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May 2, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
38:46
741 Religion As Comfort for Evil

God does comfort people, just not any of the good ones...

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Time Text
Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It's Steph. It's just after five o'clock on the 2nd of May, 2007.
And I'd like to talk about something I consider fairly elemental.
Elemental, I don't mean easy.
I mean fundamental and crucial and essential and relatively important.
And we haven't talked about it before.
Because I needed to shore up, build up, stave off accusations of lack of credibility.
So I'm going to take on a topic which I think is interesting.
And I don't know that it'll be hugely controversial, but it is going to give you some significant ammunition when talking to and attempting to brighten the dark and superstitious skies of our good friends, the religious folks and other folks as well.
So, when you hear about religion, what is often talked about is the comfort that is provided by religion.
And by that, what is generally meant is there's some woman who's 70, who had a 50-year marriage, and her husband dies, and then she takes comfort or likes to take comfort in the idea that she's going to see him again in heaven.
And that idea Oh my god, what a fucking idiot.
Alright. Sorry about that swearing.
That is a guy who just totally jammed into my lane.
You know when you see a driver who's just, you know, you can see this from like...
A hundred yards away that this guy is just a complete moron, just jamming his way across traffic and so on.
And this was such a fine gentleman, or lady, I'm not sure.
And we have survived, we shall continue.
So the myth is this nice sweet old lady who had a wonderful husband and she takes comfort in the fact that her husband who dies, that she'll see him again in heaven.
Of course it's pure nonsense, pure propaganda.
Superstitious people can't have great relationships.
If you're religious, you can't have a great relationship.
You can't even have a decent relationship.
If you don't even have a good relationship with reality, how on earth can you have a good relationship with the people who inhabit that reality?
It's a basic thing that is just not talked about.
But there's that, and then there's people who are dying and so on, and there's comfort to people who are broken or sad or whatever.
Now, there's just enough truth in this formulation to be really dangerous, and unfortunately it has taken many a good atheist down, and I'd like to sort of provide for you a way of looking at it that I think is reasonably rigorous and helpful,
and will, I think, help you to understand Why it is that religion gives comfort, and what it is about religion that gives comfort in the cause and effect, which may not be exactly what is supposed.
So, this is generally not, this argument is not brought to bear on the truth value in religion, but the utility value.
In other words, people feel sad, they feel lost, they feel lonely, they feel bereft, they feel fear, and therefore they need religion or they believe in religion because it provides them some comfort.
With the implicit, and frankly sometimes not so implicit, A statement that atheists, you damn bastards, are taking away people's comfort, ripping the band-aids off their sucking chest wounds and exposing their tooth roots, tooth nerves to an icy, bitter aluminum wind.
And so you should not, you should not, it's cruel to take away people's Security blankets.
It's cruel to take away that which gives them comfort.
And therefore, you rat bastard atheist, you lack compassion for those who need God to give them comfort.
So then the atheist is put in the bad cop, you know, the mean sort of nasty Donald Trump, you're fired and so on.
And this is a role that atheists get forced into quite a bit.
And I'd like to give you an alternative way of looking at it that I think I found helpful and perhaps you will as well.
So I'm going to start with a fantasy pejorative towards children.
This is a metaphor or a parable that violates most of the premises that we've talked about here, but I think contains enough truth to get the ball rolling in the right direction for our discussion.
So, let's say that you're a good parent with a bad kid.
Maybe your, I don't know, your kid got switched with a twin who was beaten up or something, like, you know, from birth and separated or whatever.
But you're a good parent with a bad kid, and this bad kid's name is Johnny.
Or, for those who are Greek, Yanni.
And Johnny is like a real bad seed.
He's an arsonist.
He beats up other kids.
He does unmentionable things to hamsters with duct tape.
He just is a really bad kid.
And you say to him, Johnny, you're doing really bad things, and you need to stop doing those really bad things.
Oh, and he says, yeah, now I know that they're kind of wrong, but don't worry, I'm covered.
And you say, huh?
He says, no, no, no, I'm covered.
I mean, I know that they're bad things and I shouldn't do them, blah, blah, blah.
But don't worry. I'm forgiven.
I've been forgiven. I'm forgiven.
And you say, what? Who?
Who? I can't imagine the hamster forgave you.
