LOVE AND HAPPINESS IN THE LIGHT OF SECULAR HUMANISM

What is love?
Love is doing what makes you happy and well. When you make yourself happy you will make others happy for it is easiest to find happiness in helping others.
 
Why is atheism love?
Because it invites all people to enjoy one another without concern for a God. Instead of looking after God we look after one another meaning we are able to do it better without belief in him. Love is good not because it is love but because it promotes wellbeing.
 
What matters most - body or spirit? (assuming we have a spirit!)
Body. We can know for sure it exists. People mistake their minds for their spirits. The mind could be caused by bodily faculties so that if the body dies the mind dies with it.

What is happiness?
It is a good feeling. Those who say it is not a feeling are not talking sense for you could not be content to feel nothing or to feel bad.

What is the only way to happiness?
Loving yourself properly. Self-esteem will be your salvation but only if practiced the right way, the way that will give you the best chance of happiness.

Who should you love?
You should only love yourself because that is the only person you can love. Do not love your neighbour as yourself but love yourself through kindness to your neighbour.

Why is myself the only person I can love?
When I say I want something or someone, for example, God, it is not God that matters but my desire for the fulfilment that God will bring for me. I value nothing but myself for it is my feelings that I value. I am a selfish being and cannot be otherwise for it is the way I am.

Why is myself the only person I ought to love?
Because I am most sure of my own existence for I experience it directly. Other people and God could be dreams. But if I am happy I will make others happy and happiness will spread. It is not my love others need. It is my ability to be happy.
 
What is the difference between loving my neighbours and making them happy?
Love urges you to hurt others to make them more virtuous people. But the problem is that this is all about what you think is virtue. You are imposing on them.
 
Why do other people come before God?
I can sense them with my five senses but I cannot sense him. I am surer they exist than that God does.

What do I mean when I say I love others?
I mean I don’t literally love them but I help them for my own sake and that is good for them so I am improving their lives and kind of loving them.

Why should I not hurt others?
Because to hurt them is to fail to love myself. If I am to feel good about myself I must always be nice to others.

Should I keep my desires simple and easy to fulfil?
All desires are bad in a sense for they are at least a bit painful – they crave something you don’t have so they are painful. This tells us that we should fill our minds with the desire to be happy through making others happy for the lust for money and anger and hate are more painful and harder and therefore too painful. You should have desires you enjoy having or which will bring you more peace than turmoil in the long-term because that makes them worth the pain.

What must you do if you are unhappy with yourself?    
I must go out of my way to help others to get my mind off my problems. I must realise that I have great power to do good and if I was bad in the past it does not matter now. I can make up for it. The more good I do the happier I will feel if I be patient.

Should I help others until I feel good about myself and then stop?
No. I have to work for my whole life at maintaining the esteem I have for myself. I must never cease to do good.

Should I try to feel as happy as possible about myself?
No. I should just let it happen. It is when I forget about what good doing good to others will do for me that I find happiness.

Why am I happier if I forget about getting thrills all the time?
The reason is that desire is pain for it is not fulfilled and I never know if it will be and when I put it out of my mind I get the happiness I crave. I am doing good to myself and others make myself happy but I am forgetting about the results IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THAT HAPPINESS. I am still doing good just to make myself happy, but in a roundabout way.

Do I have to accept that I will never be perfectly happy all the time?
Yes because it is true. Unhappiness will result if I do not accept it. Learn to be content with what you have. Remember the rule that you must not try to be happy but just let the faculties inside your mind for making you happy do their work.

Do I have to accept that I will never be perfect?
Yes and I should not try to be perfect.

Is happiness seeking after thrills?
Not most of the time for thrills are hard to gain and maintain and I will get sad if I want them too much so I will be happier if I just try to be content with what I have.

Should I worry about what others think of me?
No. That is slavery and means I do good without wanting to because of them. It is what I believe about me that should drive me to take the happiness that is there for me and I should not make it dependent on the opinions of others.
 
Are there only two emotions?
Yes. They are love and fear. Every feeling is a manifestation of one of these.

Is fear the root of all evil?
We only do wrong or fail to love when we are scared of unhappiness so fear is the root of all evil. If you are happy you treat others well and they are made happy by being around you and that makes you happier and feel safer in the world.

What is the root of fear?
Being irrational and not careful enough to learn the reality in relation to important things which produces the ignorance that causes fear.

What is the solution for fear?
Rationality in the relevant issues for evil is being unintelligent. Atheism is the solution for it is pure rationality and exalts the person above the throne of God and puts each person at the heart of her or his own personal universe.