One obvious solution is to construct a Lie which you tell to everybody, thus eventually creating a society where the Lie is believed by everyone, even the elite whom it supports: I suppose one could theorise this is how many societies evolved...

The other obvious solution is to not to use a Lie as your building block, but that's harder than it seems.

Anyway, earlier people were suggesting that a sick person should be allowed to choose death if they want it: I oppose this course as both immoral and dangerous. Immoral, because life is more important than choice. Dangerous, because a climate of euthanasia can lead to people thinking they ought to die...

As for spreading the word, bad manners are unlikely to help (given one can't use force)- so I agree with Adam there.

Plato's opinion was ahared by others in Greco-Roman antiquity like Strabo, Polybius, and Livy; in the Renaissance, Niccolo Machavelli also shared it. But these days, this sort of argument is not stated with the honesty of past centuries; it's often veiled with pseudo-agnostic posturing ("we don't really know what the truth is, so why not believe something that's convenient?").

But however horrible such an opinion may be, one has to congratulate those who were willing to state it honestly.

Jones:
What do you tell the woman dying of cancer whose only solace is in the arms of God?

Till:
I would tell her the same thing that I would tell an Islamic woman dying of cancer whose only solace is in the arms of Allah. She doesn't need a crutch. If she will just look reality in the eye and recognize that there is no deity in the sky looking after her, she would probably be able to accept her condition with more dignity and a lot more self-respect than if she put her hope in just a pipe dream. One of the things that I quickly learned after my deconversion was that there is something very self-satisfying about having the courage to admit that this life is probably all that I have or will ever have. If the woman dying of cancer could come to realize this too, she would have no trouble coping with the reality that death will probably be the end. I am almost 71 years old, and I can truthfully say that I haven't the slightest fear of dying. It wasn't that way when I was a much, much younger Bible believer.

Jones:
You are so compassionate that you attempt to kick that crutch right out from under them, with the assumption that they will not need it.

Till:
Would Jones think the same if I was devoting my time only to the debunking of the Qur'an? I doubt that she would. Her problem is a very basic one: she assumes that Christianity is the truth, and so she sees someone who debunks it as a rather despicable person. I happen to have a different view. I think that anyone who can help a person escape the bondage of religious superstition is doing that person a huge favor. Let's suppose that there were people still living today who, like king Mesha of the Moabites, thought that Chemosh was a real deity who looked over his chosen people. Would Jones think that I was kicking the crutch right out from under these people if I tried to show them that they were in bondage to an absurd superstition?

Jones;
And when they fall, Farrell? What then? Do you have the alternate solution to that which cripples them?

Till:
If they see the truth and have the courage to accept it, they won't fall. They will find themselves in a much more satisfying condition than when they were leaning on the crutch. I can see by her comments here that Jones can't even imagine a life that is courageous enough to accept obvious realities like the finality of death. If she could imagine that, she would be an entirely different person.

Jones:
Or will you just be content to watch them fall on their collective ass?,

Till:
As I have noted above, if they have the intellectual maturity and courage to accept obvious reality, they won't fall on their collective ass. They will stand taller and be more satisfied with their lives.

I'm back in town with replies to everyone's comments. I appreciate your patience.

Dominic:

I don't think you actually have to go this extreme to find situations where you 'go along' with religion without complaint and just chill out (something atheists are lucky enough to be able to do!). You'd have to be a bit sad to jump up and down in the middle of a wedding to protest at the religious bits, or boo the school nativity play.

Indeed so, and I thank you for pointing that out. Not only would that sort of activity not win any friends, it would probably make them even less inclined to listen to us in the future. I do believe that atheists should evangelize, but I also believe that evangelism should occur through effective channels, and harassing believers in a way that reflects poorly on all nonbelievers.

Montu:

First, I don't necessarily agree that the Jehovah's Witness is wrong by choosing to simply pass away without interference, even if that choice is based on a religious belief.

I do believe this, and I'll explain why. As a universal utilitarian, I believe that all people should have the most happiness they possibly can in their lives. By choosing to die when ordinary treatment could have saved them, a Jehovah's Witness (for example) is denying themself all the happiness they could have subsequently experienced, and they are in effect cheating themselves. For that reason, I condemn that belief as morally wrong, just as I condemn all religious beliefs that encourage believers to deny themselves the happiness they could otherwise have had.

On the other hand, I would hardly advocate that they be forced to accept treatment. As Azkyroth said, that is their choice to make, whether I agree with it or not; a mature and competent adult has the right to refuse any medical treatment for themselves, even life-saving treatment. But we can certainly encourage them to do otherwise. (On the other hand, I think withholding ordinary treatment from children based on the parents' religious beliefs should be considered criminal child abuse. The Supreme Court put it well when they said that parents may make martyrs out of themselves, but they do not have the right to make martyrs out of their children.)

