Some irrational beliefs serve as stabilizing forces for survival.
Evidence
A change of perspective, an attempt to put oneself in the other person’s shoes, can in some cases show that an irrational belief may actually be just harmless entertainment, a comforting notion, or even a stabilizing force for a person’s survival. Attacking someone’s belief in a reunion with a loved one in the afterlife merely on principle does not make one friends, and in most cases it benefits no one. This self-reflection, which always requires a little distance, may be difficult for us, especially in the case of people who are particularly close to us. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 822
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely difficult moral nuance: rationalists should sometimes leave comforting irrationality alone, weighing harm against the belief’s stabilizing function.
- XREF: Connects to the irrationality of belief and cognitive dissonance mechanics discussed in Chap. 2 of this same book. — connects to: Survival itself is nonsensical and demands readiness for death; Powerless hope is the sole precondition for continuing to live — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 149; Intensified ephemerality drives a reactive craving for eternal truths and secure moorings. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1843
Related
- Survival itself is nonsensical and demands readiness for death (similarity 0.83)
- Emotional benefits sustain worldviews that good arguments cannot dislodge (similarity 0.78)