There is a big difference between using our intelligence to fathom reasons we have to be optimistic about life on one side, and attempting to derive a positive outlook from faith in stories or myths with little or no rational connection to reality on the other. Another way to state this would be to say your prospects for happiness are far superior if they are rooted in reality.
Having good feelings about where humanity is headed helps shape a positive outlook on life as does having good feelings about who we are as individuals and our ability to have at least some control our destiny. Contrast this with the negativism religion induces into the way we see ourselves through defining us as sinners in need of salvation and we turn an already bad situation into something worse.
Contrast with ignorant “the world is doomed” attitudes along with concepts that we are pawns in some supernatural battle between forces of good and evil. Irrational fears and superstitions have the power to turn our ability to enjoy present moments into endless worry about what is going to happen to us after we die. Religious implanted ideas that we have some ability to control what happens to us after we die distracts us from the opportunities to take advantage of today’s life.
Hope vs. despair or a distorted version of hope that one will be saved. If you believe that you are doomed to an eternity in hell unless you are saved by the creator of the universe, then you can’t have a very good outlook on life.
We’ve already been saddled with a pretty shitty predicament without adding superstitions that paint us as spending eternity in hell unless we can be saved by the creator of the universe.
There seems a dichotomy between our tendency to see ourselves as being at the center of the universe and our apparent willingness to see ourselves as in need of salvation. This might be explained by the fact that seeing ourselves as important to a creator requires a story to go with it that proves love.
THE PROBLEM WITH RELIGION… Religion gives us a whole bag of negative elements to deal with including despair, fear, guilt, regret and more. It offers us a way out of the doom it created by claiming we can be saved if we accept religion’s fairy tales as true by ignoring our rational minds and substituting that with faith.
But optimism must be tempered by the reality of the bad side of humanity that steals and kills with glee. We are after all, human animals with genetic predispositions that oppose some of the higher aspirations of living fulfilling lives in harmony with all the other beings we share our existence with.
