Green Oasis

Many of you are probably familiar with The Matrix. Neo, the main character of this movie, lives in a virtual world. He believes that it is the real world, but his real body lives in a vat where it is fed nutrients and hallucinations of a world that exists only in a computer and in his mind. Inside this virtual world, Neo is led to a mysterious figure named Morpheus who shows him how to escape the hallucination known as the Matrix:

Morpheus: I imagine that right now you’re feeling a bit like Alice. Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
…
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.… Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
[In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.]
Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
[A red pill is shown in his other hand.]
Morpheus: You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
[After a long pause, Neo begins to reach for the red pill]
Morpheus: Remember—all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.

Essays have been written about this compelling choice between the red pill and the blue pill. Neo must choose between world as he knows it, and learning the truth—essentially between comfort and knowledge of the truth.

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. (Herbert Agar)

The tension between truth and comfort has come up several times in discussions here. Truths exist which tend to make us unhappy. How much happiness will we sacrifice to know the truth? Speaking hypothetically:

• You love ice cream, but it’s going to give you early heart disease, do want to know the truth so you can prolong your life, or do you just want to enjoy your ice cream while life lasts?
• Some of your friends think you’re terribly boring. They only hang out with you because they like your mutual friends. Would you like to know their true feelings?
• Your spouse is having an affair that you don’t know about, but you have an otherwise happy marriage. Would you prefer to know the truth, or would you choose to be blissfully ignorant?
• Your child is going to die tomorrow from a sudden illness that the child doesn’t know about and that you can do nothing to prevent. Do you tell the child so they can spend their last hours knowing the truth, or do you want to spare your child the fear of impending death?
• Your belief in a loving God and your hope for an afterlife comfort you, but you find little objective reason to justify your beliefs. Do you choose to believe just because you want it to be true?

I have a lot of faith in the truth. I believe that it is usually better to know the truth even if the truth will make us unhappy. I trust that the sorrow that comes from knowing the truth will usually not last long, that greater peace and happiness flow from knowing the truth. Further, leading willfully ignorant lives because we fear knowing the truth doesn’t appear to lead to true happiness.

On this blog, the tension between happiness and truth most often comes up in the context of religious beliefs. Some commenters seem to imply believing in a probably false religion which makes us happy is better than knowing the depressing truth. This is a personal choice, but there are reasons to believe that this strategy does not bring optimal happiness.

For one example, medical science has healed more of the sick than religious faith. Our relatively disease free lives are thanks to science, not religion. Medical science has been advanced by those who were willing to set aside religious beliefs when they contradicted evidence. We are all much better off because of those who defied religious injunctions against desecrating the bodies of the dead in order to learn human anatomy, because of the germ theory of disease instead of believing that disease is caused by spirits or demons as the Holy Scriptures teach, and because of the theory of evolution which permeates modern biology but contradicts the creation myth in Genesis. So you could say that we are as healthy as we are in spite of religion.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. (George Bernard Shaw)

We are all faced with red pill/blue pill choices. It is our right to decide. I have chosen to err consistently on the side of truth unless there is a compelling reason to choose comfort. I hope that helps to explain why I am critical of what I see as false beliefs, why I can’t leave others’ religious beliefs alone. Truth for me is more important than personal discomfort.

So which do you choose: the blue pill… or the red pill?

[Believing there is no God] informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day. (This I Believe by Penn Jillette)

I heard this essay on NPR months ago and enjoyed Penn’s clear, straightforward explanation of humanism (even though he never uses that word). It’s a good Sunday sermon to remind me why it’s good to be godless.

Mormon Missionary: Brother Blake, I testify to you that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, that he translated the Book of Mormon from the records of the ancient Americans—

Me: Wait, wait. How do you know that?

Missionary: I studied the Book of Mormon, and I asked God in prayer whether it was true. Heavenly Father answered my prayers through the Holy Ghost. I felt a great peace that assured me that the Book of Mormon was true.

Me: How do you know that your feelings of peace were God telling you about the Book of Mormon?

Missionary: In D&C 9:8 and Alma 32:28, God tells us that he will enlighten our understanding and cause our hearts to burn when we learn the truth. I have felt that peace.

Me: How do you know that those verses are telling you the truth, that feelings of peace and elevation are the Holy Spirit communicating with you?

Missionary: Well, I prayed about it and—

Me: You’re going in circles.

Missionary: I just know that what I’m teaching you is true. If you pray as I did, you can know, too.

Me: You’re avoiding my question. How do you know? If it’s just a matter of feeling that something is true, then how do you know that your feelings are more reliable than another person’s feelings? If I too feel that I know the truth, how do you know that I’m wrong?

Missionary: The Holy Spirit may testify of the portion of the truth that you have. If someone honestly listens to the Gospel’s message and the Spirit testifies to them, they will know that Mormonism contains the full truth, not just a portion of the truth. When the Holy Spirit testified to me, it removed all of my doubts. I am certain that the Gospel as restored by Joseph Smith is true.

Me: You’re still just saying that you know something because you feel like it’s true, and you’re still avoiding the question. How do you know that others’ religious experiences which lead them to follow Islam or Buddhism are less valid than yours?

Missionary: The Gospel is a matter of faith. You have to place your trust in God and he will tell you the truth.

Me: So you don’t really know then. You have faith. You have a belief, a belief that isn’t fully justified by objective evidence. Your belief is based on a wholly private, subjective experience. Why don’t you just say that you believe then? Wouldn’t that be more honest? Stop saying that you know something when you don’t.

Missionary: If you take the leap of faith, then you can later come to have knowledge of the Gospel’s truth. It wouldn’t be faith anymore.

Me: How would I know? Feelings?