This is fascinating. When I look back at the thought patterns of my younger self, I can see so much of this belief-in-belief. Despite being raised religious, I came to an agnostic conclusion at around age ten, and it terrified me, because I very much wanted to believe. To my mind, people with faith had a far greater sense of morality than those without, and I didn’t want to fall into that latter category.
So I proceeded as if I believed, and eventually came to make justifications along the lines of ‘ritual X accomplishes outcome Y’ where Y was something psychologically valuable, for example a sense of community. That made X a good idea even if I didn’t truly believe the theology involved.
When I was first told I had a second-order relationship to my belief, I was very insulted. It was as if I’d defined a good person as a religious one, and by challenging my belief that person was challenging my intrinsic worth (despite the fact that they were an atheist themselves and clearly thought nothing of the sort.) Cognitive distortion at its finest.
It took a profound shift in my thinking about the role of religion in morality before I could accept that it was alright not to believe. The rest followed nicely.
As for Santa Claus? I pretended I believed (despite knowing the absolute impossibility of it being true) for three whole years. The idea that there was such a great conspiracy that every adult seemed to be complicit in really worried me, at six years old, and made me afraid to speak the truth. I knew they wanted me to believe, so I let them think I did.
If I ever have children of my own, needless to say, Santa will be introduced as an enjoyable fiction and nothing more.
This is fascinating. When I look back at the thought patterns of my younger self, I can see so much of this belief-in-belief. Despite being raised religious, I came to an agnostic conclusion at around age ten, and it terrified me, because I very much wanted to believe. To my mind, people with faith had a far greater sense of morality than those without, and I didn’t want to fall into that latter category.
So I proceeded as if I believed, and eventually came to make justifications along the lines of ‘ritual X accomplishes outcome Y’ where Y was something psychologically valuable, for example a sense of community. That made X a good idea even if I didn’t truly believe the theology involved.
When I was first told I had a second-order relationship to my belief, I was very insulted. It was as if I’d defined a good person as a religious one, and by challenging my belief that person was challenging my intrinsic worth (despite the fact that they were an atheist themselves and clearly thought nothing of the sort.) Cognitive distortion at its finest.
It took a profound shift in my thinking about the role of religion in morality before I could accept that it was alright not to believe. The rest followed nicely.
As for Santa Claus? I pretended I believed (despite knowing the absolute impossibility of it being true) for three whole years. The idea that there was such a great conspiracy that every adult seemed to be complicit in really worried me, at six years old, and made me afraid to speak the truth. I knew they wanted me to believe, so I let them think I did.
If I ever have children of my own, needless to say, Santa will be introduced as an enjoyable fiction and nothing more.