Through billions of years we have evolved to human beings. At some point we started to question the world. With the limited resources and knowledge, these questions turned out to be difficult to answer. Struck by the awe of nature humans where convinced that higher beings where the orchestrators of life. Looking back at al the different civilizations and the thousands of different gods, whom some have even originated unknowingly of eachother, it seems that religion is only a natural process in evolution.
It is said that without religion there would be no purpose. An argument often asserted by those religious against anti-theists or atheists. I find this claim meaningless. This doesn’t make the god claim any more true or probable. Many religious counter with the fact that its truth doesn’t matter. If it helps them in the struggle with life, what is there to complain?
False beliefs are dangerous. Something Socrates tried to make his peers aware of in ancient Greek. With the Socratic method he devised a way to find the truth behind ethical concepts. A method science and psychology have benefited from. The Greeks didn’t like his intrusive behavior. Questioning them and telling their beliefs were wrong. The Greeks reacted with rage (how ignorant). How dared he question our belief? How dared he question what we wanted to be the truth? Eventually the accumulated rage resulted in Socrates his death sentence.
Ignorance is the root of a lot of evil. If you believe that jumping of eleven-store buildings is a great and healthy way of living, quite soon you will die. You may even harm others in your convincement of this “truth”. In its core an ignorant belief will always result in bad decisions.
The absence of truth is very dangerous. If truth does not matter, then we can be persuaded to do things with great personal and societal implications, such as to use an ineffective treatment for HIV/AIDS or to go to war over weapons of mass destruction that do not exist. Equally we can deny the reality of the Holocaust or the evidence of global warming (Rogerdarlington.com).
All ignorant beliefs are bad and one should try to always assess and adjust their believes and follow the evidence. If tomorrow we find solid prove of the existence of a god, I would be the first to change my beliefs. But at the moment there is none. People are always somewhat biased and it is hard not to be. We should always strive for objectivity. We should accept that we only know little and that we may be wrong. If every human on earth managed to think in such a way, humans would come very close to being totally truthfull. Wouldn’t the world then be a better place?
Sometimes people are willfully ignorant as a self defense mechanism. So truths have the potential to make one question all their beliefs (which can be an unnerving and scary thing). I am not saying that it is right ... but I understand why some people are not willing to accept the truth.
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I can understand why people are ignorant sometimes, but that doesn't mean it is right. Maby the scary thing you are deliberatly avoiding isn't scary at all. In fact if you you think about it nothing is scary. Feeling scared is just an interpetation. It's subjective. When you manage to apply truth to all aspects in your life you manage to distant yourself from such emotions and become able to rationalize and get less struck by them.
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I agree that detachment is key to removing fear; however, detachment is probably one of the hardest things to achieve (ask any Buddhist). We all have irrational fear that is probably deeply rooted in us throughout our life. Most people are not self aware enough to recognize that their fears are irrational because they hardly even recognize that the main source of their discomfort is coming from their mind (or ego). While we understand this, the level of self awareness and self knowledge require to embrace this point of view is substantial. Most people just want to watch The Kardashians and chill, unfortunately.
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