Is [Religious] self-Deceit is a form of intelligence?

Great Debates
1

This may be borderline trolling so I apologise in advance for any offence that I might cause.

I have been trying to reconcile how stupid the idea of an almighty god is with how many (otherwise?) intelligent people who believe in it.

I’ve suddenly realised, their believe in god brings real-world benefits to them in terms of hopefulness and purpose, their belief in a falsehood makes their lifes better.

I have tried really hard to believe in God, but it’s too difficult to accept something so irrational. Could it be that the religious have the abilty to deceive themselves in order to accept something beneficial. In other words, is self-deceit smart in certain circumstances?

2

It’s more likely that they don’t believe in God any more than you do, but figure you’re dumb enough to fall for the act. They’re not deceiving themselves, they’re deceiving you.

3

Believing nonsense can comfort individual persons. I’d certainly like to believe that I’ll see a close friend that died in high school again. But while deluding yourself to believe in religious stuff can make you feel better, it doesn’t actually treat the problem. I’d say it is like an opiate. It kills the pain but turns your life into shit in the process.

Never mind that religion is a negative force in society. Look at the current crop of Republicans. Science-denying, abstinence educating, bible-thumping loons.

4

Believing in something false may sometimes be beneficial, but it will also sometimes be harmful. The only way to evaluate if the benefits outweigh the risks is to not deceive yourself.

Here’s a related blog post: http://lesswrong.com/lw/je/doublethink_choosing_to_be_biased/

5

There’s other forms of self-deceit though, I have a pipe-dream which gives me the strength to finish school. I know I’ll be unlikely to bring it to fruition, but it at least gives me the strength that I need to make myself better day by day.

6

Without ambition we’d be living as hunter-gatherers. I’m all for ambition. But your* pipe-dream*, even if it is truly unattainable, doesn’t have a group of politicians trying to ruin America in its name.

And your self-deceit drives you to better yourself. A religious person’s self-deceit drives them to stop asking questions. To not live the life they want to live. To put off the one life they really get for the joys of the pretend life they won’t.

7

I recently went through therapy for depression. My therapist had me read a pop-psychology book whose actual usefulness was minimal, but it did bring up some interesting points. Among the points that were brought up was the statement that people who have an unrealistic world-view (believing themselves to be smarter, more charismatic, etc than they really are) tend to be happier than people who are capable of assessing things truthfully and objectively. The author then mentioned the sort of worrying question: should a therapist try to get people to believe in delusions in order to make them happier?

That question was left unanswered, but then the book started to mention A.A.'s philosophy of “you can’t stop being an alcoholic unless you believe in something greater than yourself” by which they mean God, though you get to choose any God, god, or gods that you like. :rolleyes:

So, basically, yes, self-deceit is useful in the sense that it provides happiness. However, if you are a person who finds self-deceit difficult, then you don’t have this option.

8

I take it the other side of that coin was also a worrying question for the author? Namely: should a therapist try to get people to stop having said delusions?

9

Intelligence is no guard against believing irrational things. Think of Einstein and the cosmological constant, Newton and alchemy, Conan-Doyle and fairies…etc, etc.
We are all human and are hard-wired in a way that leaves us open to believing some strange stuff, (and similarly, just as we are hard-wired to be social animals)

For many people religion is exactly what you suggest, a comfort, a pleasing thought, a shared cultural experience or a extended family. Nothing more than that. And as long as they don’t check-in that basic human empathy at the church door, who I am I to complain?

Yes, I think their beliefs are bullshit. No, I don’t think they can back up any material claims for their chosen deities…but equally, no, I don’t think they are stupid, but yes, I think their beliefs are.
But hey, whatever gets you though the night. If what you believe remains personal and out of the public sphere then you’ll have no quarrel with me.

10

Sort of like all the aggressive atheists who believe themselves smarter, more charismatic, etc. than those who happen to believe in a divine being. :stuck_out_tongue:

11

I don’t know any that think atheism makes you charismatic. And basing your reasoning on reality does make you “smarter”, in practical terms if not in pure intelligence.

12

Oh, the irony! Thanks, Tom. Well said.

13

Der Trihs, I suppose that everyone, even a mad man, believes that he bases his accessment of things on reality. Neither you nor I are exceptions to that. But neither of us has the supreme gift of knowing that we are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT or that the other is ABSOLUTELY WRONG. If you aren’t aware that we have this in common, do correct me.

14

Ah, yes…The “Absolute” dodge. Claiming that if you can’t be absolutely right than what you contend is on equal footing with what anyone else is contending, ignoring observed rules and past history. The thing is nobody, and I mean nobody, really believes this, otherwise they would be afraid to get out of bed in the morning because they absolutely couldn’t be sure that an escape ax murderer isn’t hiding under their bed waiting for them to put feet to floor. I mean, are you absolutely sure it can’t happen?

edited to add: “The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.” ~Damon Runyon

15

I’m not sure I’m a happier person since I stopped deceiving myself about my beliefs in a god, but I’m definitely a better one and that, in turn, seems to make me happy.

