A Possible Benefit of Faith (In Certain Situations): Happiness

[Prodigy54321]

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but anyway, you need to consider that faith can make people happier and doesn't neccesarily cause problems.


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this comment by chez got me thinking...

first, let's assume that we are trying to maximize happiness..not that it is a "goal" of mankind or anything /images/graemlins/wink.gif

let's consider Mary..her mother is terminally ill. Mary believes (due to faith) that when her mother dies, she will live on in some after life...

note that it doesn't matter if evidence supports this conclusion or not..it is ONLY important that this conclusion DOES NOT influence decisions that could harm herself or others in any way (I would say that this cannot be true of any belief, but that's just me)

just like many people, Mary's conclusion that her mother will live on gives Mary Happiness.

if this belief is in no way harmful and does not affect any decisions which may be harmful, (and does not support faith in the context of decisions which may be harmful), then there seems to be a positive benefit of having faith in this conclusion...

a few questions though...

Consider indifference to the matter...Is Mary happier with respect to indefference toward the matter...or is it that she is made unhappier by believing anything else, and believing in her conclusion (that her mother will live on) only brings her up to the happiness of indifference?

it seems that, no matter how we look at it, the happiness of indifference CANNOT be higher than the happiness of believing in her conclusion..

whether it is equal or higher is the issue..

it being higher would seem to demand that she believe in the faith based conclusion (again, it can also be against the evidence, as long as it does not affect decisions.)

however, can believing in what the evidence suggests, yield the same, if not a higher level of happiness??

if person A believes that their mother will live on in the after life, and person B believes that their mother will no live on in the afterlife, and they both claim to be content with their conclusions, is there any saying which person is made happier by their conclusion?

I would say that we must consider it as equal...

my conclusion is that, in a situation like the one I have desribed (athough it may be unlikely since again, I believe that all beliefs influence dicisions at least to some degree)...there is NO harmful effect (there is a positive effect) of having faith in the conclusion that the person is made most happy by.

I cannot see why this would change when considering the happiness of more than just the belief-holder caused by faith..unless of course simply knowing that people believe something could make you unhappy (which I guess is possible, but I'm not going to deal with that)...

*I know I write like a moran (using far too many ellipses and no coherent paragraphs) and tend to ramble...deal with it /images/graemlins/smile.gif*

[luckyme]

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my conclusion is that, in a situation like the one I have desribed (athough it may be unlikely since again, I believe that all beliefs influence dicisions at least to some degree)...there is NO harmful effect (there is a positive effect) of having faith in the conclusion that the person is made most happy by.


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I would have reversed the bolding. I'm trying to see if chez's 'what would they want' view from an earlier thread applies here.
Say a person has faith in an outcome and that makes them happy ( because they do believe it), and they find out that I have the absolute answer on whether their belief is true or not. Would they ask me, or want to ask me, or not want to really know?
If they decide not to ask, would they be as happy now as before they knew I had the truth for them if they want it?

luckyme

[madnak]

People may ask to know something without really wanting to know.

[guesswest]

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Say a person has faith in an outcome and that makes them happy ( because they do believe it), and they find out that I have the absolute answer on whether their belief is true or not. Would they ask me, or want to ask me, or not want to really know?

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If someone legitimately has faith in something, this issue is a non-issue. They believe they already do know, that's what having faith is - so such an individual will not care whether you tell them the truth or not, because it wouldn't cross their mind that this truth would contradict what they already believe. I believe the world is round, and if someone in a position to absolutely know the shape of the world offered to tell me the truth, I'd shrug and say 'if you like, but I already know'. That's what having faith is - the issue is that many people do not actually have faith.

I'd also like to add, in response to the OP: I believe this is correct, that faith can be beneficial (if it wasn't, I don't see why religion would have turned up in human development in the first place). But the fact that something is beneficial is not an argument that says we should have faith, it's just a statement that says 'it'd be nice if this was true'.

[revots33]

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If someone legitimately has faith in something, this issue is a non-issue. They believe they already do know, that's what having faith is - so such an individual will not care whether you tell them the truth or not, because it wouldn't cross their mind that this truth would contradict what they already believe.

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This assumes perfect faith, but I don't think most have this. A person might have faith that their mother will live on forever after death, and this faith makes them happier - but they still likely have some doubts.

It's pretty easy to ignore those doubts when you know no one ever can, or will, have the true answer. If somehow a person did posess the definitive answer (and everyone agreed his knowledge was legitimate), my guess is that this knowledge would decrease the happiness of the faithful, even if they never find out the truth. Simply knowing their belief cannot be disproved helps combat doubt and increases their happiness.

[guesswest]

It does assume perfect faith. But I don't know that the idea of imperfect faith makes sense. It might just be a semantic argument, but it seems to me it'd have to be binary thing to be coherent, because if it's not it's....something else.

If I assign a 100% probability to x and someone offers me the truth I'll believe they're just going to repeat to me what I already 'know'. If I assign a 99% probability to x, I've already self-acknowledged that I don't 'know', so it's handicapped speculation, not belief. If someone offers the truth and it's not what I'd thought, then it goes in the 1% margin of error. Again, it may be semantic, but 'faith' in terms of religion implies certainty in my mind, it's more than assigning a high probability. It's for much the same reason I've always had a problem with Pascal's wager.

[Mickey Brausch]

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first, let's assume that we are trying to maximize happiness..not that it is a "goal" of mankind or anything

[/ QUOTE ]If we assume that it is, then the internally-consistent path is clear: Get full of recreational drugs and live a life of constant giddiness and nothing else. And damn the questions.

