The exact nature of their rejection of reason is relevant. For example, most Christians, in my experience, have rejected reason only in that they accept a particular emotional experience as evidence that the Bible is true. This leaves them open to discussion of a logical, evidential case against the Bible. Or maybe they have rejected reason only in that they haven't properly examined the ontological argument. In that case, it's open to the atheist to force them to really scrutinize that argument. I suspect that your problem may be that your contact with religious people has been very limited. You seem to think you can split everyone into A. faith-havers who are completely closed to reason and B. non-faith-havers who are completely open to reason, but it doesn't work like that in real life.

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Most people who have only partly rejected reason can be reasoned with, in my experience. The exact nature of their rejection of reason is relevant. For example, most Christians, in my experience, have rejected reason only in that they accept a particular emotional experience as evidence that the Bible is true. This leaves them open to discussion of a logical, evidential case against the Bible. Or maybe they have rejected reason only in that they haven't properly examined the ontological argument. In that case, it's open to the atheist to force them to really scrutinize that argument. I suspect that your problem may be that your contact with religious people has been very limited. You seem to think you can split everyone into A. faith-havers who are completely closed to reason and B. non-faith-havers who are completely open to reason, but it doesn't work like that in real life.

No, I'm sure there are plenty of people who think they are being completely rational, if they just accept God and heaven and hell and angels and demons and original sin and altruism etc. on faith and tell themselves they will be completely rational on everything else. (Coincidentally AS discusses that.) In comes the blank-out.

No, there's just people who choose to reason and people who choose not to. The later can't be reasoned with. So if you want to help the person, start with the basics or tell them to read AS or whatever, but unless they choose reality over un-reality, then that "all-loving" cosmic dictator and his ultimatim of submission or eternal torment is always going to be there, hanging over whatever it is you throw at him, and he will continue to pretend to have "self-esteem in submission to God" because:"No man can survive the moment of pronouncing himself irredeemably evil; should he do it, his next moment is insanity or suicide." So of course this pretend kind of self-esteem in religion has incredible utility for them!

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Man lives by the mind. But how do you know? How do you know you can't live by faith or emotion? How do you know he can't live by brute force? Where are the statistics on the relative survival rates of people who are and are not emotionalists? Or failing that, where are the statistics on how happy people are as emotionalists and rationalists? How would you even determine, objectively, whether someone was an emotionalist or a rationalist? And so on.

Maybe most of the people you know have done worse as religious people than they did as atheists. But how do you actually know they were doing worse as religious people? And how do you know this is true in general? My family is religious, and they've done fine. All the Mormons I've spoken with seem happy with their religion, as do all the evangelicals.

My point is, this isn't going to fly with the person I'm speaking with. I would like solid logic, and solid facts, studies, statistics, and authoritative sources illustrating the Objectivist position on these issues.

My logic is solid.

You don't need exact statistics and studies to prove the obvious.

If man doesn't live by the mind, what does he live by? Does he create his tools randomly, without thought? Does he stomp on the ground until reality gives him what he wants?

How do you propose to live by faith or emotion? Will any amount of sadness or anger force reality to give you the food and water you need to survive? Will any amount of drawing circles in the sand and praying to the Gods provide you with the means of your survival?

How do you propose to live by brute force? That will last only so long as some men -don't- live by brute force. When rational men realize that they are only becoming slaves, what will they do but use brute force back? Once everyone is using brute force and no one is producing, how do you intend to survive? Brute force requires that someone, somewhere along the line, live by means of his mind.

Why do you need such statistics about emotionalists? The fact is, people compartmentalize: they say they believe one thing, and they may believe it in certain aspects of their life, but when it comes to their bare survival, no one is gonna make sad faces until dinner poofs into existence before their eyes.

How else would you determine whether someone is an emotionalist or a rationalist, but by seeing their actions and their philosophy in action?

"Isn't there anybody here who bases their beliefs on serious study of the Facts? "

Do you need studies and scientific research to tell you that wishing and making sad faces won't give you any of the necessities of survival? If so, "science and the humanities" probably isn't your place; simple logic ought to come before you get into psychology.

