The praised Christian ideal of self-denial is built on a falsehood

Evidence

Theological standards did not supersede, but they helped to identify, the truth. Authors with didactic and moral intentions formed the belief that some ‘facts’ were true, because those ‘facts’ served the meritorious purpose of exposing error. Other authors whose intentions were a little less lofty, in histories and treatises composed to amuse and instruct, naturally took it that a more instructive and more amusing alternative was true, or at least was not certainly untrue; and the version that was more discreditable to Muhammad or to Islam was the more edifying, instructive and amusing; in fact, the more probably true. It would be anachronistic to say that such an attitude showed indifference to abstract truth; it was a question of finding the best means to recognise what was true. It seemed more reasonable to decide that what suited the author’s purpose was true, provided his purpose was a sufficiently laudable one, than to decide according to the abstract reliability of his sources of information. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1385 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

In genuine self-deception, people avoid doing things that they have an inkling might reveal what they do not want to know. However, suspecting something is not the same as knowing it to be true. As long as one does not find out the truth, what one believes is not known to be false. Keeping oneself willfully uninformed about an unwanted truth is the main vehicle of genuine self-deception. This is a common self-deceiving way of evading responsibility, as we illustrate in ensuing chapters. By not pursuing courses of action that would reveal the actual state of affairs, individuals keep the knowable unknown (Haight, 1980). Acting in ways that keep one uninformed about unwanted information is self-deception. Acting in prejudicial and mistaken ways is self-biasing. These are different phenomena (Bandura, 2011). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 704 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

The question still remains, why the worst number so many and the best so few. To my mind there are two conceivable answers to this question: (1) that the worst by reason of some original perversity of theirs are morally uneducable, and are therefore incapable of making the remotest approach to the religious ideal. Or: (2) that the religious ideal is a wholly wrong ideal which has given a wrong moral twist to the lives of the many, and that the best have become best in spite of the wrong ideal—in fact, by giving to the wrong twist a turn in the right direction. … Of these two explanations I am not prepared to accept the first, and I am sure that even the Mahatma will not insist upon the contrary. To my mind the second is the only logical and reasonable explanation, unless the Mahatma has a third alternative to explain why the worst are so many and the best so few. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1238 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mediaeval Christian polemicists treated useful falsehood as probable truth — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1385; Genuine self-deception works by staying willfully uninformed, not by believing falsehoods — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 704; So many bad followers imply the religious ideal itself is wrong — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1238

Broader Connections

• Mediaeval Christian polemicists treated useful falsehood as probable truth #exemplifies (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1385
• Genuine self-deception works by staying willfully uninformed, not by believing falsehoods #qualifies (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 704
• So many bad followers imply the religious ideal itself is wrong #corroborates (0.72) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1238