[Lestat]

You are overlooking the more important and real benefits of faith. Simply put, we could not function without it.

Imagine needing absolute proof that your wife/girlfriend is not cheating on you every time you're apart. Or that the plane you are on has enough fuel to reach its destination. Etc., etc., etc.

We did not evolve faith to reach conclusions about god, existence, or the meaning of life and death. They are just by-products of faith (for some people). State of happiness also has little to do with it. State of sanity, maybe...

[Magic_Man]

My girlfriend lost her last grandparent a few months ago, and occasionally "realizes" that that generation is now lost to her. In these situations, she often makes some comment about them being happy somewhere, and that they are in a better place now. I believe this makes her feel better, and that she would be extremely upset if I challenged her beliefs by logically explaining my agnostic/weak-atheistic viewpoint. So I just let her think that way, because it makes her happier and content.

...is this at all what you mean?

~MagicMan

[CityFan]

ignorance is bliss

[Prodigy54321]

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first, let's assume that we are trying to maximize happiness..not that it is a "goal" of mankind or anything

[/ QUOTE ]If we assume that it is, then the internally-consistent path is clear: Get full of recreational drugs and live a life of constant giddiness and nothing else. And damn the questions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I imagined a scenario in which there were no other effects of this belief..since we do not have of evaluating the importance of happiness, considering the other effects of such a belief wouldn't work anyway

[Prodigy54321]

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You are overlooking the more important and real benefits of faith. Simply put, we could not function without it.

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the fact that we have certain internal instincts is evidence enough that it is beneficial..not that we could decide what to do at that point anyway..

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Imagine needing absolute proof that your wife/girlfriend is not cheating on you every time you're apart. Or that the plane you are on has enough fuel to reach its destination. Etc., etc., etc.

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and it is not about absolute proof...we rarely need absolute proof in order to make actions that depend on our conclusion...

the point is that where there IS evidence to support a certain conclusion, bringing faith into the picture only decreases the chances that you will be brought the the correct conclusion.

where there is no evidence, faith can be at worst, neutral unless the action dictated by absolute uncertainty is better than any other..

[Prodigy54321]

[ QUOTE ]
My girlfriend lost her last grandparent a few months ago, and occasionally "realizes" that that generation is now lost to her. In these situations, she often makes some comment about them being happy somewhere, and that they are in a better place now. I believe this makes her feel better, and that she would be extremely upset if I challenged her beliefs by logically explaining my agnostic/weak-atheistic viewpoint. So I just let her think that way, because it makes her happier and content.

...is this at all what you mean?

~MagicMan

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yes..but if it influences other decisions, it MAY not be best.

[guesswest]

[ QUOTE ]
You are overlooking the more important and real benefits of faith. Simply put, we could not function without it.

Imagine needing absolute proof that your wife/girlfriend is not cheating on you every time you're apart. Or that the plane you are on has enough fuel to reach its destination. Etc., etc., etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Russell claimed this too. But I'd argue that there's a difference between functional certainty and actual certainty. I didn't get anxious about this chair falling apart when I sat down, but when questioned I wouldn't assign a 0% probability to that happening either. I'm simply assigning a probability so low I consider it neglible in terms of how it impacts my actions, and I'd say we're doing much the same when we don't worry about our girlfriends cheating on us when we're not in the room, etc. I can't see how religious faith works this way, because it makes a non-progressive distinction between those who do and don't have faith. There is no room for the 'I think there's a 63% chance god exists' guy - access to heaven is not tiered.

[Prodigy54321]

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where there is no evidence, faith can be at worst, neutral unless the action dictated by absolute uncertainty is better than any other..

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I want to add to this that if this faith based belief influences other decisions it MAY have a harmful effect...I would say most likely..but that's because I consider other effects than personal happiness to be more powerful..which is not necessarily true.

[Prodigy54321]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You are overlooking the more important and real benefits of faith. Simply put, we could not function without it.

Imagine needing absolute proof that your wife/girlfriend is not cheating on you every time you're apart. Or that the plane you are on has enough fuel to reach its destination. Etc., etc., etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Russell claimed this too. But I'd argue that there's a difference between functional certainty and actual certainty. I didn't get anxious about this chair falling apart when I sat down, but when questioned I wouldn't assign a 0% probability to that happening either. I'm simply assigning a probability so low I consider it neglible in terms of how it impacts my actions, and I'd say we're doing much the same when we don't worry about our girlfriends cheating on us when we're not in the room, etc. I can't see how religious faith works this way, because it makes a non-progressive distinction between those who do and don't have faith. There is no room for the 'I think there's a 63% chance god exists' guy - access to heaven is not tiered.

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I agree...absolute certaintly is rarely(never?) required to take action..

DS's "you don't have to put faith in anything" post (the part addressed to atheists), I believe, addresses this point as well..even as it relates to belief..not just action.

[Prodigy54321]

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We did not evolve faith to reach conclusions about god, existence, or the meaning of life and death. They are just by-products of faith (for some people).

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as far as evolution of faith as a beneficial mechanism...I agree that it is beneficial to some degree..but just because we have some trait due to evolution does not mean that it is the most efficient possible way of doing things...

faith (I guess it's hard to separate this from instinct) may be the best thing for creatures who cannot reason well enough to discover alternative (more accurate) ways of coming to conclusions..but we know that there are better ways

*I don't know nearly as much as I would like to about evolution...so if you have info that is relevent here, please share it.