“In 1988, psychologists Shelly Taylor and Jonathon Brown published an article making the somewhat disturbing claim that positive self-deception is a normal and beneficial part of most people’s everyday outlook. They suggested that average people hold cognitive biases in three key areas: a) viewing themselves in unrealistically positive terms; b) believing they have more control over their environment than they actually do; and c) holding views about the future that are more positive than the evidence can justify. The typical person, it seems, depends on these happy delusions for the self-esteem needed to function through a normal day.” From the Total Perspective Vortex

This makes interesting reading whilst I also read Ravi Zacheria’s “The Real Face of Atheism”.  If you don’t have God then people still need something to get through a normal day whether it is distraction, escape, self-delusion about who you are, what you can do, about your future, fantasy, or just plain old busy-ness.

I think this has a lot to do with meaning and purpose. I wouldn’t suggest that the atheist has no input on the debate of Humanity’s meaning (though Ravi does) as I think its meaning can be derived from individual’s meaning drawn from within their existence - just because an atheist believes that our existence as a race will one come to an end doesn’t mean they think it is meaningless - I don’t think for a second that God counts as meaningless those that will one day perish. Atheists could even argue purpose on that conduit too - obviously an atheist cannot input on a ‘purpose for being created’ if they believe that we were created by random chance (other than to fulfill the effect of the random chance of course), but if people cannot draw meaning from purpose then they will quite happily draw purpose from meaning: my child means so much to me, therefore my purpose is to be a good parent, etc.

So the real question then becomes whether meaning and purpose can be translated from the individuals within to count for the meaning and purpose for the whole of humanity - if it did then perhaps people wouldn’t need the self-delusion, fantasy future, et al, to get through the day, or perhaps people are too self-deluded to even get that far?

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