Let's say you took the red pill and awoke to the 'truth' of the world. Is it your moral obligation to wake everyone else up? Even if the world they are waking to gives them little chance of survival, increased warfare, a reduced lifestyle and no hope of improvement in sight? What if there was no Zion, and ONLY Morpheus and his band were the only freed people? Do you still have an obligation to free others from the Matrix?
This question has a lot of obvious relevance if you believe that religion is a comforting lie: are you obligated to try to deconvert people or is it better to simply leave them alone? Naturally this is complicated by the fact that a person's religious beliefs affect more than just themselves -- every belief a person has comes with at least the potential to impact the world and people around them, and this is inevitable with important, organized systems like religions.
Just for the sake of argument, though, let's set aside the ways in which religion affects others and look solely at how religion impacts believers: do you have a greater obligation to enhance others' happiness by letting them live with comforting lies or a greater obligation to tell them the truth, regardless of the consequences to their happiness, peace of mind, etc. Add your thoughts to the comments here or join the ongoing discussion in the forum.
> This question has a lot of obvious relevance if you believe that religion is a comforting lie
This is the real crux of it, actually.
Religion offers comfort to only those people who have been distressed and crippled emotionally by religion. It’s not the case that we all are raised to deal with reality, and then we’re offered this choice to view things optimistically or pessimistically.
In the US, Christianity is our predominant religion. We begin early taking children to church even as infants where they learn the doctrine of salvation, which is based on the idea that they’re inherently worthy of only bad ends. Whether a Christian believes in a literal Hell or Original Sin or not, they still preach salvation. And salvation means salvation _from something_. If there is something I need to be saved from—then it is not something good—no matter how you try and paint it. Nobody needs to be rescued from nice things.
This means you have to take a normal, healthy, happy and human infant, and convince it that it’s so bad it doesn’t deserve to be with god in heaven. In fact, whatever the awful or undesirable thing is, that we all need to be saved from, that is what this infant deserves.
And why? Because it’s a normal human child. Being human is wrong and bad. The natural world is wrong and bad.
Obviously if I start my life with this as the main message I get from my mother, father–the people who should be helping me be a happy person with a sense of self-esteem–and the greater community they expose me to, I’m not going to begin life with anything like a healthy, happy, well-adjusted attitude.
Even if a Christian does not subscribe to original sin, if you ask them if a person can lead a normal human moral life and not “need salvation,” you’ll find that’s not possible. In other words, you’re either born with sin, or your born inherently bent toward sin in a way you can’t escape. You’re born F’ed up or born destined to inescapably F’up in the worst possible way (where you deserve the worst possible outcome–that you need to be saved from). You’re inherently flawed. You’re badly flawed. Just being human is unforgivable, and also your fault.
You don’t _deserve_ forgiveness. But god, in his infinite mercy has decided that by having people beat and murder a good man (because you forced him to do it; you’re guilty, bloodstained hands are to blame for all the suffering and evil in the world)—you could inherit the forgiveness and love and companionship god would have otherwise had to (somehow he had no power over this) withhold from you.
We had a Christian write in recently to say that we’d all be plagued by doubt and fear until we accepted Jesus. He says this because that’s what religion put in his head. He believes that if he strays from religion–he’ll be plagued by doubt and fear until he dies. How sad. And how _not_ comforting…?
I used to feel this way, and many de-programmed Christians relate to this as well and describe this same stress-filled indoctrination and message of “love.” They were told there were horrible repercussions if they don’t accept religion and do what they’re told–or if they mess up or aren’t acceptable. Then they stress out and worry that if they don’t accept this strange burden of “freedom,” their lives will be hell. And since they have been most likely raised by others who were only also raised to only be able to function in this messed up, fear-based, self-loathing environment where the only “peace” to be had is to subjugate your will to this religious organization’s doctrinal demands and teachings—they had no idea how to function without this fear and stress in a world without this religion’s “comfort.”
