Red Pill or Blue Pill?
 

Just a hypothetical situation, a spin on Cypher's dilemma in The Matrix

You are a devote religious person, and you come across an undeniable proof that God doesn't exist. Your life is undoubtedly in turmoil. All your hopes of life everlasting in bliss, and eternal damnation for those undeserving has being irreparably destroyed. You become incredibly depressed with this new view of life.
But then you are given a choice. Your mind can be wiped clean of this information. You can return to living your happy life, never knowing the truth. You will probably even end up with a better quality of life, without having a huge gaping hole, that God once filled. Or you can decide that ultimately truth is more important that happiness, and keep your new life.

So what's it going to be? The Red pill of truth, or the Blue pill of Contentment?

Disclaimer: This is a hypothetical situation, nothing more. I'm not wanting to start a debate over the evidence for or against the existence of God. Rather I am looking for people's opinion on self delusion.

If I was in that situation, a devout Christian with God being a major part of my life and all, I would personally choose a content life. What is life if you can't live it happily?

"A comfortable falsehood will always win out over an uncomfortable truth." (Get back to you later with who said it....)

I'd take the red pill. I might regret every minute of it later on. But I'd have to take it. It's my nature.

I'm gonna go with the blue pill. I do know the truth. I agree with Agent Smith. Humanity is a disease. It sickens me. Emotion is a disease. Compassion. Gross. I would rather be content. Like Cypher said, ignorance is bliss. I'd rather not know about all this shit that surrounds me (ie people in pods of slime:lol: ). I'd rather be happy without a care about human scum. But I digress. Read Johnny the Homicidal Maniac a few times to know what i mean.

I agree with this. I would rather know the truth.

red pill.

I'm no one's battery, at least not willingly.

Worst case, I would rather be dead.

blue pill all the way. hell, if i had a choice, i'd probably have a good case of down syndrom...some of the happiest people i've ever met are people with down syndrome. They don't have a care in the world. The only downside to that would be the lack of having my own family. But yeah, i'm all about living a happy life. In the end, does it really matter what you knew or didn't know?

Blue pill all the way, I'll take happiness over truth any day (if the two are mutually exclusive, which this poll implies)

Honest to a fault myself,
I would always rather know the truth.

I'd rather know the truth--- if you know the truth you can try to do something about it.

Red Pill. Then with that truth in hand I can proceed to change the world............

I want to know. Always.

How can one fix something, if they are sleeping

I've always wanted to be given a red pill in regards to God. Then if I knew he existed, I would know that my strivings against sin were not in vain and I could continue pressing on. If he doesn't exist, well there's no sense left to being a good person so why don't I just go out and enjoy myself? Contentment would come from knowing the truth, not from continually living in a mystery.

CSfilm

It really isn't fair to change the original question after so many people (myself included) answered your first poll and question.

What!? I didn't change the question. If you are refering to the Last edited by CSflim on 06-30-2003 at 01:05 AM I did that to fix a spelling mistake. The question was always the same. What do you think the question used to say?

Judging from your first post, I would guess that you didn't read the question, and just read the title and first line, and thought I was asking a question directly relating to the Matrix. I was simply using the matrix as an analogy, as I feel that there are some similarities there.

But I agree with you, it is unfair to change a question, but I am innocent of that at least! Feel free to post a new answer to the question, I can't change the votes though, only a mod can do that.

Your strivings against 'sin' are not in vain in either case.

Western religion tends to foster this game show image of you 'getting whats in the box where Jane is standing'.

You are not living a devout or diciplined life to get a prize. The reward is fostering positive energy for our world. While you may loose site of it, you are improving the world for all of us.

I see believing that some bliss exists beyound our current reality set, as a good thing. We look to our faith to see us through difficulties, when we tend to question such things.

:)

You should always eat the red ones last.

(Hmmm.. it just occured to me that only Canadians and possibly Europeans will get that. Mmmm... smarties).

My appologies.

I picked the wrong week to give up sniffing glue...

Knowing myself, I'd probably go "FUCK YOU" amd swallow both.

what about the content atheist who comes across proof that there IS a god? I'd feel like a creepy neighbor was always looking in my window but I'd still rather know the truth. Ignorance is bliss, but I've never been satisfied with bliss.

I have often thought about that. The conclusion I have come up with is that if there is a God he will accept that he gave me the ability to think and the power to reason. He will know that it is his doing that caused me to doubt and seek factual knowledge. With the brain he has given me how without proof could I believe in such a thing? He will understand where he flawed and admit me to eternal happiness. If not...I will try again next time. :)

Truth. It would shatter my current outlook, but I MUST know.

I am a red pill type, but I'll always envy the blue pillers who don't have to know about all the crap in the world.

happiness in my mind is much better than truth, though this may/will change.

Envy may be a strong word, but I feel much the same. I'd like to believe I'd be living the same life, tho

red pill, without a doubt. Its just the kinda person that i am, i would jump headlong into that, without really considering it.

I hate to say it but "ignorance is bliss". I would rather not know and live a life of happiness than know and live a life of resentment.

Why thank you jlickx! Your name may be inpronounceable, but your words really were a comfort ;)

Ahh, Airplane... Man that movie was good!

Oh, and I'll take the red pill with a nice quiche, please.

Red pill, without a doubt.

being inside the matrix is a better life than outside...

i'd probably take the blue pill.

Red Pill. Truth is important.

it has forever been my belief that religion has the purpose of helping people better their lives, and the lives of those around them. With this view, who cares if your religion is false? If living under your religious views helps you and the people around you then continue believing even if you doubt there is a god.

I am agnostic at my current age, but i have no problem w/ other peoples religions.

red pill.

All my life it's always the red pill.

The red pill IS life.

I would take the red pill, you can always adapt to knowing a god does/doesn't exist and that depression will eventually turn into a good life experience.

i'd eat both at once and control both realities simutaneously

red pill for truth.
If i was the that fucked up from the gaping whole left in my life, i could always take more drugs to fill that. Although the truth is too important.

It's not a choice to me. Without the truth, I cannot possibly be content.

To this I would respond, how can one possibly be content without knowing the truth?

I am a firm believer that one's purpose in life is to experience, to be experienced. If the world surrounding you is an empty reality, what does that say about your relation to it? Or you, yourself?

Living in ignorance is a practice many choose to accept each day, whether turning their head away from the starving on the street corner or changing the channel when confronted with the less fortunate of a geographically distant location. It is also, unfortunately, a very sheltered existence whose emptiness is made that much clearer through the means of awareness on both personal and social levels. An awareness that is typically discouraged by most common social structures as a nuissance; merely an annoyance designed to distract you from TRL.

To know your world is to experience it. To avoid that knowledge is to merely reside within it.

And you know who else merely resides? Cockroaches.

Funny how that works.