As I read the above statement of converting a scared dying person, it sounds to me that it is operating on the belief that this person has lived a relatively good life. However, this is not always the case, this person may be realizing that they spent their entire lives hurting and abusing others, themselves, or have been a down right bad person.

Perhaps, and if that is the case, then I recommend they should be left alone to come to terms with death in whatever way they can. If a person has spent their life engaged in evil, then I certainly wouldn't advocate giving them comfort which they do not deserve. However, many religions, especially Christianity, teach that all people deserve damnation regardless of the good they try to do, so it's not unlikely that there are many basically good people who still fear for the fate of their souls upon death (here's one such story, written by a former believer). If that is the case, I would not oppose efforts to rescue them from their fear, either at their death or at any other time in their life.

BlackWizardMagus:

But even beyond that, the general rule should still be respect of their religion; whether they are dying or not, we shouldn't trying to deconvert people when they don't want to hear it.

I don't entirely agree with that. Most religious believers never want to hear it; if we stayed strictly to that rule, we'd be all but silencing ourselves. We have as much right to speak in the public forum as any religious group and I think we should take full advantage of that. However, I do agree with this comment insofar as I do not think we should personally target theists who have expressed disinterest in our message - i.e., we shouldn't go around knocking on doors on Sunday mornings. But as for the rest of it, such as writing letters and editorials or appearing on TV or radio, or other forums aimed at the general public, believers will just have to come to terms with the fact that there are people, and messages, out there with which they disagree. We have to live with that, so they can put up with it as well.

Luciano:

Do you know Scott Atran's book on religion? It's pretty good on putting together a history of our various needs for consolation in the face of death and how this interacts with our cognitive abilities.

I've not read it, but I know of it - I recently finished Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, which references Atran numerous times, as well as Pascal Boyer. One of Dennett's more interesting theses is that susceptibility to religious belief evolved as a by-product of susceptibility to hypnosis, which was selected for because it made people more liable to experience the placebo effect and therefore more likely to survive sickness or injury in the ages before medicine. I understand that other evolutionary psychologists have reached similar conclusions.

To add something else; my cousin had lukemia specifically (and Montu, thanks for the hope of his getting better, but he died just before Thanksgiving last year), and he was allergic to chemotherapy, so he went and got treatment in Germany. The treatment there had been tested and worked wonders (the only reason my cousin died is because a court order, threatening to take my aunt's baby twins, demanded my aunt and cousin return to the states), but here was actually seen as foolery.

I talk too much, sorry. My point is that we need to be careful with issues regarding children and religion. I don't morally support forcing a kid to follow a religion or to pray, for example, but I am even more opposed to forbidding it. We have to cautious, lest we make a religious war out of this, which will only serve to strengthen the faith of theists, and the medicine issue is an important one to watch.

Hmm. As I attempted to say, I'm inclined to agree, though I'm curious how this would apply to dealing with people who are facing the prospect of losing someone they love (particularly if the person is concerned that their loved one will be facing damnation, etc.).

Anyway, I think some of you are confusing concepts a bit here. I agree with both you and Adam (I think): a person should be "allowed" to refuse treatment for themself (it's a valid gender-neutral pronoun *now* ^.^) on religious grounds in the sense of being legally permitted to do so, and not being physically prevented from doing so. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to convince the person to do otherwise.

As for the alternative medicine methods, I can empathize on the strong-arm tactics, but the fact that most alternative medicine methods haven't been vigorously evaluated by medical science, and that the majority of those that have tend to prove ineffective aside from the placebo effect, would be enough to make any rational person wary of wasting time and energy pursuing them instead of methods that have been properly evaluated. What methods are we talking about here? And what's their known success rate?

At any rate, an analogy I've used for a while is that freedom of religion no more grants a parent the right to endanger their child's health or life by refusing them necessary medical treatment than it permits them to slaughter the same child on an altar as a blood sacrifice.

My point was this: a parent has the responsibility to make sure that their children live a full and healthy life. If the child becomes sick, it is the parents responsibility to bring that child back to health, and as such, they should take advantage of all availble technology and resources. A parent's personal religious belief should not be forced on the child, expessially if it hinders their well being. At no point do I believe that the state should be involved in this situation (other then to simply provide the money nessiccary to pay for treatment (though I can see it being neccissary if the parent is putting the child in undue harm)), it should be the will of the parent to raise their child to be a healthy adult.