It does not give them pleasant feelings, they take it and deliver the pleasure their self. No one makes you mad, you make you mad. Understanding energy and the universe delivers an understanding of what reality is. With that one does not fear death for their no such thing as death, We the human being die as a unit of organisms but our atoms continue on as they did before we were formed. Death is only in the mind that happens to be alive due to the body that feeds it. Stop feeding the mind and it dies.

I just despise liars & I firmly believe truth is invaluable. If you don't care if nobody ever trusts you again, go ahead & call truth "overrated."

Truth is general and personal. I don't think it's fair to say it is no more than knowledge. Where knowledge is concerned, we could call truth true knowledge. But it is also honesty. Speaking truth means representing the world as best we know it. Not speaking truth warps the reality of life and leads people into a form of hell. We can't say truth is overrated. It is probably hugely underrated in our cowardly attempts to advance our personal goals by false representation, ignoring the damage to other people and ourselves.

Except the "opium addicts" peddle lie sand indoctrinate their children with said lies, or 'life-destroying gibberish' as some call it.
It's inserting itself into our world in ways like the climate change response. Our scientists say it's happening, the religious say it's not; because god said he's never flood the world again after Noah made a blood-sacrifice once the animals had left the arc.

You are right, there is no posthumus reward for being truthful, but only real facts have useful applications.
If you muddle your logical faculties with nonsense your decisions will not be informed, they may become harmful.

I totally agree with your point of people benefiting from the "opium of the masses". Just add to that the corporate wealth and power of the entities peddling that opium (the church) and there is yet another huge reason it is not going away any time soon.

Truth always has value. It is up to you to make use of it. Up to you to determine how it can benefit most.

The opium of the masses is just the comfortable lie...while I agree there really is no harm it isn't progress either so kind of pointless. I guess again it is up to the individual to determine for themselves how rational that is for them

The eternal paradox of the nihilistic genius or the content fool =)

There is some sort of basic truth although truth is different for everyone according to the degree of money that you may have. A poor man might worry about paying his taxes and where his food comes from. A rich man has no such worries. None of this changes the distance the earth is from the sun, but it does change certain worries of the poor man. as the rich man schemes to get richer.

The only thing wrong with the opium addict is that they might fail to notice the house burning down around them -- and that their own belief system, which encourages rejection of science, is literally throwing gasoline on the fire.

Another tricky question. Truth vs. facts is the problem. They are confused. On one level truth is relative, subjective and facts are objectively measurable. On the other hand, facts are disproved with the next discovery, and therefore ever changing, and therefore mutable. Does anything exist?

In my experience if life seems to be too bleak it is because I have been having negative, untrue thoughts. If I analyze those thoughts and get truth into my subconscious mind, then life suddenly becomes beautiful and happy. I’m afraid that if I plugged in grandiose, untrue thoughts those delusions would catch up with me eventually and I’d get into trouble. The late John Nash talked himself into believing that he had been selected to be King of the World. He traveled to France for his coronation, but things didn’t go very well.

On the other hand, I can understand and empathize with a person who is having a very harsh life and who takes up religion as a comforting balm. Who am I to take that comfort away?

Equally pertinent but not as much in the forefront are people who take up science in a religious-like way as a boost to their egos and as reinforcement for their materialist or physicalist world views. It must be reassuring to feel that you have a firm understanding of nature instead of being almost totally ignorant and confused. Again, though I often argue the point, who am I to take away someone’s comfortable delusion?

All of this brings me to my own metaphysical dabblings and makes me wonder if I do that for pleasure and comfort. It is undoubtedly true that I get a tingling pleasure from contemplating the mystery of ultimate reality.

From my perspective what I do seems perfectly reasonable and true, while what others do seems like ego gratification or addiction. This bears further thought, but for now I am going to comfort myself with the idea that with respect to ultimate reality I am abysmally ignorant. That’s as close to truth as I can get.

Provocative but false. Truth has value because, consistently applied, it improves the decision making and, consequently, lives of many. Delusion is not a requirement for the enjoyment of life or fantasy.

There doesn't have to be an atheist heaven. Honesty is it's own reward. I would love to be able to believe my son is in heaven and I'd get to see him again. I'd believe it in a minute if there was any evidence it was true, but there's not, and I'm not going to tell myself fairy tales to make myself feel good.

I don't agree with this because truth is a part of the scientific method of inquiry. Once a hypothesis is empirically tested the results of the tests then either create new scientific facts or more questions and more hypotheses.

I prescribe to the correspondence theory of truth (see the link). The correspondence theory of truth is at its core an ontological thesis: a belief is true if there exists an appropriate entity – a fact – to which it corresponds. If there is no such entity, the belief is false.

Therefore as the scientific method continually creates facts it also creates truths. Due to it's continuous and universal application, the scientific method's potential value is infinite. Consequently, it personally and dynamically influences our lives daily.

[plato.stanford.edu]

True enough as long as that's all it gives them. But when it gives them an excuse to start killing people, it may need tuning up a bit. The problem with false hope is that it invariably introduces a stream of cognitive dissonance along with its sedation. I think there's enough well established truth to base a happy life on without resorting to comforting fantasies. If people don't have access to education then sure, I wouldn't begrudge them their escapes, but if you are clever enough to make up your own mythology, then you're probably smart enough to find your peace in reality.