However, if you really, really, really need some proof, I'll let google do the talking for me:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sou...p;aql=f&oq=

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf...p;aql=f&oq=

I dare you to find me a result from a reputable source in those searches that says that emotions or wishing create the necessities of life.

If you want statistics on self-esteem, that's rather hard to do, as there are differing definitions of self esteem, and rather contradictory studies. A lot contributes to self esteem, and in some twisted way, a person may be able to achieve a cheap, hollow, veil that looks like self esteem from religion. But I doubt it.

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Hi. I'm arguing with a Christian. They derive enormous utility from their religion, and want to know how they would be better off as an atheist. I responded that they would have more self esteem. They didn't buy that, and started critically examining that claim.

You made the mistake of taking the defensive rather than offensive side of this argument. First of all, self-esteem is a result of a long-term series of decisions and beliefs, so you can't say that a non-Christian will necessarily have higher self esteem than a Christian because it simply isn't true. Besides this, self-esteem is basically the knowledge that you are a value to yourself, that you have what it takes to navigate life. That whole concept is going to be foreign because Christianity teaches that an individual only has value, even to himself, because he is valued by God. Simply put, he isn't going to see what he's missing and you're going to be talking right past each other, because Christianity doesn't have a concept of self-esteem that is similar to the Objectivist concept.

You say he recognizes that arguments are based on facts, so stick to facts. Specifically, keep the ball in his court and examine his arguments. Have him examine the specific benefits that he feels he derives from his religion, and whether any of these benefits really offset the benefit of recognizing and dealing with reality head-on. For example, he might give you a list something like this (maybe in more positive terms):

- It is convenient to have a pre-made paradigm to explain the universe without needing to think about it too much

- It makes him feel better about death

- It provides him with a community/social acceptance (this is the major benefit that most of the Christians I know find in being religious, and sometimes a strong reason to avoid questioning the facts)

- It makes him feel like there is a "road map" for life, so he doesn't have to figure it all out for himself

Obviously if you can get these benefits distilled down to plain statements, and compare their value in terms of the ability to navigate life successfully against the value of dealing honestly with reality, there's no contest. There's clearly a risk to sticking your head in the sand, so focusing on the facts in this way allows you to show that it really DOES matter whether religion is actually true or not and that he's really choosing a net loss if it isn't.

Basically, he wants to make the argument about perceived benefits vs. other perceived benefits, and wants you to prove that your benefit (self esteem) is more beneficial than his benefits (whatever they may be). But that's not the issue, because the supposed benefits of evading reality aren't benefits at all, they're net losses. So that's where your argument should be.

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No, there's just people who choose to reason and people who choose not to. The later can't be reasoned with.

That's simply not true, and that assessment is not supported by Rand's body of work. She says many times that the irrational, the evil, is dependent for its very existence upon the good and the rational. Truly consistent irrationality and altruism leads almost immediately to death. One of the reasons that altruism is such an evil code is that it forces people, if they want to survive and be happy, to "sneak in" some rationality and selfishness. Take evasion as another instance of partial rationality. Evasion is only possible as a concept because people are able to halt reason halfway; that's what evasion is. If there's just consistently rational and consistently irrational people, evasion would not occur.

Recall Rand's comment to William F. Buckley when she first met him: "You are much too intelligent to believe in God." Not all religious people are crusading irrationalists.

She often juxtaposes the archetypes of "those who live by reason" and "those who live by faith and force," but they're just that; archetypes. In her characters and in her explicit philosophy you can find lots of characterization and discussion of partly rational individuals.

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How do we know religion lowers a person's self esteem?

How do we know that having faith and believing without evidence lowers a person's self esteem?

I apologize that my response will not contain the statistics you're looking for, but if I were engaged in this argument, I might say something like the following.

First of all, I would certainly not make the claim that religious people on average have less self esteem than non-religious people. Nor would I claim that any particular person switching from religious to non-religious involves a raising of self-esteem.

