Are some people truly better off believing?
May 20, 2015 at 4:13 pm
(This post was last modified: May 20, 2015 at 4:32 pm by Razzle.)
I hear some anti-theists say they think the world would be better with no theistic beliefs at all, including liberal theism, and that people who think they need it, just haven't learned alternative coping mechanisms which could fully replace it. I don't think I agree. There are some people I would prefer to keep their beliefs.
I went to a state-run Church of England school where hell was never mentioned. I only knew of the general notion through popular culture, namely cartoons that didn't take it seriously. But I did understand that it was a place many people believed was real. I assumed that the idea was that hell is where bad people go. At school they taught that Jesus died for our sins so that we could be forgiven and go to heaven (again, not mentioning the alternative), and I assumed that meant everyone who was a good person. I can't remember them ever specifying, so it sounded like they meant humanity in general, not just Christians. It wasn't until I read the New Testament as a teenager that I first found out that it could be interpreted as meaning all non-Christians go to hell, and I was shocked to go online and find out that this was historically the dominant Christian doctrine. It was a completely new concept to me.
Back to the time before that happened. I didn't have any other pro-Christian influence (my mum is an anti-theist and none of my other relatives gave any indication whether they believed in God or not), so as a child I never decided whether I believed it all, but nothing was presented that scared me, and it seemed like it would be quite nice if true. I loved many of the hymns, the ancient church they took us to was nice, colouring in the nativity scene was nice, etc. I enjoyed the culture.
I would go as far as to say that right now I wish I could believe it. Not because I want to go to heaven - I have no fear of non-existence - but for the hope that the suffering in the world that I can do nothing about will be compensated, and for the feelings I used to get when I imagined God being real and watching and making everything fair and alright in the end. Even though I never had any sense of certainty, I still got the feelings. For this reason I can't imagine I would share what I know about the history and content of the Bible or Quran with certain types of people. For an extreme example to illustrate the point, if I meet a homeless person fresh from a psychiatric hospital who is covering scars on their arms with Jesus wristbands, I won't entertain the idea of taking that away from them.
I do think there is a legitimate concern that liberal theists can raise children who disagree with their parents' Pick-&-Mix Christianity/Judaism/Islam/whatever, and become moderates or fundamentalists with views that can harm themselves or others (especially any gay children of their own that they have, because even moderates can do great harm to gay children). I think the way around that, is to ensure that liberal theists are taught the history of their scriptures - short of enough for them to dismiss the whole thing - so that they can adopt the the view popular among textual scholars who are believers, that scripture was written by people who were just trying to make sense of their own or second-hand revelations from God, and often got it wrong and injected cultural beliefs. That allows them complete freedom to reject whichever parts they want to reject as just an opinion, or as true stories about tribal leaders PRETENDING God ordered them to do bad things. They will then pass that knowledge on to their own children, who will become either become liberal theists or non-believers. Which is harmless, in my opinion.
Agree/disagree? Under what circumstances, if any, might you prefer that someone maintain their theistic beliefs?
I went to a state-run Church of England school where hell was never mentioned. I only knew of the general notion through popular culture, namely cartoons that didn't take it seriously. But I did understand that it was a place many people believed was real. I assumed that the idea was that hell is where bad people go. At school they taught that Jesus died for our sins so that we could be forgiven and go to heaven (again, not mentioning the alternative), and I assumed that meant everyone who was a good person. I can't remember them ever specifying, so it sounded like they meant humanity in general, not just Christians. It wasn't until I read the New Testament as a teenager that I first found out that it could be interpreted as meaning all non-Christians go to hell, and I was shocked to go online and find out that this was historically the dominant Christian doctrine. It was a completely new concept to me.
Back to the time before that happened. I didn't have any other pro-Christian influence (my mum is an anti-theist and none of my other relatives gave any indication whether they believed in God or not), so as a child I never decided whether I believed it all, but nothing was presented that scared me, and it seemed like it would be quite nice if true. I loved many of the hymns, the ancient church they took us to was nice, colouring in the nativity scene was nice, etc. I enjoyed the culture.
I would go as far as to say that right now I wish I could believe it. Not because I want to go to heaven - I have no fear of non-existence - but for the hope that the suffering in the world that I can do nothing about will be compensated, and for the feelings I used to get when I imagined God being real and watching and making everything fair and alright in the end. Even though I never had any sense of certainty, I still got the feelings. For this reason I can't imagine I would share what I know about the history and content of the Bible or Quran with certain types of people. For an extreme example to illustrate the point, if I meet a homeless person fresh from a psychiatric hospital who is covering scars on their arms with Jesus wristbands, I won't entertain the idea of taking that away from them.
I do think there is a legitimate concern that liberal theists can raise children who disagree with their parents' Pick-&-Mix Christianity/Judaism/Islam/whatever, and become moderates or fundamentalists with views that can harm themselves or others (especially any gay children of their own that they have, because even moderates can do great harm to gay children). I think the way around that, is to ensure that liberal theists are taught the history of their scriptures - short of enough for them to dismiss the whole thing - so that they can adopt the the view popular among textual scholars who are believers, that scripture was written by people who were just trying to make sense of their own or second-hand revelations from God, and often got it wrong and injected cultural beliefs. That allows them complete freedom to reject whichever parts they want to reject as just an opinion, or as true stories about tribal leaders PRETENDING God ordered them to do bad things. They will then pass that knowledge on to their own children, who will become either become liberal theists or non-believers. Which is harmless, in my opinion.
Agree/disagree? Under what circumstances, if any, might you prefer that someone maintain their theistic beliefs?
"Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water. You don't grab hold of the water when you swim, because if you do you will become stiff and tight in the water, and sink. You have to relax, and the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging, and holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be."
Alan Watts
Alan Watts
