The Utility of Religious Delusion

That sentence was an intentional oxymoron, and I like how you edited it. Man, you just can't ask a fair question or make a fair criticism of religion in the philosophy of religion board can you?

Reeeeallllyyy??? Intentional oxymoron? So why perturbed that I called your 'spade' a 'spade'?
My editing made no impact on the point, either way. I simply deleted the unnecessary.

I never had 'fairness' (whatever that means... 'personal comfort'? Not requiring the energy expenditure of 'thought'?) as my intent in asking questions. The intent is food for thought (jumpstarting thought) and directing discussion.
("Fair? Fair!! We don' need no steenkin' fair!")

I quite like the following take by Schopenhauer:

Religion, by Arthur Schopenhauer (chapter1)

I want you to see that one must meet the requirements of the people according to the measure of their comprehension. Where you have masses of people of crude susceptibilities and clumsy intelligence, sordid in their pursuits and sunk in drudgery, religion provides the only means of proclaiming and making them feel the hight import of life. For the average man takes an interest, primarily, in nothing but what will satisfy his physical needs and hankerings, and beyond this, give him a little amusement and pastime. Founders of religion and philosophers come into the world to rouse him from his stupor and point to the lofty meaning of existence; philosophers for the few, the emancipated, founders of religion for the many, for humanity at large. For, as your friend Plato has said, the multitude can't be philosophers, and you shouldn't forget that. Religion is the metaphysics of the masses; by all means let them keep it: let it therefore command external respect, for to discredit it is to take it away. Just as they have popular poetry, and the popular wisdom of proverbs, so they must have popular metaphysics too: for mankind absolutely needs an interpretation of life; and this, again, must be suited to popular comprehension. Consequently, this interpretation is always an allegorical investiture of the truth: and in practical life and in its effects on the feelings, that is to say, as a rule of action and as a comfort and consolation in suffering and death, it accomplishes perhaps just as much as the truth itself could achieve if we possessed it. Don't take offense at its unkempt, grotesque and apparently absurd form; for with your education and learning, you have no idea of the roundabout ways by which people in their crude state have to receive their knowledge of deep truths. The various religions are only various forms in which the truth, which taken by itself is above their comprehension, is grasped and realized by the masses; and truth becomes inseparable from these forms. Therefore, my dear sir, don't take it amiss if I say that to make a mockery of these forms is both shallow and unjust.

hue man

You know I'm a fan of your philosophies and I think you're a brilliant guy. You certainly have a bright future in the halls of the Academy if you so desire to take that path. However, once there I think you'll find that the dogma with which the "Elite"--who break their backs to erect the pillars of politically-correct ideology to be diffused into the masses by the Smithsonian and other such "intellectual authorities"-- defend the view you argue here may make you think differently about "self-delusion."

My time in the Academy has been marked by several changes of mind, but no changes of heart. So far, I entered as a postmodern anti-realist, spent some time as a metaphysical naturalist, flirted with the transcendental idealists and came out something I haven't found a name for yet. In any case, my time as a protege to Dawkins and Dennet caused me to flee from the exploitative sadism of left-brain dominated cognition. I'm sure you're familiar with the left brain/right brain divide. The gist of it is that the left brain is responsible for logical cognition while the right side for "creative" cognition.

It was clear to me I didn't know what was what. I realized I had been wrong to cast off religion and appeal to directly to science, as science was revealed to be equally as lost in a mudpool of hurt feelings and ego-centric "I'm right, you're wrong" tirades. I had been exposed to the dogmatic nature of naturalism and the sciences. Wait, isn't dogma for the religions? I say to you, scientists are in the same precarious position as theologians were hundreds of years ago--we're all individually looking at the same data with different glasses. And what I mean by that is that humans have been experiencing unquantifiable, right-brain dominated "religious experiences" since the birth of mankind. The variety of interpretations available for the same set of scientific data mirrors the variety of interpretations available for similar types of religious experience, which is visceral and by nature foreign to the intellect.

Where to turn? It seems the authorities were vying to split me apart. The Intellectuals can have my left brain while the Priests can have my right brain. Nay! I choose to become the most dangerous brain of all--one which works holistically, with both parts in perfect tandem! This type of thinker is the one that scares the Academy and the religious authorities the most severely. Why? Because he cannot be enslaved by ideologies of Logic anymore than he can by ideologies of the spirit. This man is free because he has experienced God instead of being content to allow Priests to dangle the concept over his head like a horse being led by a carrot; he has let Logic submit to his greater nature as a Human Being--he uses it as a tool and not a god.

