What is the Harm in Believing if it Makes Me Feel Good? "My religious beliefs are true, they bring me comfort and even joy. My faith sustains me in difficult times, providing a sense of connection and resilience when I need it most. My faith isn't hurting anyone and it makes me feel better. How can that possibly be a bad thing?"

Some Possible Responses
"It is no defense of superstition and pseudoscience to say that it brings solace and comfort to people…If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sociopaths. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behaviour we ought to interfere with."
--Isaac Asimov

By relying on faith, you leave yourself ill equipped to engage in viable problem-solving. When things get tough, your faith may cloud your judgment. Critical thinking is hard work, and it must be practiced if one is going to do it effectively in periods of turmoil. Too often, faith is simply an excuse not to think.

Individual religious faith often leads one to support religious organizations that engage in harmful acts (e.g., the Catholic Church). Thus, the money an American Catholic contributes to his or her church can end up funding efforts by the Church to oppose condom use in Africa.

Faith comes from a place of fear and uncertainty. The more we learn about our world, the less likely we are to fear it. Perhaps reallocating the focus you invest in faith to learning would reap dividends.

Faith actually undermines one's self-concept by leading one to attribute success to divine forces instead of talent or hard work. Moreover, faith can lead to inaction when the believer simply leaves things up to his or her preferred god(s).

Faith leads one to thank one's preferred god(s) for positive circumstances instead of thanking those actually responsible (e.g., doctors), and this may undermine helping behavior.

When large numbers of people (i.e., an overwhelming majority of a country) rely on faith to feel good, societal damage is almost inevitable. Accountability gets undermined, as nobody accepts responsibility for their behavior. Even elected officials feel comfortable claiming divine authority for their whims.

Truth, even when uncomfortable, is a greater good than positive feelings. The comfort provided by faith is false comfort, and it can distance us from the unpleasant realities that we ought to face.

What I keep trying to find a clear way to articulate is the idea that the ability of a belief to bring comfort is not a valid indicator of the belief's worth.