Ok just got over a bad religious experience that lasted about 20+ years...living for pleasure or even more to the point , living with happiness as your main goal?....who can argue with that?...I'm in ....let the feeling good begin......................and that 20 year thing made me more then ready for you nay-sayers that may respond with something.....cause I was one..................he that dies happiest wins no?.......how sure are you of your beliefs?...30...50..75 percent?...I'm 99 percent sure we get one life in this body....fun is the best word ever
I think that all honest religious experiences are bad. You are always searching for something that isn't really there, and making up excuses for why nothing works out as expected. People believe shit because they NEED to, not because it's real. Who can argue with living for happiness? A lot of people. If you are new to Hedonism, you have no idea how much criticism lies ahead. You should know how much christians love to argue. The point of Hedonism isn't to win the game, but to enjoy playing it. The thing that separates my beliefs from true, purist Hedonism is that I think there have to be some limits to preserve your health. We only get one body, so it needs to last a long time.
It would appear then, that your definition for 'honest' religious experiences is interchangeable with the ideal of living for happiness. Both equally unreal. Chasing after happiness and pleasureable experiences is no different than religious fervor, they may appear to be completely opposite but they're more like two sides of the same coin. Both miss the point, and both lead to misery.
I see organized religion as being all about fooling people, controling them, and giving them false hope. To be in it and not be miserable, you have to will yourself to buy into it. Doubts about one's faith come from your own natural common sense telling you that you are being fed a load of crap. This is not to be confused with your spiritual life and spiritual experiences, which can be sought outside of artificial religion. For some reason, most people seem to assume that all Hedonists push things to every possible extreme, all the time, which can certainly lead to misery. I have gotten smarter about it over the years, and more moderate. It appears to me that a lot of nominal christians practice moderate Hedonism, but refuse to admit it. Their life experience has led them to this balance, but they have been taught to hate the word.
But anyway, considering we're all good ingrates, why don't we all end the threatened topic by hurling out each our suitable MORAL insult. Existentialism will need the witty way, as I see it. We must accomplish the state of ending JAZZ music. Or we must defeat the oncoming destruction of resolving a life without VIRTUE.
I'd say no, but it depends on your definition of happiness. Have you ever watched anyone with a terminal disease die slowly over several months) in agony? I have, twice: my mother and my brother. I can't say either of them were "happy", but they had the satisfaction of dying with dignity--i.e., class. It certainly wasn't "fun", but my brother in particular was able to find some meaning in the experience, which helped get him through it. I hope you won't have to face anything similar to see how well hedonism serves you. I tend to agree with J.S. Mill that it's better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. I also think the Buddha had a point that suffering is an inevitable part of human existence, and that the desperate pursuit of worldly attachments (wealth, status, power, sensual pleasure) can actually intensify suffering, because these things are transitory and ephemeral. Stock markets crash, lovers get old or otherwise change, power entails insecurity, and the search for meaning in drugs and orgasm is often unsatisfying and can lead to bad results. As Peck observed in The Road Less Traveled, life is difficult, and when you realize that, it gets easier. We have to play the hand that's dealt us, and the expectation that it should always or ultimately be fun can lead to a whiny "Why me?" attitude when it's not. This isn't to say that pleasure and "fun" are bad things, or that anybody can be happy without including a lot of both in their lives. But a certain part of life is beyond our control, and some of it is neither happy nor fun. I don't think religion and happiness on this earth are mutually exclusive (although it depends on the religion), nor do I think hedonism is synonymous with fun. If we put the pain in perspective, it can lead to meaning and a satisfying life, which can be the richest form of happiness.
Very true! In the end both the religious person and the hedonist are both pursuing the same thing the best way they hope will work! Albeit through very different means they both try to find meaning in a life ripe with uncertainty, pain, chaos and complexity. And it is true both can lead to misery! Depending on how one goes about living their life. Also I find no reason to judge a hedonist. Their path is initially the most 'tangible' and logical. As KJ69 said many spiritual people tend to practice hedonism and hate the concept of it at the same time. The classic 'hypocrisy' situation. In a way I find spirituality is just an evolution of hedonism in which the definitions and conceptions of what causes happiness and pain are redefined and examined differently as one lives their life and sees the consequences of their actions and learns from them themselves.
If pleasure is your goal you should look into what Epicurus, the ancient Greek, had to say on the matter. He believed that pleasure was the highest good one can strive for, but that hedonism does not actually give one the best chance at a pleasurable life. The key to happiness, according to Epicurus, lies in having strong relationships with others (friendship), living in moderation, and in keeping a self-examined, philosophical approach to life.
Viktor Frankl, concentration camp survivor and existential psychologist, thought the human quest for meaning was the most basic human need and figuring it out was the key to surviving even the holocaust experience. People can find meaning in a wide variety of personal ways, but Frankl also thought they could go down blind alleys looking for meaning in all the wrong places: the desperate pursuit of wealth, status, power, pussy, and "fun". Buddhists call these attachments. I don't think that hedonism, as the term is usually understood, can lead to a meaningful life. I think Jesus had it right that to find your life, you have to lose it first. (Matthew 16:24).
