Recently I had a debate with an atheist YouTuber. That atheist claimed the Western people are the most educated and happiest people on the planet. I couldn’t help educating him. Below is the transcription of our conversation:
kenny12321: Every one of the top 10 countries to live in in the world has highly atheist populations, between 60-85%atheists. Most of the religious people are very old or immigrants. And they are at the same time the safest nations in the world, and with the highest HDI. And they score on top when it comes to the happiness level amongst their population. And they are the most educated countries on the planet. This is not a coincidence.
Hu Wen: Everybody is educated in their own field. A doctor doesn't know how to grow crops and a farmer doesn't know how to treat patients. It doesn't matter how hard working labor your job is, there will always be things that you know better than a person who has a PHD and a white collar job. As for happiness, people in the West are the most unhappy ones if happiness is measured by survey questionnaires (e.g., are you happy?) and things that are indicators of unhappiness such as, suicide rate and drug abuse. There is a recent trend among some Western academics to measure happiness by Human Development Index (HDI). HDI include life expectancy, education, and per capita income.
Let me tell you why it doesn't make sense to measure happiness by HDI. We all know money can't buy things like happiness, peace, and tranquility. Yet income is used by some stupid academics to measure happiness. Moreover, education has nothing to do with happiness. No one can claim A PhD holder is happier than a degree holder in general. And finally, it's simply moronic to use life expectancy rate to measure happiness. There is no consensus that Mr. A is happier than Mr. B because Mr. A lived longer. If you live longer, you doesn't make you happy in our life. Instead, if you live in peace, it makes you happy in our life. Hope that helps, kid. Let your uncle Hu know if you have any questions.
kenny12321: I am 26, not a kid. You don’t score any points lowering yourself to pathetic "insults". I did not say that atheists are more happy and educated. I said that the people in the top 10 countries to live in the world are mostly atheists and they are highly educated. One usually follows the other. Educated people are far less likely to believe in any religion because of obvious reasons. And yes, they score year after year as the most satisfied and happy people on the planet. They measure everything from economy, safety, human rights, HDI, how satisfied the population are with their government and just overall how happy and how satisfied they are with life as a whole. They measure everything you can think of.
Hu Wen: Explain what you mean by "highly educated", dear. Do you mean a person with a PhD in physics who has layman knowledge or no knowledge in medicine, farming, arts & crafts, tourism, software engineering, military, law, and this list goes on forever is a "highly educated" person? Like I said before, only ignorant & arrogant people boast about their knowledge, dear. Everybody is educated in their own field. A doctor doesn’t know how to grow crops and a farmer doesn’t know how to treat patients. It doesn’t matter how hard working your labor job is, there will always be things that you know better than a person who has a PhD & a white collar job.
It’s true that a person with a PhD in a particular field of knowledge (e.g., physics, sociology) is more likely to become an atheist than a person with a diploma in that particular field of knowledge. Why is that? Researchers have found out the more knowledge you peruse in our own field of study, the more you become detached or isolated from other fields of knowledge. For example, a person with a PhD in physics knows physics better than a twelfth grader but that PhD holder doesn't know sociology, law, or other fields of knowledge better than that twelfth grader that are not related to physics. A twelfth grader studies multiple fields of knowledge but a PhD holder studies only one. But what it has to do with having more possibility of being an atheist? Sometimes pride & arrogance play a role. And detachment from the reality due to lack of knowledge of numerous other fields of knowledge except his/her own field contribute to the problem as well.
The question is “Are you happy in your life?”. The question isn’t “Are you happy with your financial status?” or “Are you happy with your government?” or “Are you happy with crime rate and safety?”. Of course we all have financial problems, political problems, & so on. And of course we want to get rid of them. But do you consider yourself a happy person considering everything happening in your life? This is what should be asked to know if a person is happy. Asking silly questions like “Are you happy with your financial status?” when we all want to change the oppressive economic systems to make the rich richer and the poor poorer doesn’t make any sense. The question “Are you happy” was asked to the people all over the world. And western people positioned first in the list of most unhappy people of the world despite of having “high” education, economic stability, security, and so on. Really pathetic. Unhappiness is a soul problem. Soul isn’t a matter so failed attempts to make the soul/mind happy by materialistic things is just stupid. But people intellectually unable to think critically can’t realize it. Let me know if you still don’t get it, dear.
(That atheist YouTuber “kenny12321” never replied back. Guess why? S/he is scared.)
