When choosing my beliefs, I use a more important criterion than mere truth. I’d rather believe, quite simply, in whatever I need to believe in order to be happiest. I maximize utility, not truth.
Have you ever the experience of learning something true that you would rather not have learned? The only type of examples I can think of here (of the top of my head) would be finding out you had an unfaithful lover, or that you were really adopted. But in both case, it seems like the ‘unhappiness’ you get from learning it would pass and you’d be happy that you found out in the long wrong.
I’ve heard people say similar things about losing the belief in God—because it could lead to losing (or at least drifting away from) people you hold close, if their belief in God had been an import thing in their relationship to you.
Have you ever the experience of learning something true that you would rather not have learned?
Yes. Three times, in fact. Two of them are of roughly the same class as that one thing floating around, and the third is of a different class and far worse than the other two (involving life insurance and charity: you’ll find it if you look).
Have you ever the experience of learning something true that you would rather not have learned? The only type of examples I can think of here (of the top of my head) would be finding out you had an unfaithful lover, or that you were really adopted. But in both case, it seems like the ‘unhappiness’ you get from learning it would pass and you’d be happy that you found out in the long wrong.
I’ve heard people say similar things about losing the belief in God—because it could lead to losing (or at least drifting away from) people you hold close, if their belief in God had been an import thing in their relationship to you.
Yes. Three times, in fact. Two of them are of roughly the same class as that one thing floating around, and the third is of a different class and far worse than the other two (involving life insurance and charity: you’ll find it if you look).