(January 5, 2015 at 10:52 am)Alex K Wrote:(January 5, 2015 at 10:49 am)Jacob(smooth) Wrote: Is religion always a bad thing?Probably not. Life is messy. In my ideal world it's always wrong and I therefore want nothing to do with it. But you can certainly cook up scenarios where people are better of with the placebo, at least for some time. The question is how highly you value knowing the truth over preventing suffering, for yourself and for others.
I have a good friend who had some self esteem issues stemming from the fact that her father was an abusive asshole. Believing that god loved her helped her. Most of us are going to be weak or vulnerable at some time in our lives. I can't fault someone for using whatever crutch they need to get through those times but it would be nice if they could throw the crutch away once they didn't need it any longer.
