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Got a thought brewing in my head about whether people can really believe things because of their usefulness, either for emotional health or as a goad to moral behavior.
After all, if someone states that they would believe something whether it were true or not, then what exactly are we meaning by "belief?" What they're saying is, "I don't really believe this is true, but I believe it anyway."
This is incomprehensible to me. In fact, the whole "atheism isn't so scary" thing for me wasn't a matter of losing my faith. It wasn't a matter of ceasing to believe in certain things. It was the realization that I'd never truly believed them to begin with, and had just been pretending to because I liked the idea of certain explanations, or I thought maybe it'd be good if more people behaved as though they believed it.
Neither of these things were the same as really putting any stock in it, though, which is one reason I resisted having certain kinds of discussions about them. I knew that when push came to shove, I just didn't have faith. When push came to shove, I really did only believe things that had some truth-value behind them (though there were other things that I thought were "nice" beliefs, but this isn't the same as believing them). When push came to shove, I knew I'd end up an atheist eventually, when I was ready.
However, I wasn't ready. So... I avoided the shove, and toddled happily along pretending that I believed certain things because I liked the psychological taste and feel of them.
But I didn't believe the things I "believed in." People who really believe the things they believe seem to be a far rarer animal, and I wonder what the world would look like if all the people who didn't actually put stock in the familiar rituals and ideas that they perpetuate simply... stopped.
I think that sometimes religious systems couldn't survive without these functional non-believers. If everybody actually whole-heartedly believed what they were told--rather than simply seeing it as useful or pleasing--then there'd be nobody willing to change anything. From that perspective, would it really be such a good thing if the non-believers were more comfortable being non-believers? Would it really be such a good thing if people who didn't believe stopped finding reasons to keep pretending they did, both to themselves and others?
In the end, I think that those things which can be destroyed by the truth deserve to be, even if they're pretty, or warm, or would serve as an enticement to do good were they actually believed by anybody to be literally factually true.
I wouldn't ask somebody who's gay to pretend to themselves and others that they're straight so that they'll make better sleeper agents to create change within homophobic institutions. Should non-believers also be told that they should continue going through the motions of religious faith, just because their friendly attitude toward atheists makes those reason-phobic organizations less of a threat to the ones who're openly atheist?
I think that'd be a rather nasty thing to ask, don't you? Merely expressing the hope that some people will be less true to themselves because it increases their value to some larger movement pretty much makes the speaker an asshole. If religions can't survive without people pretending to believe, then fuck them. Let's all stop playing stupid games and be who the hell we are.
After all, if someone states that they would believe something whether it were true or not, then what exactly are we meaning by "belief?" What they're saying is, "I don't really believe this is true, but I believe it anyway."
This is incomprehensible to me. In fact, the whole "atheism isn't so scary" thing for me wasn't a matter of losing my faith. It wasn't a matter of ceasing to believe in certain things. It was the realization that I'd never truly believed them to begin with, and had just been pretending to because I liked the idea of certain explanations, or I thought maybe it'd be good if more people behaved as though they believed it.
Neither of these things were the same as really putting any stock in it, though, which is one reason I resisted having certain kinds of discussions about them. I knew that when push came to shove, I just didn't have faith. When push came to shove, I really did only believe things that had some truth-value behind them (though there were other things that I thought were "nice" beliefs, but this isn't the same as believing them). When push came to shove, I knew I'd end up an atheist eventually, when I was ready.
However, I wasn't ready. So... I avoided the shove, and toddled happily along pretending that I believed certain things because I liked the psychological taste and feel of them.
But I didn't believe the things I "believed in." People who really believe the things they believe seem to be a far rarer animal, and I wonder what the world would look like if all the people who didn't actually put stock in the familiar rituals and ideas that they perpetuate simply... stopped.
I think that sometimes religious systems couldn't survive without these functional non-believers. If everybody actually whole-heartedly believed what they were told--rather than simply seeing it as useful or pleasing--then there'd be nobody willing to change anything. From that perspective, would it really be such a good thing if the non-believers were more comfortable being non-believers? Would it really be such a good thing if people who didn't believe stopped finding reasons to keep pretending they did, both to themselves and others?
In the end, I think that those things which can be destroyed by the truth deserve to be, even if they're pretty, or warm, or would serve as an enticement to do good were they actually believed by anybody to be literally factually true.
I wouldn't ask somebody who's gay to pretend to themselves and others that they're straight so that they'll make better sleeper agents to create change within homophobic institutions. Should non-believers also be told that they should continue going through the motions of religious faith, just because their friendly attitude toward atheists makes those reason-phobic organizations less of a threat to the ones who're openly atheist?
I think that'd be a rather nasty thing to ask, don't you? Merely expressing the hope that some people will be less true to themselves because it increases their value to some larger movement pretty much makes the speaker an asshole. If religions can't survive without people pretending to believe, then fuck them. Let's all stop playing stupid games and be who the hell we are.
