Are some people truly better off believing?

[Razzle]

I think the value of anything, including truth, is determined by its effect on well-being. That's what 'value' is - a measurement of how something makes us feel. Usually, knowing the truth about things helps us effectively manipulate the world to promote positive emotional states and reduce negative ones, but occasionally, a particular person believing something false will do that instead.

That can't be right.  The value to you might be what best enhances your well-being.  But the desire for the truth is also about wanting to live in the real world, to accept life on its own terms.  Not all of us would choose to take the pill which allows us to stay asleep to the real world.

"Wanting" truth and "desire for" truth are just different ways of stating the fact that the idea of truth enhances your well-being when you think about it. I.e. thinking about it makes you feel better than thinking about the alternative. That's all it means when we say we "value" something higher than something else. Whether you would rather yourself or others know the harsh truth or a comforting lie comes down to how the feelings you get from each of those concepts measure up.

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There are still certain things I want to do very much, but can''t and might never be able to again, like activism, volunteering for the homeless, watching the news or reading a newspaper, or even following freely the kind of Twitter accounts I'd like to follow. 

Why can't you do those things?

This:

Avoidance of potential OCD triggers

I've never said that people can't get some sort of personal happiness from religion. I've only stated that those ideas aren't in any way substantiated.  And I for one would rather focus on real, effective ways of helping you (and the bigger thing, the many more people in the future that might experience something similar) instead of putting a religious finger in the dyke.

I completely agree. I'm just acknowledging as fact that sometimes a finger in the dyke is all someone has and we can't provide effective alternatives. Those incarcerated long-term without access to education, hobbies, music or even physical safety and medical care, for example. Why take away their gods while you have nothing else to offer?

[dahrling]

That can't be right.  The value to you might be what best enhances your well-being.  But the desire for the truth is also about wanting to live in the real world, to accept life on its own terms.  Not all of us would choose to take the pill which allows us to stay asleep to the real world.

"Wanting" truth and "desire for" truth are just different ways of stating the fact that the idea of truth enhances your well-being when you think about it. I.e. thinking about it makes you feel better than thinking about the alternative. That's all it means when we say we "value" something higher than something else. Whether you would rather yourself or others know the harsh truth or a comforting lie comes down to how the feelings you get from each of those concepts measure up.

 
I can only speak for myself, but for a period of time my belief in god was very real to me. It felt true. 
I believed in all of it, and the comfort it provided me was more than enough reason for me to shun out the truth I now believe in (that the Earth is billions of years old, that we evolved through natural selection...). 
I can say I had something akin to out of body experiences at times, where I felt this absurd joy fill me up that I still can't explain, but I think it had to do with the fact I believed this immortal, eternal, loving being cared for me and that everything would not only be alright, but that I'd be rewarded for all the pain I had to fight through. It made me feel whole.

Eventually, I outgrew it. No one else in my family has, and while I do find it very sad that they need to believe in a god to feel validated, special, and loved, I also understand how people like my grandmother would find themselves in great emotional pain if they didn't believe all the suffering they have gone through in this life has a "higher purpose", she wants to believe in an eternal life filled with joy.
I don't even try to "deconvert" her, and I avoid talking about religion as much as I can now. I love her, I love my entire family, and if they're happier believing in something I don't believe in, I have no right to criticize them for it, unless if they try to shove their creed down people's throats, but they don't. They don't preach hate, or even the existence of hell, they just want something that can provide them with a simple explanation for the things they don't understand. 
So I guess that means I do believe some people are truly better off having faith in god, just not most people, and not in the way most people believe.

[Saxmoof]

I had a distant relative who was religious, she never mentioned it, the closest she ever got was saying something like, "everything happens for a reason" and even then i would have to resist the temptation to say, "oh yeah? what about cot death? huh? huh?"

My atheism comes from wanting to snap people out of delusions and group-think, I don't think it's right to do this when the delusion is harmless though, maybe if something bad happened to my relative and she could do something about it but instead consoled herself with that "everything happens for a reason" mantra, then I would try and change her mind.

I could imagine religion that is harmless, the Church of England comes quite close to that imo, but it says a lot that about the nature of religious belief as a whole that for it to be acceptable there's so much you need to strip away and water down. I suppose it comes down to whether those people who just get a basic level of comfort like my relative are responsible for the perpetuation of the more harmful religious ideas, does the strength in numbers they give religion lend credence to the arguments of the bigots, zealots, end times fanatics and flat earthers? Is there not a way they could derive comfort from something other than organised religion?

[nihilistcat]

Keep in mind, any thought experiment in this regard invariably has to deal with the fact that in the initial phases of transition to a less theistic culture, many who abruptly move to a less theistic belief system, will feel a sense of nihilism. So for at least the first generation, the consequences of abandoning theism will be unpredictable and most likely volatile.

Absolutely. It's not a good idea to take something like religion away from people who feel lost without it unless you can offer them something to replace it with. Obviously, a science-based worldview works for all of us but I think it's wrong to assume it will work for everybody. We just need to move away from dogmatism because of the negative effects it has on society. We don't need to get rid of religion entirely.

I sort of feel like until science can say we have a cure for human aging and death, religion will continue to exist. I'm in a minority among my fellow biologists in that I believe aging should be approached as a disease to be treated (not an inevitable outcome that we accept as a foregone conclusion). 