The reason the man who wrote to us thinks we all suffer so as atheist, is because he’s so indoctrinated with it, he can’t imagine really being free from it by breaking out–only by giving in. He can no more let it go than an abused child can stop feeling nervous whenever his dad rips off the belt from around his waist in the evening after a couple beers.
Meanwhile I recall a dying Christian I spoke to who told me that she was worried that she’d believed something wrong or done something wrong—that she hadn’t done exactly what she needed to do to get into Heaven. She was dying, still with this doubt and fear and stress that her religion was supposed to have freed her from. She was a good woman–a kind woman who never had a bad word toward anyone. But she was a scared woman as well. And in addition to infusing her with unshakable fear about a nonexistent god’s perfectionist judgment, it also stole from her any capacity to ever feel “sure” she was right with god—and hadn’t made some fatal misstep, even in her trying to be faithful. She understood if she followed a false teaching and been duped in some way, it was a horrid fate that awaited her.
Would it really have been “worse” if she’d have grown up with a doctrine that told her that it’s OK to be human and the natural world is sometimes nice and sometimes harsh? If she’d been taught that everyone makes mistakes, but it’s OK. That even if we make a mistake we can’t take back with serious consequences, all we can do is try our best to learn and do better? That we’re part of the human family and we need to rely on one another and help one another because we’re all we have and we’re here for one another? To be cautious, yet caring–but accepting of herself, as she is, not as some magical spirit will one day make her (and until then she’s just damaged goods)?
I’m sorry, but I fail to see this as a utopia of comfort. As Austin notes, you really need to ask yourself “if you believe that religion is a comforting lie.” I think when you talk to Christians who are active in their faith, they _claim_ they’re happy in their salvation. And I admit some likely are truly happy. But many of them express things that belie their true fears and stresses that are the result of indoctrination into religion.
I think religion begets far more day-to-day negativity than it “helps,” for most normal people, generally. When I was a Christian, I would not have agreed. But hindsight is very much 20-20. What I thought was “freedom” was absolute mental enslavement with never-resting “fear” ever guarding at the gate.
Spanking children, oppressing gays, condemning everyone for being a human being, telling everyone they need forgiveness for their faults, claiming we’re all responsible for a plan where some god thought it would be a loving idea to torture and slaughter a human sacrifice to himself as a means of appeasing his vengeful nature…?
Many Christians and ex-Christians who contact me today demonstrate this is not, by any means, an isolated Christian experience. But when we’re talking with people who say they worship a loving and merciful being they believe concocted a perfect plan to torture and kill an innocent person to atone for all the unforgivable sins of the rest of humanity, which are so beyond his capacity to overlook or conceivably embrace, such as eating shellfish, working on Saturday, or finding a stranger sexually appealing—we’ve simply got to acknowledge we’re not dealing with a healthy and well mind…?
From what I have read on sites such as FSTDT and others, it would seem that the “happy” Christian is also a myth. They seem to be totally miserable people, living only to wait until the time they are called “home”, by their god.
They hate the earth, life, other humans that aren’t “true” Christians, non-Christians or “sinners”. They hate gays, they hate Science, evolution. They know nothing about world historical fact because it isn’t in their holy book.
All in all, not comforted or helped at all by their beliefs.
I think many of them are bigots, as well. They can’t stand the idea of Obama as president because he’s a black man. How dare he be the president! That’s another reason for the “Birthers”, and other fringe groups trying to denigrate the president.
Many of them are hatefully militant for their “causes”. How loving is that? Some are downright evil. Of course this extends to most fundie types in most religions. No need to mention the all too familiar results of those kinds of religious hate crimes.
My conclusion? There may be some who are truly comforted by belief in a religion. Most are not. They would probably be much happier people without it. When you are told over and over again how worthless and evil you are, can you ever be a truly happy individual?
Life is beautiful.It always was,it is now and always will be.No god(s) are necessary.None need apply.
Religion does its best to make us feel unworthy and deserving of punishment.Why?What’s the point?