In response I spent a good deal of time activating my right brain, against the socio-political norms which would attempt to squelch it. Capitalism thrives on economic slavery. Economic interaction is driven by leftbrain cognitive patterns--ie the transformation of ability and resource into quantifiable commodity, mathematical relations, etc. Our education system has been built around Economics as the apple of its eye; in the contemporary West, every act in life serves the Economy or it is worthless. The Athiest metaphysical naturalist which is currently in vogue as the politically correct ideolgy of the intellectual elite, serves only to proliferate, validate and conventionalize this consumeristic and spiritually-void way of life. Why? Because anyone who has spent time developing the strength of the right half of his brain can no longer submit to the absurdity of our smoke-and-mirrors consumerist culture which the universities are so staunchly and effectively holding up.

Philosophy in service of the corporations, huh? Who would have thought? It should have been pretty obvious, given the massive ECONOMIC stake which all prestigious Universities have in the country. Universities can no longer afford to overrule the prevalant systems of thought! Philosophy in the academy is dead. And in the land of the dead, true wisdom isn't cheap.

A fulfilling way of life must incorporate holistic cognition! This what those soul-less academicians cannot seem to see. They believe everything, to be valid and justified, must be run through left-brain cognitive patterns. It must be quantifiable and logical. Well, not it musn't. "Let us not doubt in our philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts." There is a visceral element to life, as well. Those fibers that create your body, the feelings running through those that say LIFE IS HERE! IT IS REAL! IT IS SPIRITUAL! are just as valid as the neurons in your head which cause you to think, "Ha! God is completely IRRATIONAL." Yes, God is irrational, but that is not God's deficiency, dear Intellect, it is YOURS. God's nature is foreign to the intellect. As Kierkegaard said, faith requires a leap off the cliff of intellectualism.

That which is foreign scares us. The aspects of life foreign to the intellect, that are out of the intellect's reach, that just cannot be fit into the neat little square compartment's of the intellect's highly-organized little world scare the intellect so he runs away like a child saying "YOU'RE NOT REAL! I CAN PRETEND YOU DON'T EXIST AND THAT WILL MAKE IT ALL BETTER." And no one has told us how to listen to those little fibers calling out in your body. They don't communicate through language--you've got to figure out how to listen for yourself! And let me tell you, thinking for yourself--that scares the academicians most of all!

And yet here we are and not even the metaphysical naturalists themselves can agree on anything. And guess what, GOD is not going away, no matter how much you logic-ify him into dust. It doesn't matter, because logic does not touch God. Period.

Taking control of the brain means making it work holistically. I have self-deluded myself into zones of pure mysticism, inhabiting mainly the right brain. I have self-deluded myself into beliefs of pure athiestic naturalism, inhabiting only the left brain. I have explored these positions extensively through existential experience and research. Guess what, neither fits. Atheism requires just as much self-delusion to believe as does any supernatural form of belief. It takes one deluding oneself into a state of relying purely on the left brain.

Those who know nothing but quantifying into nothingness will always be afraid of taking in the non-intellectualizable forms of wisdom. No matter, it is their loss. Just do not let the zeitgeist suck you in and make you irrelevant. Metaphysical naturalists are products of their time, nothing more. They seek to nullify that which they cannot understand, that which frightens them: real life experience of the divine.

Nietzsche was right in saying life is the will to power. People interpret information in a way that will give them the most power! The ability to stand on ivory towers, master self-created closed systems of Formal Logic and immediately disqualify that which simply cannot fit through the constraints of their idol Logic is a powerful ability. From this they derive their own godly powers and see fit to ridicule those who would not kneel at the statue of the Logic-god.

If you are familiar with Schopenhauer then it should take no further explanation when I say, the Intellect is in service of the Will. And I say this: it is as much self-delusion and self-aggrandizement to insist that justification comes strictly through quantifiable, intellectualized left-brain cognition patterns.

Self-delusion, in service of self-aggrandization (intellect in service of the Will), is the only way of life for a human.

... I am perfectly willing to abandon naturalism as soon as the existence of supernatural agency can be positively verified. Atheistic naturalism doesn't need any self-delusion at all; that is unless you consider the acceptance of the nature of reality as it is to be delusional....

... The point of this post and my labeling of religious metaphysical beliefs as delusional is that I believe religious people intentional distort their perspective of reality in order to make reality more appeasing to them.