He's like, no, no, no, no, no. I've got this invisible friend named Nog, you see.
Who forgives me for everything that I do that could even remotely be considered bad.
I'm not saying I consider it all, but anything.
Anytime that I feel bad about something I've done, I go to Nog, I pray to, or just ask him, you know, he's always close by.
I ask Nog to forgive me, and Nog, in fact, forgives me.
Well, wouldn't you say, or would you say, that Johnny has an excellent strategy?
Gee, I didn't realize you had an invisible friend who would forgive you, so clearly there's no issue.
I don't think you would say that if you were a responsible and virtuous parent, or even basically decent.
You'd say, I don't think that's right.
I don't think that's the right way to approach it.
And you would attempt to disabuse Johnny of his notion of his invisible friend, Nog, who forgave him for everything.
And let me tell you why this parable is, I think, very helpful, what it helps to really illuminate.
If we look at this, and no offense to kids, this is unrealistic, but we look at this little tyrant, this little menace named Johnny, we come up with some very interesting insights into his nature.
If he was really just a totally stone bad kid with no conscience whatsoever, then he wouldn't need to be forgiven.
He wouldn't need forgiveness.
So the first thing that we know when Johnny invents an invisible friend named Nog to forgive him for what he does, that he feels the need for forgiveness.
That he feels the need to be forgiven.
In other words, he's doing stuff that he knows is wrong or believes is wrong, and he wants to be forgiven for those things.
Now, forgiveness is a very interesting concept, and we've touched on it briefly before in podcasts on apologies, but forgiveness basically involves two things.
Three, but we'll, in the interest of time, believe it or not, shave it down to two.
The first is a confession of wrong, a recognition of wrong.
But what you need is some form of restitution.
In order to forgive someone for a wrong they've done you, you need some form of restitution, which implicitly implies a recognition of wrong.
You need some form of restitution, and you need a cessation of the offending behavior.
So, I mean, if every morning I picked my nose into this webcam, and trust me, there are mornings where it's almost tempting, and I got emails from those who are watching the video saying, dude, I like your thoughts, but do you have to actually stimulate your frontal lobe directly with your forefinger?
Because I swear to God, you're up to your elbow in there.
I'm like, oh man, I'm so sorry.
I didn't even realize doing it. That's so rude.
I'm so, so sorry. And the next day, I'm up there digging for gold again.
Picking, picking, picking. Look, I thought you were going to stop.
It's like, no, no, no, I just apologized for it, told you that it was rude, but I'm not going to change my behavior in any way, shape, or form.
Then what would my apology in saying that it was rude and it was the wrong thing, what would it mean if I wasn't going to change my behavior?
It wouldn't mean anything. So if any of these ingredients are missing, forgiveness is impossible and forgiveness is involuntary.
You don't will it, right? In the way that people always talk about it.
Oh, you must learn to forgive and forget.
But somebody must admit that they're wrong.
Somebody must make restitution in whatever manner is appropriate.
And the restitution can be as simple as an apology and it can be as complex as, I don't know, handing me over your firstborn.
And then they need to We cease and desist doing the offensive or upsetting behavior.
Because if they do it again, if somebody punches you, oh my god, I'm so sorry, I must have some sort of involuntary muscle spasm, I'm going to go have it looked at, it'll never happen again, and by the way, let me buy you dinner.
If the next day you get punched again, the next day you get punched again, and the same thing goes over, you're not going to be able to forgive the person because there's no cessation of the offensive behavior.
Sorry, water break.
So, we know that Johnny, the little terror, wants or needs or desires to be forgiven.
Which means that Johnny knows that he's doing wrong and his conscience is making him feel bad.
So then he invents his invisible friend named Nog, which allows him to feel that he is forgiven without either really admitting that there's fault to the person who he has wronged, or offering up any form of restitution, or, most fundamentally, ceasing his immoral behavior.
It's a very, very fundamental thing.
When you look at the comfort that religion gives to people, it's important to unpack what is actually going on.
Look at the sequence of what is going on.
because it is the exact opposite of what people think, as is always the case when people don't apply reason to superstition.
So the question is, why doesn't Johnny seek real forgiveness?
it's Why doesn't our little match-toting, hamster-banging tyrant seek real forgiveness from those who he has wronged?
