?????Ridiculous Belief????? vs ?????Ridiculous to Believe?????

[_Some Schmo]

I acknowledge a difference between ridiculous beliefs and reasons to believe ridiculous things.

I have a friend who thinks his god belief got him off drugs and crime when he was younger, and feels it keeps him clean and law-abiding. Many times, I’ve heard people say things like, “what prevents an atheist from raping and killing with abandon?” To those people, I say, “If believing is all that’s keeping you moral, keep doing it.”

It seems to me many people use belief as a crutch. Crutches have a use. One would hope that eventually, your sprained ankle will heal and you won’t need the crutch any more, but if it hurts too much to walk without support, I suppose I understand using it to an extent.

I guess I have an issue with thinking the crutch is always necessary, and deciding never to walk on your own two feet. But hey, it doesn’t matter if your ankles are in perfect health; if you think you’re broken, better to have a crutch than to fall over.

In the end, I’m mostly critical of feeling like everyone should have a crutch, and I’m especially critical of beating others over the head with your crutch.

[_Cardinal Biggles]

Good insight. We can't expect that everyone out there has the fortitude to face the rather harsh reality head-on. Some people simply are not going to make it without having helpful fictions on which to lean. The masses, frankly, need their opiate.

[_Hoops]

So people who believe are both stupid and weak. Okay, got it.

[_Lucretia MacEvil]

So people who believe are both stupid and weak. Okay, got it.

Some of them are very good at sports, though :)

[_Rambo]

Yeah it is pretty weird thinking to me. I have some friends that are TBM and they said that they would be stealing things like crazy if they were not members. I was like when never leave the church then if it is preventing you from stealing. I don't need a church to tell me it is wrong to steal.

[_Hoops]

Some of them are very good at sports, though :)

They may claim so. But where's the evidence?



:)

[_Some Schmo]

Yeah it is pretty weird thinking to me. I have some friends that are TBM and they said that they would be stealing things like crazy if they were not members. I was like when never leave the church then if it is preventing you from stealing. I don't need a church to tell me it is wrong to steal.

It's a childish notion, for sure, to think that people only behave for fear of punishment. Kids often behave because they don't want to face the discipline of their parents or other adults. One would hope that by the time you become an adult, you exercise self discipline and do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, and not because you fear the retribution of an imagined god.

It's quite obvious to me why religious folks refer to themselves as children of god. It's always nice to see some of them grow up and leave their imagined cosmic daddy behind because they don't need him anymore.

[_Hoops]

Yeah it is pretty weird thinking to me. I have some friends that are TBM and they said that they would be stealing things like crazy if they were not members. I was like when never leave the church then if it is preventing you from stealing. I don't need a church to tell me it is wrong to steal.

Hence the significant and profound difference between Mormonism and mcism.

[_constantinople]

I acknowledge a difference between ridiculous beliefs and reasons to believe ridiculous things.

I have a friend who thinks his god belief got him off drugs and crime when he was younger, and feels it keeps him clean and law-abiding. Many times, I’ve heard people say things like, “what prevents an atheist from raping and killing with abandon?” To those people, I say, “If believing is all that’s keeping you moral, keep doing it.”

It seems to me many people use belief as a crutch. Crutches have a use. One would hope that eventually, your sprained ankle will heal and you won’t need the crutch any more, but if it hurts too much to walk without support, I suppose I understand using it to an extent.

I guess I have an issue with thinking the crutch is always necessary, and deciding never to walk on your own two feet. But hey, it doesn’t matter if your ankles are in perfect health; if you think you’re broken, better to have a crutch than to fall over.

In the end, I’m mostly critical of feeling like everyone should have a crutch, and I’m especially critical of beating others over the head with your crutch.

Does it really take that much processing power to understand that whether belief there is a God acts like a crutch or whether belief there is no God acts like a crutch depends on the individual? Sure, plenty of religious folk find comfort in the belief of an afterlife and that there is justice beyond what this world can mete out. There are also atheists who take comfort in the idea that that this life is all there is, that there is no God who will judge us, and that we have the freedom to live our lives as we choose without having to worry about the constraints of religious dogma. Do you really think that someone like Stalin or Pol Pot would have been overjoyed and comforted to discover that there is a God? Of course, you don’t have to be a mass murder to have a preference for there not being a God. Would you prefer the God of Christianity or Islam to actually exist? Or are you sufficiently comfortable with you current life and worldview that it would be too costly and painful to reorient yourself? The philosopher and atheist Thomas Nagel put it this way (emphasis added):

“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

Or take the famous convert from atheism to Christianity C.S. Lewis who was not initially pleased when he came to the conclusion that there was indeed a God:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen [Oxford], night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

I can respect an honest and thoughtful atheist who is willing to think through the implications of what they believe and are capable of some degree of self-reflection. I have less respect for the flippant atheism that seems to be increasingly common nowadays or the sort of atheist who is so insecure in their own worldview that they need to continually tell themselves how weak, stupid, and intellectually dishonest religious believers are.

[Guest]

Good insight. We can't expect that everyone out there has the fortitude to face the rather harsh reality head-on. Some people simply are not going to make it without having helpful fictions on which to lean. The masses, frankly, need their opiate.

“There’s probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life” – atheist ad on UK buses

So which is it? Does it take extraordinary courage to face the meaninglessness of it all and the finality of death? It may be unpleasant and even lead to despair, but the strong among us are able accept that’s just how the world is? Or does relinquishing belief in God allow one to be happy, carefree, and enjoy life to the fullest?