What I would say is that accepting the existence of a god through faith lowers one's potential for self-esteem. I have numerous Christian friends, and I would characterize almost all of them as taking their own happiness quite seriously, being self-confident, and being assertive of their important places in their own lives. If you ask them why they think they deserve to be happy, ultimately it usually comes down to the value that God places on them as one of His beloved children. They are important to God, and therefore they accept their own importance to themselves as well. They view themselves as sinful but worth saving, basically, because God wants to save them.

Now, a person can use this viewpoint to support a certain level of feeling of self-worth. However, their own self-worth is never a primary. It is always derivative of the evaluation of God. To assert "I am worthy of making myself happy because I think so" would be arrogance, or pride.

On this basis, I would argue that the maximum possible self-esteem attainable for any person can be reached only through a non-religious path, in which one's own evaluation leads to self-esteem. Only a lesser amount of self-esteem is possible for someone who sees their own worth stemming from the evaluation of another, especially when coupled with the idea that moral perfection is unattainable and that one must be given, rather than earn, a ticket to Paradise.

Attaining a high level of self-esteem is not any easier for an atheist than a theist. In fact, having to perform the evaluation yourself can sometimes make it harder to pronounce oneself worthy. Often it is easier, for someone who doubts their self-worth, to simply accept the approval of God than to do what would be necessary to convince themselves of their own worth. However, the benefits possible to someone relying on their own judgment in pronouncing self-worth are immense, if that person can actually adhere to their moral code and be worthy.

It should be noted that Objectivism defines true self-esteem as only that positive moral appraisal which stems from one's own judgment. "Self-esteem" derived from the opinion of others is faked self-esteem, not true self-esteem. Thus, this definition makes it trivially true that no one depending upon the valuation of a deity can have any self-esteem whatsoever. However, to engage in substantive argument with a non-Objectivist often requires leaving the familiar terminology of Rand, as I have done above in comparing "self-esteem" derived from another with that derived from self-evaluation.

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Hi. I'm arguing with a Christian.

Give it up, you will not win this argument!!! The argument for self-esteem is a very long one. You would need more than "Atlas Shrugged" and OPAR in order to win this argument. You would also need probably ten years of rational living and a rational perspective in order to prove it to someone. You are on a fool's errand.

Self-esteem is a rational value dependent on a rational code of morality, dependent on a rational epistemology based in a rational metaphysics. All of this is antithetical to the Christian world view.

Self-esteem is a supreme value, it is an actual value. The purpose of Christian morality is not to gain values but to give them up. Self-esteem is antithetical to a Christian because the standard of morality is not the self but the non-self. Self-esteem is not a value to a Christian. And your first clue to this should be his first question to you:

Why is self esteem important, at all?

After you explain to him why self-esteem is important to him, to himself. He will say "well if I have to sacrifice a little of my self-esteem in order to help someone I'm willing to do it" and then you are in a circular argument. He doesn't even gain anything by helping the stranger because if he did then that wasn't a big enough sacrifice and he should find his enemy so that he can turn the other cheek.

Death, or at least suffering, is his goal, yours is life. Self-esteem is a value to you, it is a hinderance to him.

I'm arguing with a Christian. They derive enormous utility from their religion, [...]

I don't think they derive any utility from religion. Try and give an example, if they derive anything of value from their religion, then that is selfish which is evil. They are against selfish values on principle because pursuing values for yourself is evil.

[...] and want to know how they would be better off as an atheist.

They wouldn't necessarily be any better off as an atheist. Atheism is just the rejection of one superstition but it makes no positive statements. There are plenty of unhappy, irrational atheists in the world.

The only way for him to be better off would be to adopt a positive philosophy which stands for something. A rational philosophy in which the pursuit of one's own happiness is held as moral, a philosophy consistent with living on earth.

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Why is self esteem important, at all?

Because self-esteem is the feeling and recognition that one is fit to live, to achieve things. People without self esteem feel dread, they are afraid of taking on any task. Self-esteem is therefore also a precondition of happiness. A man that lives in dread all the time cannot feel happy.

In what specific respects does having high self esteem make life better?

Self esteem is required for motivation in everything we do. Without some minimal self esteem no one would be even able to type at the computer or ask questions or try to think - the motivation for all these actions is made possible by a subconscious recognition that one is capable of taking those actions successfully.