He obviously wants forgiveness.
He knows that he's done something wrong.
His conscience is bothering him.
He needs or wants or desires forgiveness.
Why doesn't he then say, I'm so sorry to whoever's property he damaged or whoever he punched.
I'm so sorry. Let me make it up to you and it will never happen again.
Which is what forgiveness requires.
Why doesn't he do that?
Why does he invent an imaginary friend that forgives him for all his transgressions?
Why does he do that? Why, oh why, oh why, oh why?
Do you see how close we are circling to the central stink of the world's evil?
Is he genuinely sorry?
Is he genuinely sorry?
Well, no. See, if he was genuinely sorry, he'd apologize.
If he was genuinely sorry, he would make restitution.
If he was genuinely sorry, he would do whatever it took to ensure that the behavior did not repeat.
He's not genuinely sorry.
Forgiveness occurs in others, like love, involuntarily based on virtuous actions, owning our own behavior, apologizing, restitution, and a commitment and the achievement of no reproduction of the offending behavior.
So Johnny doesn't want to apologize.
He doesn't want to make restitution, and he's sure as hell Doesn't want to stop doing wrong.
But he wants the feeling of having been forgiven.
Why? Why does he want it from Nog and not from those he's actually wronged?
Because he wants to keep doing wrong.
Because if he wants forgiveness from the people he's wronged, then he has to stop doing bad things.
But with Nog, he doesn't have to stop doing bad things.
So clearly, Nog, the fantasy Forgivenatron, the automatic forgiveness machine, the Forgivenator, The sorry bot.
Nag is invented to facilitate the commission of sins.
God doesn't give encouragement, sorry, God doesn't give comfort to good people.
He gives encouragement to bad people.
Johnny gets the feeling of relief that comes from his conscience being assuaged by the feeling that he has been forgiven.
He gets the relief of feeling that he has been forgiven without actually having to stop being bad.
In other words, His imaginary forgiveness makes sin or evil or brutality or corruption or abuse far less painful.
And what do we know about how human behavior is changed when the incentives, punishments and rewards are altered?
He obviously takes pleasure, a sick kind of pleasure, in doing wrong, and that's part of his sadistic nature, this fantasy kid.
So clearly there's a plus for him in doing wrong.
The negative is that he feels bad.
And also, since he enjoys having power over others...
Is it not clear that if he feels bad and needs forgiveness from those he has wronged, that they now have power over him that he might have to subjugate himself to?
If I harm you, I feel bad, and it is your forgiveness that will make me feel better.
You now have power over me.
But if I invent The forgiveness spewing infinite Buddy Nog who forgives me for everything and anything.
I don't need you to forgive me.
me, you have no power over me.
I can continue to harm you without my conscience plaguing me because I've been forgiven.
God gives bad people a get out of jail free card with regards to their conscience, their They are no longer reliant upon the forgiveness of those they have wronged.
So God is invented to facilitate the escalation of evil.
Not to comfort widows.
but to grease the wheels of gore.
You don't have to go through the horrible, challenging self-confrontation that is required to surmount the corruptions that you have affected challenging self-confrontation that is required to surmount the corruptions that you have affected or Yes.
You don't have to look in the mirror and say, geez, I just did a bad thing.
I'm a bad person. I've got to change this.
I've got to fix it. Confront your demons.
Confront your history. Confront your parents.
Confront yourself. Confront your dark side.
Make restitution. Apologize.
Grovel. Be humiliated.
Risk not being forgiven.
You don't have to go through any of that.
Because you can just invent a friend that forgives you for everything.
Which means that the cost of doing wrong becomes much, much less, while the pleasure of doing wrong stays high.
And that is a fundamental thing to understand about why is there religion?
Why is there religion? Because people like to do bad things.
Why is there religion?
Because people like to do bad things.
And it's even worse than that, my friends.
That's just the start of the cycle.
Because the real, horrible, ghastly, undead, gruesome truth of the matter...
It's not that people like to do bad things and therefore there is religion.
There is religion and therefore people like to do bad things.
Because there is religion.
Because you get the get out of conscience free card whenever you want it.
Because there is religion, people like to do bad things.
People don't like to not work and therefore there's a welfare state.
There is a welfare state, therefore most people choose, in certain conditions or situations, not to work.