I don’t know if self-deceit is that common amongst the religious, but I know that I engaged in it pretty extensively.

16

What he said. This “you can’t be absolutely sure therefore it’s just as reasonable to be religious as not” is just ridiculous. As you say, it’s not a standard that gets used except when trying to fend off skeptics. Somehow I doubt Zoe would say the same thing in the defense of someone who believed in Santa Claus, and probably not even to defend some old time god like Anubis or Anu.

I put the chance of the Judeo-Christian* God being real as somewhat less likely than Bugs Bunny being real, personally - the claims made about Bugs are less extreme.

  • And the generic specifics-free God that conveniently doesn’t have any connection to existing religions? That too is something virtually no one (including the ones who bring it up) actually believes in and is brought up only in arguments like this one.
17

No, you are twisting what I said. We are alike in that neither of us knows absolutely. That doesn’t put us on an equal footing. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. Meanwhile, I maintain my respect for science.

As for observed rules, are you saying that we know all that we need to know about the rules? Do we know all of relevant past history?

Der Trihs, skeptics keep open minds. Your parallel examples of Santa Claus and Bugs Bunny show a lapse in understanding. I would not compare the scientific method with dissecting a stuffed bunny. I have great respect for the scientific method. It is my thinking that the more that we learn through science, the more that possibilities of “the Great Cosmic Glue” (as I think of God) will arise.

Of course, if you already understand all of science and where it’s going…

Meanwhile, I still find a spirtual quality in the fractal nature of a forest. Untouched, it follows in the patterns of its tree growth, the designs of the trees themselves. And each branch follows the design of the tree. I don’t offer this as evidence. I’m speaking personally.

I see a spiritual quality in a person who is born knowing that she or he is of one gender but in the inappropriate body.

I see a spiritual quality in a book by a scientist who writes about her own experiences with having a stroke. (She is a doctor who is a brain specialist.)

I see a spiritual quality in an arctic squirrel that hybernates with its blood at a temperature that is below -O degrees Centigrade – and in animals whose brains become “brain dead” while they hybernate. Maybe you have a block about what “spiritual” means to different people.

Spiritual qualities are not illogical. If they were, you wouldn’t find many scientists who had spiritual sides. But I don’t think that most arrive at an appreciation of the spiritual through logic. Get out of your mind the image of fundamentalist, hell-fire and damnation scientists. If you continue to ignore the intellects among the religious, you will never see a full picture.

18

And how did you learn what other people believe in their minds? You cannot know that, Der Trihs. No offense, but you are not all-knowing. Your idea of what my God is is too small.

19

And this is where you make a sharp turn off the path of science-science is not a means to a predetermined end.

20

I’ve wanted, desired even, to believe in God the way my parents, my wife and even my closest of friends seemed to. I can’t say they were tricking themselves. Some, maybe. I think I detected cracks in my Dad’s faith. But being raised Pentecostal was like being raised in a circus, when you can’t stand clowns, but are expected to become one. And the smell of elephant shit was overwhelming, as everyone went about pretending things smelled of roses.

By the time I was a teen, I was in serious denial. Oh, how we can deceive ourselves for the sake of others. Shit, I met my wife at church. And even then, in my early 20s, I wasn’t really religious as much as I was trying not to look in the mirror and accept it was all an act. It is an incredibly painful, deep and long journey to get myself to where I am today.

I don’t regret those years, because I learned, first-hand for myself, how powerful denial or “tricking yourself” can be. Not only that, but the particular faith I was raised in, is self-reenforcing. That is to say, the more you try to examine your real, true beliefs, the doubt that will ping around in any self-respecting, of-average-intelligent human being, the more your given faith tells you you’re being deceived by “the Enemy” (read: Satan!!!).

So, it’s a mind-fuck. It really is. I made it out of the church, and was able to hold my family together, by the skin of my teeth. The rest of my family has gone ‘all-in’ with this brand of faith. I can’t begrudge them that, as it did give you hope. Who doesn’t want to believe we’re all immortal spirits, who will live eternally in a utopian afterlife, forever? Who believe there is some divine Father, looking down on you – taking care of you. It seems to beat the fuck out of non-existence and general suffering. Or does it?

I also feel, that more people than not, are so stubborn or ignorant, as to just take other people’s ideology and dogma, and not think for themselves, because that takes critical thinking and… um… stuff. There’s some truth to living a Christian lifestyle. But the BS far outweighs the wisdom. And for that, I had to bow out, and accept I’m a huge, mutherfucking doubter, agnostic, atheist, whatever label you want to pin on me, I don’t care. All I know is what I’ve been shown, and I’ve seen some things, some ugly things, that just doesn’t add up in the theological sense.

After 30+ years of that BS, I said my goodbyes, and don’t expect to ever look back. People who can’t be honest about themselves lack wisdom. Take that for what it’s worth.