Get Over It

Reading Stories of Faith at the Church of England (seems odd that a church can somehow be delineated by a national border) website it seems every example lists people finding and using religion as a way of getting over some kind of emotional stress or other.

Why are there no stories about people who are perfectly happy, with no problems in their lives, suddenly finding themselves talking to Jesus?

I'm looking for the story which starts, "I was tucking into a bacon sarny, doing the Times crossword, when..."

The Church of England are selling their faith as a solution to hard-to-cope-with problems.

But I'm not complaining. Religion, I think, is a quick fix for personal trauma. Which is a good thing because the alternative is (lengthy and expensive and with a dubious success rate) therapy.

Yes, there are plenty of people not dealing with trauma who were born into their religion. But you rarely find a long-term nonbeliever who suddenly finds faith without that person having just been through some bad times.

I have a friend (who I have known for 30 years) who suddenly converted after splitting up with his wife. It was quite a surprise. He always struck me as quite a rational person.

Then there are those say they can't tell their children the truth because the truth is too nasty.

So this is how the religion delusion persists: personal trauma leads to desperation (basically, a mental illness of some kind), which leads to the need to believe in fairy tales, which leads to raising your kids to believe in fairy tales.