The first time that Johnny does a bad thing, he feels bad.
He feels humiliated. And he faces a choice.
He either escalates and hardens his position, as we see happening on the board at the moment.
He either increases or escalates his position, That doing wrong is right.
Or he submits himself to the correction of others and he learns an important lesson about not hurting other people, not attacking other people, not harming other people.
So the self-correction occurs early.
I hurt you, now I feel terrible.
And now, because I was a bully and I hurt you, I now feel terrible.
So you now owe me an apology.
I want your apology to make me feel better.
But then suddenly you realize that being a bully isn't that great!
Because then you're at the mercy of needing the forgiveness from your victim.
This is a lesson that almost everyone goes through when they're young.
Hurt someone, I feel bad.
Now I was a bully and now I'm a slave.
That's how the conscience works.
The true self works. Do wrong, feel bad.
It's not that complicated. But, how, oh how, oh how, the equation changes, my friends.
How the equation doth change.
when you have Nog the Forgivnetron.
Well, I bullied you.
Now I feel bad.
You know what? I'm no longer a slave to you.
I'm not necessarily or even remotely dependent upon your forgiveness.
Your forgiveness doesn't mean...
I don't need it. I got my forgiveness right here.
I don't need it. Take this wrong and shove it.
So then you do another wrong.
Why? Because you get the pleasure of bullying...
And you then don't end up being bullied by the person or being dependent upon the person to forgive you.
So, what happens?
Well, you do more wrong. Do you see how this hole begins to be dug and then everyone says, I wonder how we end up with stained glass saints, cathedrals.
This is how it works.
So you do another wrong You got the forgive to Tron, out it pops forgiveness, you feel better.
Not as good, I mean, obviously it's not as good, and in the same way that heroin is not the same as happiness, but it feels good, it feels, you know.
So, you do another wrong, and another wrong, and another wrong, and then you can't turn back.
You can't turn back.
And your soul dies. So this is what people are doing when they defend religion.
They're defending all of the false forgivenesses that they have taken from Nog that they should have earned through apologies and restitution from other people.
That's why religion flourishes.
is.
Because people are guilty of cheating their conscience by imagining forgiveness that they don't have to earn.
And people do it with love, too.
Jesus loves you. Oh, great.
I don't have to be a good person.
For someone to love me, I just have to breathe and want to be loved.
That's why parents, I don't have to be a good person.
I just have to have kids.
Imagine that their attachment is love, as we talked about in your child does not love you.
Because, you know, it's certainly true in a sense that religion does give people comfort, but what kind of people?
I don't know if anyone ever asks that.
They just make up these old grannies who miss their husbands and whatever, right?
People afraid of death. But the question is, what kind of people get comfort?
Through God's forgiveness and God's love.
Well, people who haven't earned forgiveness and haven't earned love.
Once you've had real love, the love of a fantasy friend doesn't mean anything.
It's humiliating. It's embarrassing.
It's ridiculous. It's fundamentally and completely and totally nonsensical.
And the opposite of love, right?
Once you have done wrong and had real restitution and real closure, then you don't need this false imaginary forgiveness crap.
Because you've gone through the real thing and you're not doing wrong over and over again.
Because you don't have this drug of infinite forgiveness that you can draw from.
That never lets you face the emotional, prevents you from facing the emotional consequences of what you're doing.
They knew about this in the late Middle Ages.
What drove Luther, old Martin Luther, so nuts was...
This papal indulgences, right?
So this is sort of the idea in a coarser form, but it's definitely there around.
And it doesn't end with religion, right?
Secularism has this all over the place in terms of the need to forgive.
Oh, you must forgive others. You must forgive others.
Sure, I'm happy to if they earn it.
Of course. I'm just.
Somebody earns forgiveness. I'm not going to withhold it.
I'm not petty. I'm not going to go and will forgiveness.
That's not within my...
I can fake it, but I can't will it.
Like love. You can fake love.
You can't will it. You can't make it happen.
You can fake happiness.
You can't make it happen. You can't make yourself fall asleep.
Unless you want to use drugs for all of the above, of which religion is a very fundamental one.
The pattern is right there.
The pattern is right there.
An initial high followed by an enslavement.
I mean, it's all the same. It's all the same.
State... Parents, drugs, God!
Or have we get to drugs another time?
