The Fallacy of True Belief

We began our class today by researching Jim Jones, and Heaven’s Gate, then proceeded to watch videos about each of these religious movements. The entire experience left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, one that could most accurately be described as anger. We have deluded ourselves into a self-destructive system, and hardly any of us see it. We all watch videos of cults preying upon the depressed, the poor, the mistreated, and we condemn these cultists as being insidious and inherently harmful. We all hear their beliefs, that committing suicide during a specific period of celestial alignment will result in the transcendental transportation of a person to a spaceship, to join other believers in a blissful new life, and we automatically consider such beliefs nonsense, and such believers insane. Why is this? Are doctrines of transubstantiation any less insane? The virgin birth, vicarious sacrifice, heaven, resurrection, 72 virgins in the afterlife, transubstantiation; are these any less crazy? I would argue that they are no less nonsensical than any other religious system, indeed, were we to judge the consequences of such beliefs on a moral basis, I would say that the core values of the largest monotheistic religions are far more harmful. The people in the Heaven’s Gate cult, or the People’s Temple, deluded as they were, insane as they were, pathetic as they were, did not kill other people in the process of killing themselves, we cannot say the same of Islam. Christianity also fails on moral grounds, is it moral to tell a child that if he does not live according to a specific doctrine, he will be cast into everlasting flame? Is it moral to believe that one man’s anguished death in ancient Palestine is enough to rid mankind of sins? Is it moral to believe that you can rid yourself of your responsibilities by another man’s suffering? I would consider such beliefs just as ludicrous as various cult beliefs, and far more damaging. We all, religious and secular alike, watched the cult videos through critical lenses, religious people have no problems analyzing the various fallacies of other religions, nobody other than Heaven’s Gate cultists has any trouble dismissing such beliefs as ridiculous and harmful, yet the religious cannot examine their own beliefs through such an analytical perspective. I consider this hypocrisy, it is harmful hypocrisy, countless people every day perish as a result of such dogmatic doctrines, we need to reevaluate our beliefs on spirituality before it is too late.