How do we know religion lowers a person's self esteem?

It tells men that they cannot discover the world on their own, that they must surrender their mind to the authority of god. This makes men feel that their means of survival are to beg to god to let them live, that their power to exist comes from an external being, not from within, not from relying on their power to know and decide. It is no wonder that art encouraged by religion shows human beings as ugly, scared, crawling creatures.

How do we know that having faith and believing without evidence lowers a person's self esteem?

Because it is concession of one's means of survival and self-assertion. All our values are achieved by our ability to think. If you want a house you need to think, to create. How would you be able to create if you were convinced that you must believe someone else knows better than you and you must reject your conclusions to function? You would not. Men are only able to create and support their existence to the extent they are allowed to think and judge on their own, with their own mind. Had religion became more invasive, then they would have to confess total impotence to think and cope with the world.

When someone thinks deep down inside "who am I to know? I should surrender to what god says is true" they are giving up their only path to confidence.

Religious people try to place their confidence in a source outside themselves - that is the opposite of self-esteem, it is saying, in effect "I am powerless, god will save me, I must obey".

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Give it up, you will not win this argument!!! The argument for self-esteem is a very long one. You would need more than "Atlas Shrugged" and OPAR in order to win this argument. You would also need probably ten years of rational living and a rational perspective in order to prove it to someone. You are on a fool's errand.

Hmm. If that's true then I should stop conversing with this Christian. I should probably also stop believing that self esteem is important, since I do not have ten years of rational living behind me and am therefore, by your standards, unjustified in my belief. That seems implausible to me.

Self-esteem is a rational value dependent on a rational code of morality, dependent on a rational epistemology based in a rational metaphysics. All of this is antithetical to the Christian world view.

Right.

Self-esteem is a supreme value, it is an actual value. The purpose of Christian morality is not to gain values but to give them up. Self-esteem is antithetical to a Christian because the standard of morality is not the self but the non-self. Self-esteem is not a value to a Christian. And your first clue to this should be his first question to you:

Ah, but this Christian believes that the self is something to be celebrated, not something to be surrendered. They don't even believe in a higher supernatural realm.

After you explain to him why self-esteem is important to him, to himself. He will say "well if I have to sacrifice a little of my self-esteem in order to help someone I'm willing to do it" and then you are in a circular argument. He doesn't even gain anything by helping the stranger because if he did then that wasn't a big enough sacrifice and he should find his enemy so that he can turn the other cheek.

No, he wouldn't say that. He would just ask for strong evidence for my contentions.

Death, or at least suffering, is his goal, yours is life. Self-esteem is a value to you, it is a hinderance to him.

No, I don't think so.

I don't think they derive any utility from religion. Try and give an example, if they derive anything of value from their religion, then that is selfish which is evil. They are against selfish values on principle because pursuing values for yourself is evil.

This seems like a caricature of religion.

They wouldn't necessarily be any better off as an atheist. Atheism is just the rejection of one superstition but it makes no positive statements. There are plenty of unhappy, irrational atheists in the world.

The only way for him to be better off would be to adopt a positive philosophy which stands for something. A rational philosophy in which the pursuit of one's own happiness is held as moral, a philosophy consistent with living on earth.

True. Good point.

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If there's just consistently rational and consistently irrational people,

No, that's not at all what I was saying. If I constructed that sentence wrong, that's my bad, but the point is either the person accepts reason as a precondition for any argumentation or he can't be reasoned with. He's basically saying "why can't I be irrational? But I want to be irrational! It gives me good utility! I demand you give me a rational reason why I should be rational and accept reason!"

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No, that's not at all what I was saying. If I constructed that sentence wrong, that's my bad, but the point is either the person accepts reason as a precondition for any argumentation or he can't be reasoned with. He's basically saying "why can't I be irrational? But I want to be irrational! It gives me good utility! I demand you give me a rational reason why I should be rational and accept reason!"

Okay, yeah, there's no arguing with those people. Most people though, including religious people, at least think that they take reason and logic seriously.

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