We Believe What We Don't Want to Believe

[rowyn]

I was thinking about this topic a few days ago. People, perhaps especially Americans, are often accused of believing what suits their preferences. Some think that religious faiths are basically wish-fulfillment, believed not because evidence supports them, but because people want to think they are saved, that there's an afterlife, a Heaven, etc.

Of course, many early religions were appalling in what they did, and what they "promised" their worshippers. I remember having a conversation with Greywolf about why a basically good person might worship fundamentally evil gods. "He doesn't believe in this because he wants to. He believes because it's true." In his eyes, anyway. I expect for a lot of followers of cruel gods, it never occurred to them that belief was a choice. They would no more think "we don't have to worship these evil creatures" than we would think "if I jump off this roof, I won't fall to the ground."

And while I don't hold any religious convictions that I'm unhappy about, I do believe in a number of things that I'd just as soon be wrong about. For example, I'd be thrilled if it turned out that taking the profit motive away from pharmaceutical and medical developments didn't impact the rate at which new advances were made. If it happened that universal health care didn't create spiraling medical costs, decrease the overall qality of care, and bring medical technology to a standstill, I would be delighted. Obviously, I don't think that's the case. But I would be more than happy to be wrong about it.

I'm sure it would take decades of American intervention, in troops and dollars, to make a stable democracy out of Iraq. But if it miraculously happened by next summer, hey, I'd drink to being wrong in a heartbeat. If the Patriot Act prevents acts of terrorism without damaging civil liberties, I would take being wrong about it with absolute glee.

I think quite a lot of us believe in "harsh realities" that we don't want to be true. Some people become invested in being right, and they want to be right even if it means suffering and grief results. (Americans who opposed going to war against Iraq, and then rooted for American troops to be slaughtered, spring to mind). But I don't think most people are so enamored of being right that they'd rather get a bad outcome than be wrong.

But now I'm curious: what sorts of things do you hope you're wrong about?

Comments

Re: Quibble about the premisse

[rowyn]

I'm not so sure it's a case of believing things we don't want to be true; but being willing to believe something that has unpleasant consequences from the emotional reward that comes as these seperate positions knit together and make real cardinal beliefs and ideas.

So, is it better to be a member of the Church of Intolerance Because the Bible Says So than a member of the Church of What I Intended To Do Anyway? This seems like a no-win situation: if a person picks a religion that makes sense to him as it is, or opts not to believe because none of them do, then you can say "He's just doing whatever he wants and using religion (or lack thereof) as an excuse." But accepting that, say, "In Genesis, the Bible demonstrates that you're not supposed to use contraception, so any tolerance for that is pure accomodation" hardly seems appealing as the moral high ground.

Personal Churches

[ex-strangess744.livejournal.com]

Well, you are right that the strata of "believers" whom are ingesters of a belief and do not interact with it are even worse than the type I mention. However, there is that third strata who actually get involved in their faith and set themselves a moral system that they _know_ they will have a hard time with, because they want to have a part in making a world just a little less debased by human evil. The ones who take orthodoxy as a starting point but try to understand the currents of theological debate and align themselves with alternatives where they exist.

I could have just said "of course it's a Hobson's choice, did I mention I hate religion?" but that would have been cheap evasion of the substance of the question, namely is it possible to arrive truly moral behaviour by religious adherence of some sort ? I think it is, but the number of people who achieve this will be vanishingly small.

Because few people want to believe in something that makes them +by definition+ have to work for the right to believe themselves a good person. And most of those who do accept this difficult burden will only believe it if you beat it into them while young, and follow it like robots, rather than say, free inviduals...

Re: Personal Churches

[rowyn]

The trouble with making religion a Hobson's Choice in this fashion is that non-religion takes on the same overtones of self-indulgence. After all, if merely giving lip service to a Creator is bad, how much worse is it to assume one doesn't exist at all? Then you don't need to worry about moral restraints on behavior at all, right?

I also think that it's a bit silly to say "Better to be an Orthodox Jew than a Reform, or a Roman Catholic than a Unitarian" merely because the former faiths are older and more rigorous. If you want to prefer one because you think it's true, or more beneficial to mankind, that'd make sense.

But the way you put it reminds me of Pratchett's ultra-traditional dwarves, that treat the other dwarves badly and non-dwarves worse. "That must annoy the more liberal dwarves." "No, they respect them." "What, they want to be like that?" "No, but they think it's good that someone else is keeping up the old ways."

What's so good about the old ways that they ought to be kept up? What's so horrible about the new ways that they shouldn't exist?

I think there is a real and fundamental fallacy in saying "Because few people want to believe in something that makes them +by definition+ have to work for the right to believe themselves a good person". It implies that anyone who is "sacrificing" for their beliefs must be inherently better -- regardless of what they're sacrificing, or how much evil they're doing in the name of their religion.