I know some individuals that I believe would be worse off if they were to have a crisis of faith and lose their religion. And while I can’t be sure and have never run any tests to find out, I think that they really believe, not just with belief in belief. By the way, none of these are particularly intelligent people.
But I have a hard time imagining someone intelligent and rational who would be better off deceiving themself and gaining faith. Adopting a religion where you are allowed to fake it (like Risto suggests) would almost certainly be better. Sometimes I adopt foma to help me through the day, but I don’t take them seriously.
Of course, it’s easy to imagine situations where they would be better off mouthing faith, such as kidnap and interrogation by fundamentalist terrorists, or daily life in a lot of societies (past and present) where rationality is undervalued. But I don’t think that this is what you mean.
I know some individuals that I believe would be worse off if they were to have a crisis of faith and lose their religion. And while I can’t be sure and have never run any tests to find out, I think that they really believe, not just with belief in belief. By the way, none of these are particularly intelligent people.
But I have a hard time imagining someone intelligent and rational who would be better off deceiving themself and gaining faith. Adopting a religion where you are allowed to fake it (like Risto suggests) would almost certainly be better. Sometimes I adopt foma to help me through the day, but I don’t take them seriously.
Of course, it’s easy to imagine situations where they would be better off mouthing faith, such as kidnap and interrogation by fundamentalist terrorists, or daily life in a lot of societies (past and present) where rationality is undervalued. But I don’t think that this is what you mean.