Purposefully Deceiving Ourselves

The conclusion of my last post touched on this subject of purposefully deceiving oneself. I asked if Carl Sagan, by romanticizing the universe, is somehow deceiving himself about the true nature of things.

I believe that "significance" or "meaning" are 100% man-made creations-without us there would be no purpose or meaning or significance to speak of. I can't tell you what the true nature of something actually is, or how it ought to be thought of (I am of the opinion that in general, impressions or opinions ought to be withheld until a significant number of facts can produce proper understanding), but I can say with confidence that our mental world is largely a manufactured world, and even our sensory perception of things is seen through skewed emotional lenses.

There are at least a couple of ways we feel emotion. One, we can be affected directly, first hand, and automatically by a powerful emotional transmission from one person (art and performance), a group of people (concert, group think situations), or a production of some kind (like television). This is involuntary. Two, we quite naturally, based upon instinct and understood human behavior, react to events in our life (like our emotional responses to breaking up or getting in a fight or having fun--though "transmissions" of emotion can be powerful forces in these instances as well). These emotional responses are involuntary as well. ("involuntary" by no means means "unhealthy" or not necessary)

But there are other ways to feel, and one is to use the powerful symbolic tool of language to manufacture for ourselves a positive perception of something. Carl Sagan saw that the universe was vast, expanding, full of wonder, beyond our comprehension, beyond our experience, containing everything, and so forth. Thus, Sagan built an emotional spiderweb, a larger concept connecting all the emotions he learned to associate with words/symbols like "vast", "infinite", "everything", "wondrous", etc. Was it necessary that he come to this particular emotional conception of the universe? Certainly not. Others who were brought up in different circumstances might just as easily associate the universe with feelings of foreboding and fear such that they adopt any number of strategies to escape the unpleasant notions of vastness, mystery, and their tiny scale in relation to things.

What interests me is the promise of freedom and control represented by willfully defining concepts in a positive light. This is true intelligence. There's many ways we can be intelligent: memorization, wisdom, quick thinking, social tact, mathematical thinking, curiosity, etc. But when we, as individuals, learn to master our own emotions (not just suppression, which is rarely ideal, but enhancement) we will truly develop intellectually. And when we, as a society, abandon old concepts that are mentally and emotionally retarding and adopt new concepts that are liberating and joyful, then we can be proud of the progress we have made.

Carl Sagan chose to view the universe in a way that brought deep feeling and wonder to his heart; and with that choice, proved himself a modern, enlightened fellow.

Now how does this understanding of intelligent, willful conceptualization change our view of religious belief, if at all? Does it justify it or further condemn it?