WHEN PEOPLE CANNOT BELIEVE THE DARK TRUTH ABOUT THEMSELVES

What you see when you observe people is that non-religious people such as politicians or social workers or electricians or whatever, they do not believe what they want to believe but believe on the basis of what the evidence tells them. Only religious people are different.

Not all who seem to believe what they want to believe really do so. Some give the impression that they do this for they hope it will deter you from challenging their faith. They want the fear of offending them or taking their precious faith away from them to put you off.

We have all noticed how people soon believe what they want when you challenge their bad behaviour. You will be met with a pile of denial if you show somebody she or he is devious and you are on to them. Even if you are trying to be constructively critical and are trying to help they will get defensive. They will deny stealing even if you catch them red handed. They will seem to believe their own lies. If religious people believe what they want then something similar to this is at work. Letting them away with it only flatters their dishonesty and makes them worse and their example infects others. It is important to make humanism and atheism attractive. This has to be done whether or not people care mostly about what they want to believe and not the truth.

Those who believe what they want are really talking about morality. They adhere to religion and if you show them they are disobedient or bad or hypocrites they go all defensive as if they believe they are guiltless. They confuse morality and whatever specific religion they have. You need to show them that their values do not have to fall apart if they stop taking their religious ideas seriously. Some believe that everybody who believes what they want is mistaking doctrine for morality or fails to notice that there is no necessary bond between religion and doing good.

If there is a God then people should want to believe only in the truth. All forms of learning could be seen as his gift. Believing in God because you want to and not because you care if it is the truth or not is idolatry. It is toxic for it presents hypocrisy as faith in God. To preach a faith like that would be to manipulate others - you make them think they adore God while in reality they adore their own ideas. Considering that faith has its big demands this is very cruel.