Religion and learned optimism
Going back to a question I was discussing about whether religion is bad for you: specifically with respect to self delusion, I was in an information session at work about workplace mental health today which has made me think about it all in light of what psychologists have discovered about optimism.
Typing “optimism mental health” yielded a lot of health info articles like this one that explain the links between optimism and good health.
Our speaker today at the staff information session informed us also that optimism is good for us. It seems that there is a bit of an optimism industry springing up that teaches people how to be optimistic. The parallels between this optimistic thinking and some religious practices were quite interesting. For example, part of learning to be optimistic is to develop rituals that remind you to think positively. These rituals are similar to rituals in religion that also remind an individual of their religious beliefs. For some, these are beliefs that God loves them, that they are special, that angels are protecting them etc…
But there is also criticism of all this positive thinking. What about self delusion? Surely self delusion is bad for you? Even if the self delusion is all about good things, isn’t it bad to be fooling yourself? Won’t this self delusion cause you to make stupid decisions based on some faith that everything is going to work out?
It all depends on how delusional the delusion is really. Most religions that have survived in the long term have mechanisms in them which limit the damage people can do to themselves (think about it in terms of religious evolution) e.g. in Christianity, things are limited by how much faith we have or by the passage that says “though shalt not test the Lord” or something like that. In other words, Christianity encourages it’s followers to act faithfully up to a point but not to do anything absurd as God will see that as you trying to play games with him. There is also the line that God doesn’t want to reveal himself too much because he wants us to have faith and the related one which is that the real deal will be revealed in heaven so we just have to wait for some things.
Sometimes these safety catches in the religions have been broken for whatever reason, some movement of renewal or change has started down a dodgy path within a religion and gained enough momentum to go critical. When that happens, we get people doing crazy things that harm themselves and others.
The upshot is that most of the time, I think religion is probably good for individuals because it helps them remain positive about life. The question that follows on from all this is while it might be harmless for the individual to have a healthy amount of delusion, is it good for society?
Posted: October 15th, 2007 under Big Questions.
Comments: none
