- The brain is very good at creating illusions.1
- The brain doesn't think about anything.2
- Most thoughts, feelings, and actions aren't consciously controlled.3,4
- There isn't a mind separate from the brain.
- No one has a soul.5
- There is no life force or spiritual energy.
- There isn't a cosmic consciousness.
- There is no enlightenment to attain.
- There is no magic.
- There are no miracles.
- There are no supernatural events.
- There are no supernatural beings.
- There are no gods.
- There is no god.
- There isn't a higher power.
- There is no intelligent design.
- There isn't a creator of the universe.6
- The universe doesn't have a purpose.
- There isn't an afterlife.
- There isn't a beforelife.
- There isn't a creator of life.
- Life wasn't started on purpose.
- Life doesn't have intrinsic meaning.
- There are no goals that an individual or humanity are supposed to work toward.
- Nobody has a calling.
- Nothing is meant to be.
- Nothing happens for a reason.
- There isn't a lesson to be learned from every negative thing that happens.
- What doesn't kill you doesn't necessarily make you stronger.
- This isn't a just world.
- Some things can't be done even if you give it your all.
- You don't always get out of life what you put into it.
- There is no karma.
- Something horrible could happen to anybody at any moment.
- The future could be worse than the past or present.
- There will never be any utopias.
- You and everybody you care about will die.
- Nobody will prevail in the end.7
- Life isn't good.
- Life doesn't have more good than bad.
- Humans aren't inherently good.
- There are no moral facts or truths.
- There are no duties.
- There are no god-given rights or natural rights.
- Whatever is natural isn't necessarily good.
- It isn't bad to go against nature.
- Having children is selfish.
- There is no choosing to be born, only forcing to be born.
- Being born isn't a fortunate event.
- The unborn aren't deprived of anything by not being born.8
- It wouldn't be bad if humans voluntarily went extinct.
- The only possible salvation is the extinction of life.
1The brain creates illusions because the brain is the
result of evolution; therefore, there is nothing to prevent illusions from
forming. In fact, many illusions encourage survival and reproduction. An
accurate view of reality isn't necessary for and might even discourage survival
and reproduction.
2The brain stores information about the world in sets of input
and output circuits that respond to one another and their environment. These responses are so appropriate that it seems the brain is full of thoughts about
the world (see page 195 of The Atheist’s Guide To Reality: Enjoying
Life Without Illusions by Alex Rosenberg).
3The following is a quote from The Conspiracy Against The Human Race by Thomas Ligotti:
"Those who believe they can choose their thoughts and feelings are nevertheless disabled from choosing what they choose to think and feel. Should they still believe themselves in control of what they choose to choose to think and feel, they still could not choose to choose to choose…and so on."
4The following is a quote from Incognito: The Secret Lives Of The Brain by David Eagleman:
"The first lesson we learn from studying our own circuitry is this simple lesson: most of what we do and think and feel is not under our conscious control. The vast jungles of neurons operate their own programs."
5The following is a quote from Thomas Metzinger in an articled titled "An interview with Thomas Metzinger: What Is the Self?" on the website BeingHuman.org:
"In short, there is no thing in the brain or outside in the world, which is us. We are processes."
6Cosmology (the study of the origin, evolution, and structure of the universe) has shown that there is no need for a creator in order for the universe to exist.
7Eventually the universe will be uninhabitable.
8The following quote is the first paragraph of the first page of Better Never To Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar:
The central idea of this book is that coming into existence is always a serious harm. That idea will be defended at length, but the basic insight is quite simple: Although the good things in one’s life make it go better than it would otherwise have gone, one could not have been deprived by their absence if one had not existed. Those who never exist cannot be deprived. However, by coming into existence one does suffer quite serious harms that could not have befallen one had one not come into existence.