HARMS OF ENCOURAGING RELIGIOUS PEOPLE TO THINK THEIR RELIGION IS A COMFORT
Today it is recognised that the problem with religion is that it idolises faith.
Faith is a refusal to change your mind when new light and evidence comes up.
Faith is the one bad thing that all religions have in common though the content
varies. Faith is why religions that are polar opposites exist and even when
their doctrines are proven to be contrary to fact the religions still persist.
Opposition to truth is a high price to pay for the alleged comfort that comes
from pretending you know what you don't know. If anybody gets comfort from such
faith, the comfort is fragile for the faith is based on the desire to loosen
your grip on reality. It is not a virtue but a vice and vice feels good but
brings bad results. Pointing to the people faith supposedly comforts, means
nothing if faith causes passenger planes to be flown into skyscrapers or means
approving of the murders of homosexuals that God commanded in the Bible. The
comfort you get from faith in a loving God amounts for very little if you also
have great fear of demons and evil magical forces.
And what about the doubters? Are they suffering for they have tried God and it
didn’t work and now they are made to feel bad about it? What about people who
struggle to believe? Telling them that faith will help only makes it worse.
What about the heretical and doubting friends and family of a dying person who
has no faith? The message that faith comforts vulnerable people makes them feel
they are to blame if the person died an unhappy death. They will think they had
a bad influence.
If faith is good for you, your influence and example draw people to faith and
that could be bad for them.
If faith is so great for comforting the afflicted then your message of faith
blames those who say it didn't do much for them. You blame those who suffer
without faith for their suffering being made worse. Your insinuation and
therefore your faith is a disgrace. Are you getting comforted by faith or your
superior hypocritical attitude?
If faith comforts though it is not true that does not make it a good thing. It
says the truth should not comfort and does not comfort. It opposes truth.
Opposing truth opposes not only truth but people who work for the truth. It
undermines our right to get the chance to value the truth. Something being
comforting does not make it true. What it does make true is that it shows we
have the resources to make ourselves feel the best we can under the
circumstances and can therefore do without religious faith. It shows then that
there must be many ways to do that and faith in God need not be one of them.
Faith in religion is certainly not an option for doing it.
Using a doctor can be a sign of lack of faith in God. Faith in God that
whether God cures you or uses your suffering for a greater good for
you that is just as good. If faith comes first then it must
be a sin to go to the doctor then! Real faith means you do things you dread in
order to show and live a relationship with God. That is the "best" faith. You
might say that doubters still go to the doctor. But what about what the
principle says? What about that? You can't just ignore a principle.
Many religious pastors should not be allowed near sick or dying people. They may
refuse to bully the sick with their nasty doctrines but they still represent and
take responsibility for those doctrines. And many do bully. Christians have been
known to terrorize atheists and heretics who are on the deathbed. It is the
pastor's beliefs that should disqualify him or her not the actions for human
nature is often inconsistent and if you believe bad doctrines there is a
definite risk that you will oppress a dying person in the name of faith.
Most people believe you cannot try to correct the nonsensical or untrue faith of
a dying person. Some religions believe in doing just that. Born-again Christians
are notorious for it as were some Catholic "saints". But if the dying person has
been misled into depending on a faith that is wrong or implausible then there
are no words of disgust fitting for those responsible.
People want to believe that we have extra-sensory powers
and abilities and spiritual abilities for they think it rescues us from the
belief that we are simply passive which means we are controlled and treated like
a thing by everything else. Some say that unless you see you are not a mere
passive entity you are doomed to miss the meaning of life. People think there is
a difference between somebody claiming powers and somebody who is given the gift
of letting God have all the power and going along with his will. There is not.
The person is claiming the biggest power of all – the inner spiritual knowledge
that one should empower oneself by giving all power to God. That is not passive
at all. It is doing more to get rid of the feeling of not being in control
than casting forty spells a day all your life. There is no risk of it
backfiring when you tell yourself that all evil is only temporary and not so bad
in the big picture.
We conclude that those who are comforted by faith in God are comforted by
countless things many of which they will not be able to put their finger on.
Many lie about the religious comfort or exaggerate how important God is. The
comfort is not without its risks. And religion cherry-picks the evidence for
comfort in God - there is no mention of those whose agony and torment is made
worse by belief. The reality is that we can end up in very bad straits.
You don't need God or religion to try and hope for others if not yourself.
Good things happen to others and will happen when we are gone. Hope and work for
a better world will go on even if you never pray again or anybody does!
You see the reality, things change for the better here and there. And you
don't need hope for that. To the religionist that disagrees, "You seem to want
not faith so much as a placebo." His or her hope is artificial - they want
one hope too many for they are not content with the hope they have got.