Happiness

This page is about the search for happiness and the search for truth. Doubt should be held as the highest intellectual value, otherwise the search for truth and the search for happiness both fail. Firstly, doubt is required as part of the search for truth. In addition, without doubt, any search for truth can compromise happiness. I conclude that doubt and curiosity should be encouraged from childhood and in adulthood in order to allow more powerful searches for truth and to prevent such searches from compromising happiness.

By doubt, I mean the ability to doubt any and all facts, to spot assumptions and to doubt any believed fact even though evidence may be in favor of it.

Contents:
1. Seekers of truth
2. The Finding Of Happiness in the Points of Life
3. Dangerous truth: Satanism as accuser
4. Satanism teaches us how to find happiness

1. Seekers of truth

When the truth is dangerous, is it more worthwhile to hide the truth? If ignorance is bliss, and those of Orwell's 1984 are truly happy, how is it that we think truth should be revealed even when they make people unhappy? Truth isn't inherent in happiness and vica versa: Who is better, they who promote truth over happiness, or happiness over truth? In society, in general, I would say that philosophers, mystics, materialists and freethinkers have pursued truth despite the danger to happiness, and the masses nearly always (sometimes ignorantly) pursued happiness whether or not they are also pursuing truth. The adoption of doubt as a central tenet causes the above questions to become mute, as will be shown.

There is something lacking in those who the truth is dangerous, or a threat. In order for truth to be revealed, the ground must be paved for people to learn to doubt their own truth... with doubt, I conclude in this text, comes an ability to be happy despite the times when the search for truth become threatening.

Nietzsche, nihilism, Satanism and materialism are all very self-conscious about the search for truth in taboo places, but of these only the latter two state that nothing else besides materialism is required for happiness (and in this I include psychological matters, not even materialists believe that money alone makes people happy). But of all the groups, and all the people, none have found a formula for happiness, even Buddha's teachings are only workable by some, not all. Given that happiness is so subjective in nature, can any truth or system ever produce a formula for a happy life or a happy society?

We have seekers for truth through logic (materialism, metaphysical naturalism), through experience and alternative states of mind (mysticism, religion), seekers for happiness through materialism, seekers for happiness through truth, and finders of happiness through the most random of methods, but hardly ever through the search for truth.

2. The Finding Of Happiness in the Points of Life

I think the search for truth, and for happiness, are both reconciled in finding personal reasons to live, and this is in general the formula.

Colin Wilson's The Outsider concludes that those who are made unhappy through the search for truth are reconciled with happiness through peak experiences, random moments of happiness to which they hold on to and keep in their minds, and therefore that those who are naturally happy, such as me, are those who generate peak experiences. For me, these can include random solitary walks through London, computer games, online debates, creating web pages... these things also are what I consider to be some of the best reasons for my life, simple as they are. Love, also, with its eternal internal glow once it is known even if it is now gone, is a peak experience for me. These reasons for life are simple materialistic things. I am made happy by these because, intellectually, I have accepted that doubt encircles all of beliefs, and truth does not threaten them, but changes them.

For those whose peak experiences are very internal matters (such as walks through London, or meditation, or personal solitary events) which are not really communicable to other people, we call them mystics, for those who have external points of life such as sport, socializing, money... we call them life lovers. According to my Satanic Types, the former may be a Satanic Evangelist and the latter a Infernal. Those whose search for happiness is a search for truth we call scientists or philosophers... although admittedly, the former category is broad enough to include people who merely happen to be employed in science. Those who, however, have no such things we call unhappy.

Satan is said by some Satanists to represent their loves in life, their hobbies, the internal things that make them happy. So, for one person, a stable job is Satanic. For another, physical fitness is the most Satanic thing, for another intellectualism is more Satanic than finance or fitness. All agree that failure is unsatanic... so Satan represents the points of life for Satanists. Anton LaVey comments on this and says that if collecting trains is a Satanists' thing, then that is his religious rosary and that is Satan's Will.

When a Christian reads the Christian Bible, very frequently they find that it tells them what they want it to say. So, a person who supports slavery finds that it supports slavery, a misogynist finds that it relegates women to an inferior position to men, a homophobe find that, thank God, his homophobia is officially sanctioned by God. But those who wish to free slaves also find in the Bible text that supports their view! Likewise, those Christians who yearn for a parent figure can find that figure in Jesus Christ. Those who want to be understood and loved can feel, to such an extent that they actually experience it, that God, Allah or Jesus actually does fulfil these needs in that person. A person who believes in UFOs will look at the world and see that, indeed, there have been UFO abductions! This is because our experiences in life are informed by our beliefs and the things we expect to be true... in our search for happiness, that which supports our life will make us happy.

In this shallow way, Satan represents the fact that the Gods and beliefs we accept are self generated world views, our gods are self generated in our own image, according to our own needs. Satan represents God made manifest within our very bodies, as a result of our own imagination: As such, by accepting doubt that any of the things we intellectually cherish are true, we are defended against the possibility that truth threatens our happiness.