That's going to be volatile. That's going to be highly volatile.
But no matter, we shall press on.
And I could be wrong.
So these papal indulgences, this basic idea, and it was around the 15th century, Luther nailed his 96th theses to the door of a church in Wittgenstein.
this In Wittgenstein?
No, that doesn't sound right. That's the name of a philosopher.
Wittgenstein? That's totally wrong.
Oh my god, I can't believe I studied a whole course on this.
The door in...
Anyway, let's just say.
We nailed his 96th thesis, one of which is the sale of indulgences is immoral.
And what happened was that the church sort of had this idea that the saints, the apostles and Jesus and others, that they had done more than they needed to do.
They'd been better than they needed to be to get into heaven, right?
So... So who had stored up all of this extra virtue?
Well, of course, the paper. It was stored in his magic ring or, I don't know, in his dental tooth or something.
But all of this excess virtue, right?
I mean, you only need to pour so much coffee in a cup.
There's no point keeping pouring, but it's overflowing.
There's no point having more virtue than you need to get into heaven.
It doesn't really help you, right? This is the theory.
So there's all this excess virtue that's stored up in the Pope's ring, and the Pope can bestow it, and he will do so for a price, right?
So if you, I don't know...
Go kill a Muslim kid in the Crusades, then, for like five silver pieces, this excess virtue of the saints and apostles and Jesus is yours for the low, low price of only five silver pieces.
You are then totally forgiven.
And what does that mean? That means you can go kill another Muslim kid, right?
I mean, and this, of course, drove Luther a little bit mad.
And, of course, Luther was already fairly mad to begin with, but...
But that was sort of the idea, right?
And of course, it did generate an excess of evil, right?
To have all of this instant forgiveness.
To have all of this instant forgiveness, this instant comfort.
So, I was reminded of this sort of theory of mine.
I was watching a Dr. Phil the other day, and it was a pretty gruesome one.
I mentioned it before. This is Grandfather.
Who's actually molested his six-year-old granddaughter and was talking to his own kids, right?
So the parents of the kids he'd molested, not the kid he'd molested.
And at one point he said, well, God has forgiven me.
Why can't you? God has forgiven me.
Why can't you?
Do you get the rancid stink of soul corruption that comes not even wafting, but spraying out of that sentence?
God has forgiven me.
Why can't you?
Well, I mean, I think if you look at it based on the analysis that we've just talked about, this guy is not going to submit himself to justly Requesting or earning the forgiveness of those he's wronged because he wants to go molest another kid.
And the reason that he is able to want to molest another kid is because he believes in God and God will forgive him.
This guy needs forgiveness from an imaginary entity because he can't earn it in real life.
And the reason he can't earn it in real life is because he believes in this imaginary entity that will forgive him of any transgression.
Somebody posted on the boards recently about how every jail cell in the world is full, or every prison in the world is full of, I mean, like genuinely violent criminal, murderers and rapists, child molesters and so on, is totally full of these people. is totally full of these people.
And they cry out in self-pity and they claim that they found Jesus and that Jesus has forgiven them of all their sins.
And, yeah, they, of course, their self-pity, even this pedophile was, this sexual predator was, was saying, well, nobody seems to understand just how that it's also been tough for me.
Right?
The narcissism that's so revolting in these personalities.
So fetid. But people get this all confused, right?
They get this all confused.
Because, of course, there's a lot of propaganda around it.
But the truth is usually the opposite of what things seem.
The world seems flat. We're talking about economics.
It's all about the reversal of cause and effect, if it was obvious.
But if people get this all wrong, they get this all backwards.
Because people say, well, these criminals have ended up in jail for 20 years, and so they've turned to religion.
They've found Christ because they're criminals.
And that they've hit the lowest point or whatever, whatever, right?
No, no, no, no!
No, no, no, no.
They have not found God because they are criminals.
they are criminals because God can be found.
They are not reaching out for comfort because they have done wrong.
They have done wrong because they know they can reach out to comfort whenever they want.
Because at the very end of all of this horror, they have a get-out-of-jail-free card that is handed to them by priests and by agnostics and by everyone who believes in this sort of stuff and doesn't fight for this stuff openly.
Doesn't fight this nonsense on it.
They don't need forgiveness because they're criminals.
