God is a Useful Delusion

[Veritas Aequitas]

Useful Delusions:
The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain
Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler

Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being.

The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter.

Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.
https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-City-P ... 0393652203

• CONTENTS
  INTRODUCTION
  PART I EVERYDAY LIFE
  1.. Hot Air
  2.. Everything Is Going to Be OK
  3.. The Theater of Healing
  4.. The Invisible Hand
  PART II THE SEARCH FOR MEANING
  5.. The Heart Has Its Reasons
  6.. Predictive Reasoning
  7.. Somewhere Over the Rainbow
  PART III THE TRIBE
  8.. Walking through Fire
  9. Something Worth Dying For
  10.. The Grand Delusion

In Chapter 10, the book present God as the Grand Delusion [self-deception] but it is nevertheless a necessary and useful delusion for theists [the majority of the 8+ billion people].

While it is likely 99% of theists will claim their God to be the most real and not an illusion or delusion, the authors argued why God is an illusion albeit a useful illusion.

The reality of life is this existential crisis and cognitive dissonances;
“our will to live forever - colliding with - the immutable biological fact of death.”
-Otto Rank, Psychologist.

To avoid paralysis from the cognitive dissonances, our ancestors to the present theists chanced upon a fictional, illusory, delusionary God to soothe the inherent terrible and horrific fears exuding from the existential crisis.
This fictional, illusory, delusionary God has a therapeutic and functional value, thus is adapted via evolution within humanity as default.

God is a Useful Delusion.
It is Impossible for God to Exists as Real
viewtopic.php?t=40229

Discuss?? Views??

[Veritas Aequitas]

Notes:

Here is where Kant mentioned how the Delusion of God arose from pseudo-Rational thinking [syllogism];

Kant in CPR wrote:
There will therefore be Syllogisms which contain no Empirical premisses, and by means of which we conclude from something which we know* to something else of which we have no Concept,
and to which, owing to an inevitable Illusion, we yet ascribe Objective Reality.

These conclusions {God, Soul, THE Universe} are, then, rather to be called pseudo-Rational 2 than Rational,
although in view of their Origin they may well lay claim to the latter title {rational},
since they {conclusions} are not fictitious and have not arisen fortuitously, but have sprung from the very nature of Reason.
They {conclusions} are sophistications not of men but of Pure Reason itself.

Even the wisest of men cannot free himself from them {the illusions}.
After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the Illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him. B397

[Veritas Aequitas]

Notes:

[LuckyR]

Not unreasonable.

Just as the concept of zero revolutionized mathematics (even though it objectively added nothing), gods provide quite a bit to human psychology even though they exist inter-subjectively (not objectively).

[Veritas Aequitas]

Not unreasonable.

Just as the concept of zero revolutionized mathematics (even though it objectively added nothing), gods provide quite a bit to human psychology even though they exist inter-subjectively (not objectively).

Good example re "zero" or 'nothing'.
Will try to remember this.

Whilst God exists inter-subjectivity, i.e. FSK-ed objectivity, its [faith-based] degrees of objectivity along a continuum is almost negligible [say 0.001/100] in contrast to [empirical based] science as the Standard [100/100].

[O-Lucifer]

o i know