3. Dangerous truth: Satanism as accuser

Which leads us to how we deal with truth that threatens our world views. All religious adherents will state that they accept all truth... this is because they believe that their own beliefs are true. So, a Satanist says "I accept truth...", and accepts that Gods are made by mankind, but doesn't accept that God is real... and Christians say "We search for truth"... but will not believe an atheist who says there is no God! Both are, in reality, not entirely involved in their search for truth because the search for happiness has overridden their desire.

As a result, we can see that those who find happiness in truth may be the most misguided people, and those who are made unhappy by the truth may well be on to something new... whether it is true or not, we know that at least they have not merely sought happiness when they've sought the truth! Of the mystics and religious figures in history, those who endure torment in their lives as a result of their beliefs (not as a result of the social rejection of their views, that is a different matter) are more trustworthy.

So, of the nihilists: those who find that life is meaningless, nothing is permanent, of the Buddhists who find that happiness gets in the way of truth and of the scientist who holds that no theory is sacred or ultimately unquestionable... these are the truer doctrines. Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols is an eloquent destruction of many cultural truths which leaves the author in a state of panic: For what, after all has fallen, should I believe in? Satan represents the instinct that drives the truth-searcher to continually find faults in perceived truths. Satan here, is fulfilling his traditional Christian role as an accuser... person by person, Satan can summon the most potent doubts and cast down fallacy through nihilism and scepticism.

"Satan represents Doubt. God did not want Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Good and Evil. Allah did not want his creation to doubt his word. In both theologies, it was Satan, the most intelligent created being, who stood up against this enforced ignorance. Satan tells mankind: Search for knowledge, even in taboo places. Shaitan told the Djinn: Let us test God's word, let us not mindlessly believe all that God says. Although these myths are irrelevant to the modern world, the role of Satan is very much relevant to our lives and our search for knowledge. Enlightenment is the ability to look past stated truth and dogma, and Lucifer is the Crown Prince of Satan that represents our search for enlightenment."

"Doubt" by Vexen Crabtree 2002 Dec 11

"Without the wonderful element of doubt, the doorway through which truth passes would be tightly shut. [...] Now is the time for doubt! The bubble of falsehood is bursting and its sound is the roar of the world!"

The Satanic Bible, Book of Lucifer introduction

And who, after such dangerous truths are revealed: the truths that destroy people's internal phantasies, is left happy? In this search for truth, only those who are naturally happy and have points of life remain happy... those who rely on "absolute truth" and "dogma" for truth are made unhappy as new truth is revealed... those who revel in ignorance are threatened by truth, those who reject doubt as the ultimate truth value: they are living dangerously.

A closed minded Satanist would be threatened if God came down to Earth and proved to all that it existed. But Satanists should not be closed minded. The true Satanists, always on the look out for themselves, would then realize that their internal Satan was actually the will of this God... and as such they would change their beliefs. They would still be a Satanist... but a Satanist, who searches for truth and power, is not hindered by truth! The danger in rejection of doubt is that you end up searching for happiness by searching only for truth that supports what you already believe.

Those who reject new ideas, such as Christians who deny that homosexuality is natural, or Muslims who issue a death threat against those who criticize their view of the historicity of Muhammad, or a scientist who suppresses the findings of another scientist because they disagree with his own... these are the sheep against which Satan issues accusations, and for whom truth is the greatest threat.

4. Satanism teaches us how to find happiness

Those points of life, the things that make us happy, from hobbies to intellectual and physical pursuits are Satan's secret pacts with us. The simple, materialistic or internal mystical peak experiences which we enjoy, these are the point of life. Only through the ability to doubt all truth is this happiness through simplicity made possible. This is the power of the Devil, and it is far from a bane: It is a blessing that allows our search for truth to continue unhindered by ignorance. Stupidity is failure to doubt, to therefore be made unhappy by truth, and failure to enjoy life. The search for happiness, and the search for truth, are both facilitated by an internal muse called Satan, whose Infernal teachings cleanse our minds from attachment to false happiness-saviours.

Let us now answer the questions asked in the first paragraph...

When the truth is dangerous, is it more worthwhile to hide the truth? If ignorance is bliss, and those of Orwell's 1984 are truly happy, how is it that we think truth should be revealed even when they make people unhappy? Truth isn't inherent in happiness and vica versa: Who is better, they who promote truth over happiness, or happiness over truth? [...] The adoption of doubt as a central tenet causes the above questions to become mute.

Widespread acceptance of doubt makes truth not dangerous. Orwell's dystopia cannot occur if the populace continually doubt what they are told, and people cannot be happy if they know that what they believe appears to be dubious, ignorance cannot lead to bliss if doubt reigns. Neither is truth dangerous if previous truths are continually questioned, such as in science. So who is better, they who promote truth, or happiness? Well those who promote doubt enlighten the path for both... so those who promote a particular truth, unless they also promote doubt, they are not doing good, because future truth then causes instability. Those who promote happiness, if they accidentally promote ignorance... they are also not doing good because truth then causes unhappiness. Only with an underlying theme of doubt can happiness be found.