Why Would You Care?
Imagine that your best friend has joined a small religious group that some call a cult.
Imagine that your Uncle has begun sacrificing baby animals to Zeus on a weekly basis.
Imagine that your wife starts taking month-long pilgrimages each year to pray to a holy rock.
Imagine that most of your family has moved to a village at the base of a volcano and has adopted the local belief that an angry god inside its cauldron must regularly be appeased with a portion of the town's harvest.
If any of these scenarios were real, why would you care? Other than the willing sacrifice of a little time and money, what is the harm of your friend and family's various beliefs? Your friend is still the funny, quirky guy that you've enjoyed hanging out with since grade school. Your uncle is still the wise mentor that you look up to. You wife still looks at you the way you look at her, with love and affection. And your family is still your family, just in another town. No one even attempts to convert you to their way of thinking.
Would you be an asshole for wanting to help "cure" your friends and family of their "delusions"?
Its a good question, and one I ask myself all the time.
What do you think?
Imagine that your Uncle has begun sacrificing baby animals to Zeus on a weekly basis.
Imagine that your wife starts taking month-long pilgrimages each year to pray to a holy rock.
Imagine that most of your family has moved to a village at the base of a volcano and has adopted the local belief that an angry god inside its cauldron must regularly be appeased with a portion of the town's harvest.
If any of these scenarios were real, why would you care? Other than the willing sacrifice of a little time and money, what is the harm of your friend and family's various beliefs? Your friend is still the funny, quirky guy that you've enjoyed hanging out with since grade school. Your uncle is still the wise mentor that you look up to. You wife still looks at you the way you look at her, with love and affection. And your family is still your family, just in another town. No one even attempts to convert you to their way of thinking.
Would you be an asshole for wanting to help "cure" your friends and family of their "delusions"?
Its a good question, and one I ask myself all the time.
What do you think?
posted by Josh at
10:09 AM
3 Comments:
That's a hard one. Personally, I would be angry and offended if a friend or family member tried to persuade me to believe (somehow thus insinuating that I had no right to not believe), so I can see how that would work the other way around. Then again, I don't associate with believers and that is not a coincidence. Though, it does just so happen that my family is not religious, which makes it easy for me. I'm not sure what I would do if they were believers.
I'm glad you can see things from both sides. You see the quandary (pardon the nerdy word)?
If we can get beyond the initial problem; which is possible sensitivities regarding any challenge to one's chosen beliefs, we then must ask whether we have a duty to preach the Truth, so to speak.
If everyone got along great and were completely open to discussing the reasons/foundations for their beliefs, the biggest problem would still exist, which is that very few people have the skill and knowledge set to communicate effectively what they believe and why, let alone debate the issue. So its kind of like, why bother?
The issues I'm interested in exploring further at a later date would be "A Duty to Truth?" and possibly "The Knowledge Problem of the Average Believer" (in other words, most people simply choose to believe despite the near absence of a worldly knowledge of religion, psychology, etc.
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