[Pyrrho]

I sort of feel like until science can say we have a cure for human aging and death, religion will continue to exist. I'm in a minority among my fellow biologists in that I believe aging should be approached as a disease to be treated (not an inevitable outcome that we accept as a foregone conclusion). 

Unless someone comes up with a cure, it is inevitable.

[nihilistcat]

I sort of feel like until science can say we have a cure for human aging and death, religion will continue to exist. I'm in a minority among my fellow biologists in that I believe aging should be approached as a disease to be treated (not an inevitable outcome that we accept as a foregone conclusion). 

Unless someone comes up with a cure, it is inevitable.

Well yeah, but what if science treated I don't know death from small pox or polio infection as an unstoppable killer, treating as a foregone conclusion the idea that it can't be treated? So a shift in perspective is important in this context ... at least in my view. 

[Brian37]

Are we better off knowing the earth is not flat? Yes. Are we better off without slavery which is not condemned by holy books but sanctioned it? Yes.

The only argument one can make is that emotionally some humans cant stand the thought that they are not the center of the universe, and that by believing it keeps them from going nuts. But that is not "better off" as far as knowledge. It is "better off" for the rest of humanity not to take the baby rattle from the brat who refuses to grow up.

So it is not either or, but it depends. We cant live in fear of change, and challenge to religion has always been where progress has been made.

[Razzle]

Absolutely. It's not a good idea to take something like religion away from people who feel lost without it unless you can offer them something to replace it with. Obviously, a science-based worldview works for all of us but I think it's wrong to assume it will work for everybody. We just need to move away from dogmatism because of the negative effects it has on society. We don't need to get rid of religion entirely.

I sort of feel like until science can say we have a cure for human aging and death, religion will continue to exist. I'm in a minority among my fellow biologists in that I believe aging should be approached as a disease to be treated (not an inevitable outcome that we accept as a foregone conclusion). 

When I was a child, about seven, I used to worry about the fact that I'd one day die and not exist anymore, and I comforted myself by telling myself that I'd somehow find a way to live forever. I now know that was the wrong goal. A much better solution to the anxiety was to stop fearing non-existence in the first place. I didn't set out to lose that fear, it just happened as a natural consequence of having the altered sense of time and self experience that non-dual philosophers, including Buddhists and Western secular philosophers, talk about. 

Ever since I realised that a continuous "self" having all of these experience was an illusion, and that "I" am only ever this moment of consciousness, with a new, separate instant of consciousness dying and being born every waking moment from this biological process called a functioning brain (not a true entity lasting over time either, just one of the universe's patterns of matter and energy), then fearing this particular brain ending one day seems just as silly as fearing that of a complete stranger ending one day. I don't fear the deaths of the thousands of people dying every day who I know nothing about. In exactly the same way, why fear the death of the brain generating this moment of consciousness right now (me) when the consciousness it generates at the time it dies will NOT be me? The person that dies is a stranger to the person who was born, and to the person who feared death in the years, months and minutes before it happens. A mere genetic clone. When the brain dies, it's no different to what happens every moment of consciousness in life, i.e. one moment later, that person is gone, dead. New consciousness that happens to be aware of very similar memories and perceptions but is NOT the same consciousness, just a clone that has the illusion of having been there to experience the events it has memories of.

Losing the normal illusion of the nature of self at least once is beneficial, and even better is honing the ability to...FAIRLY easily slip back into that state of consciousness at will, in which there is no emotional anticipation of the future because "I" won't exist in it just as "I" didn't exist a moment ago. I still experience anxiety, due to OCD, but only ever of a "what if [my intense philosophical fear about the true nature of humanity] is true" kind of anxiety. Never about the future. I could never develop an OCD fear about germs or anything like that anymore, because they involve fearing future consequences. The only source of obsessive anxiety to me now is my intense emotional reaction to "timeless" ideas that aren't tied to the future. When those thoughts cause me to think about suicide, getting back into that state of consciousness stops me, because again, "i" won't be suffering in the future, it will be someone else with the same genes, personality and some of the same memories, that's all. Suicide for me now would only be an act of compassion for the conscious moments this brain will generate in the future, and because it wouldn't be compassionate act until relatives are all dead, that probably won't happen for quite a number of years.

I don't know if that is clear at all, but the details don't really matter, the point is that losing the irrational fear of death (whether by believing what I tried to explain above, or less controversial ideas like "I won't be around to know I'm dead or miss being alive", and "The billions of years before I was conscious weren't so bad"), is better than a pipe-dream of immortality.

[vorlon13]

In the 12 Step orbit it is generally (but not universally) better if the alcoholic/addict does not attribute success in their continued abstinence to themselves. If/when they do, there is a general (but not universal) tendency to form the destructive idea that since they are developing control over their addiction, they can resume using their drug of choice, and this time, be able to control their usage.

As it turns out, that doesn't work.

So, we have the necessary fiction of a Higher Power, and if not for the serious life/death consequences of addiction, it would be humorous to go over some of the wacky Higher Power concepts I have heard over the years.

[The Grand Nudger]

Any person that truly believes themselves to be a fallen creature that would be out shitting in peoples wells and plucking live chickens can just go ahead and continue to self-medicate.   

(sounds like a useful fiction, btw, Vorlorn..not a necessary one - and I bet that shit is still funny, regardless of the situation.  I couldn't keep it together if I heard an earnest addict thank the FSM - far too gigglesome for me.)