I recently listened to Steve Pavlina’s podcast on building confidence. It crystallized a couple of things for me.

(Warning: PSRD breach ahead.)

I’ve stated in the past that I’m not very big on God, because I have an engineering mindset and that makes it difficult to believe in things that I have no evidence for. I’ve been asked, “But such belief tends to make the lives of the believers better! Isn’t that sufficient to justify religion, even if it’s not true?” Now, a purely agnostic, atheistic response to that would be, “No! Believing a lie is never justified! Live as we do, undeceived!”

Except that believing in something that you have no evidence for is the essence of self-confidence. Self-confidence is actually self-faith. You believe despite having no evidence, and your belief gives you a much greater chance of actualizing what you believe in.

Thus, the atheistic/agnostic mantra of “It’s always better to live undeceived” is revealed as a lie – there is direct evidence to the contrary.

Does this mean that I believe in God again? No, not really. But even after I fell away from religion, I never developed an antipathy for religion like some atheists do. And now I know I never will. Religion is actually a useful tool for self-improvement…I just don’t feel it works for me personally.