by jimmyh » Sat Oct 20, 2018 7:10 pm
Okay, that makes sense. Let me see if I have this right
He sees people believing in God, and he wishes he could too. He sees the peace that it bring them, and he expects that he would be able to be closer with his fiance if he could share in this set of beliefs with her, but at the same time he can't because he just gets this "this is self delusion!" warning sign, and he isn't okay with the idea of willfully deluding himself. Therefore he wants it to be "not self delusion", in his mind, but since he (currently) sees it as "self delusion", that part of him says "but it is self delusion, and it still would be even if I deluded myself into thinking it wasn't!", so he gets stuck.
The way around this is to forget, for a moment, about whether or not it qualifies as "self delusion", and focus on what "it" is, exactly, in the first place. It's not that you have to "not have" this warning of delusion or anything, but that you have it and just say "Yeah, okay", and look at what it is anyway. "Yeah, it might be just self delusion, and there are definitely problems with that which is why I'm not just going to jump right into believing anything that might not be true. At the same time though, I'm interested in what exactly it is that they believe and what it feels like to be them regardless of whether it's self delusion or not -- and heck, maybe even see if there's a point in engaging in self delusion, at least for these people in this way". That way, regardless of whether he ends up agreeing with his fiance or not, he can at least have that closeness and empathy that comes with understanding. That way, he can learn more about what believers do that bring them peace, and whether or not the trade offs are worth it for him in his current place in life. That way it wouldn't be such a blind leap that he's understandably hesitant to make, and he'd have his way out too, if he ended up making somewhat of a mistake.
The answer isn't to try to close your eyes really hard (perhaps with the help of hypnosis) and try to not-see the warning sign(s), it is to see the warning and say "Okay, noted. Thank you", and then go (cautiously) exploring anyway -- and only making decisions after you've given yourself the chance to inform them fully.
Does that kinda make sense?