TL; DR: Letting people believe whatever they want to because it makes them happy is a good way to have religious nutjobs and conservative con artists fuck up their/your livelihood and your country. Trying to pretend a dangerous and vocal minority of religious extremists in this country did not exist for decades is now resulting in the USA becoming more or less a theocracy.

TL; DR but wry: Letting enough people drink "the Kool-Aid" - even if it is a small group of people- without saying or doing anything to 'be cool' will result in a big fucking mess someone/everyone has to clean up in the end.

“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. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.”

Full text:

I think in the context of everything has happened with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade, valid concerns that the Supreme Court could overturn rulings that helped to protect or to make the very existence of gay people and minorities in this country non-criminal, and the the blatant vitriol hurled at the LGBTQ community, people of color, or those that don't align themselves with the agendas of conservatives it's important for everyone to acknowledge that we got to this point because of one glaring issue. Let me explain.

There are enough studies that demonstrate that we all technically have a self-serving bias to reject any new information that may conflict with or modify our opinions and thought processes on topics; in fact, the brain rewards our confirmation bias with that sweet hit of dopamine. This paper, this paper, and this paper and many others like it talk about this more in detail. This effect is so powerful that even when people are trying to reason with us we can remain blissfully and willfully ignorant because our brain is rewarding us to do so. This of course is an issue - you don't need to change your views or correct your failures in reasoning if your brain is convincing you that you are content in your current mode of thought!

You have probably encountered this barrier when speaking with someone religious you were trying to reason with. Maybe someone got offended by the mere mention that you were an atheist and tried to imply you were only one now because you weren't happy. Maybe someone labeled you as a militant atheist simply because you were more vocal about your lack of belief. In some of these cases you have had this statement or a paraphrase of it said to you in a nasty tone or out of deflection: "Why can't people believe what they want if it makes them happy?"

Yeah, you hear that you goddamn rationalizing atheist heathens. What's it to you if 'Person A' is a happy X-tian/X-lim? What if that faith 'Person A' has is the only thing helping them to maintain her emotional composure? What if that faith gave them such joy it help them through a rough time, to overcome an addiction or a nasty personality, or to grieve a loved one? What if that faith is what motivates 'Person A' to be selfless? What if, what if, what if, WHAT IF?!

The issue with this statement is that aside from demonstrating that it is little more than a deflection tactic is also an admission that there is mostly an emotional appeal validating the faith rather than a logical appeal. It assumes that if everyone had 'Person A's' faith that we all would be happy, we would all be unified, we would all would be kind, and there would be no human suffering if we all stopped questioning faith and instead that just felt faith.

The issue with this, however, that theists don't want to admit is that is has been demonstrated time and time again that this happiness stems from a subjective morality system from a supposedly objective moral arbitrator who always seems to conveniently align their moral values with the culture of their practitioners, the opinions of their practitioners, and for the benefit of their practitioners. The brain of the gnostic theist literally will not allow them to admit that it is illogical to simply accept something on faith, confidence, or even if when there is no empirical evidence for or against its existence. Reasoning and doubt be damned and say it with me, "[They] know that [they] know that God exists and no one can tell them otherwise."

Their happiness is coming at your own fucking expense. These were the same people who severed their social bonds and relationships with you when you confessed that you lacked their faith, the same individuals who dangled romantic, platonic, and familial relationships over your heads as a bargaining tool to force you to convert/re-convert back to their faith, threatened your financial security, and even were willing to throw many atheist/agnostic/skeptical Redditors based on their own confessions onto the streets simply for not believing in the same deity. Are you surprised that from their ranks would rise people if given executive, legislative, and judicial power that would

Sure, your friends and family members may be "happy" at the minimum because their faith provided them with community, a sense of inflated ego purpose, a socially permissible avenue to spew forth bigotry a platform to channel zeal for their moral beliefs, and an opportunity to brainwash others also share their joy with others but now your rights as an American citizen are circling around the toilet bowl.

Many of these people don't even realize it or will not admit it, but their happiness doesn't stream from some source of "divine mystery" that is beyond comprehension. The common religious man has agreed to be happy that restrictive laws and destructive behavior are being waged against people and are encouraged that a minister from God is telling them it is okay to cheer for these things. Even if the same individuals arbitrating over and interpreting laws are making things increasingly difficult for them economically, politically, and legally. As long as they can squawk "Goddidit", never have to read the Bible, interact with people outside of their culture , be kind and considerate to those that don't share their faith ,actually consider the least of these they pray to God to help them reach and love , feel the warm embrace of a proud set of cultural values based on racism,sexism, homophobia,and xenophobia strong moral traditions, and never have to assess the ethical dilemmas of their decisions because God convinces them they are just they will continue to be okay with "just being happy".

Not all of those conservative politicians trust 100% of the Bible with their heart and give it such reverent intellectual dedication that they think it is all true. They are charlatans and grifters are happy to have a pastor do the work for them of convincing the masses to vote for them. Hey, earning seats in the Senate "makes them happy" too and they get to fuck up the lives of social groups they always hated! Score!

Americans - both religious and non-religious - downplayed the threat. It was "weird", "annoying", "confusing", and even "funny" to see that there were people in America in the 21st century who still believed outlandish things based on a religious work riddled with logical inconsistencies, voted for politicians based on party allegiance, still hated people for being gay or non-White, etc. We all thought it was just a joke. We laughed. We derided such thinking. We thought they were either beyond being reasoned with and we didn't have the time nor the patience to do so. We thought things would die down and these things would sort themselves out.

"Let them have that bit of happiness." It's the bare minimum they can be afforded since they probably don't have anything important they can do or contribute to society, right? There certainly can't be enough motivated people who think like this that will actually vote and hold positions of power, right?

And now, we are here. And I believe this quote below is fitting for the situation.

“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. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.” - George Bernard Shaw