They're criminals because they know they can get forgiveness.
From Nog, the imaginary friend of Johnny.
The Forgivenatron.
Forgivenator. So sure, religion absolutely gives comfort.
But to who? But to who?
I have a theory that fortunately I remain too young to test, and I will certainly let you know as my life progresses how this theory works out.
But I'll just sort of finish up here.
I think you sort of get the idea.
And people need comfort when they're dying because they're scared, they're frightened, and they feel lost and alienated and unhappy and so on.
So they need comfort, and that's what religion provides for them, and who are you to take it away?
Well, if you knew you would never get sick from it, how many people would not smoke?
Thank you.
Some people who just don't want to smoke.
Some people who don't want to do wrong.
But for those who do want to smoke, if you knew for sure that you were never going to get sick of it, Like, you were never going to get lung cancer, never going to get emphysema or anything.
How many people would quit smoking?
Well, why would you? There's the pleasure of smoking, there's no downside.
Why would you? What would people's diet be like if they knew they would never get sick from whatever they ate, never get diabetes, never get overweight, never have any problems whatsoever?
What would they eat? I don't know, candy and chocolate and cookies and chips and whatever, right?
And lots of it, right?
They wouldn't adjust their diet if there's no downside.
Asking someone to be good when God forgives all is like asking a smoker to quit when smoking is never going to harm him.
It's like, wow, you're just taking away a pleasure of mine for no reason?
That's ridiculous. I mean, that's just stupid.
Why would I? So I think that people get, and we've got a whole podcast coming up about death series, but I'm going to do that when I have more time.
People don't End up unhappy when they're going to die, and thus they need God.
They end up unhappy when they're going to die because they've believed in God.
If you believe you've got this next life, how are you going to treat this life?
There's a difference between If you knew that the next five minutes of your life were your last five minutes on Earth, what would you do?
Well, you'd do something different than what you're doing right now.
Maybe five minutes is too short.
Maybe you're stuck in traffic like me.
But if you knew that you had one day left to live, you would certainly do things differently than if you thought you had another X number of days to live.
An atheist knows that we only have one life.
There's no eternal bliss, there's no future, there's no resurrection, there's nothing.
One life, that's it.
In eternity, that's less than one day left to live.
In the eternity that Christians believe in, it's almost non-existent.
So people waste their lives because they think they have more lives.
Why don't people defoo?
Because they don't get that life is short.
Why do people put up with shitty behavior from those around them?
Because they... They don't know that life is short.
They fantasize they're going to live forever.
Oh, we're going to live forever.
So they waste their lives!
Ah, my reward is going to come after I'm dead, and so what?
It doesn't really matter. Who cares?
They can waste this life because they've got an infinity...
Of lives to come. They don't get that they're one day from dying.
From an atheist viewpoint, we don't get another life.
Must leave Lane.
So why are they anxious and depressed and scared and unhappy and regretful when they get old?
Because they believed in God.
And now the doubts, right?
The false self will always reveal the truth to you when it's too late to do anything about it, right?
That's the malevolence and malignance of this, right?
Infection from the evil of others.
So the truth begins to be revealed to people as they get older and they feel anxious.
They cling then even more to religion.
Then they cling to it and they can't let it go.
Because they've already wasted their lives and done really bad things based on an illusion.
They can't go back and relive their lives and be better people.
It's all done. It's all over.
And they're getting it.
That I'm going to get it all done. I'm going to die.
That's it for me. And they get it.
I mean, fundamentally, we get it.
Fantasies don't run that deep.
Body always wins. So they get that they're not going to live forever.
They get that they're going to die.
They're going to cease to exist.
Their body's going to be thrown into the ground, and somebody's going to throw a spade full of dirt in their face, and that's it.
They take that six-foot dirt nap and never wake up.
There's no God. There's no shining city.
There's no cathedral. There's no loved ones.
I mean, you're just dead.
Dead, dead, dead. Gone, gone, gone.
And they fear, and they are anxious, and they are angry, and they are volatile.
And so they cling even more to religion.
But it's not that they're unhappy, therefore they need religion.
They believe in religion, therefore they're unhappy.
It does not give comfort.
It does not give comfort.
It inflicts harm. Religion breaks your leg and gives you a crutch.
I think it's better not to have your leg broken.
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