Even Worse Bus Ads: Britain Secularist Society

[Alex]

No, there would not be less to worry about if a murderer is to be punished in an afterlife. Until such time as we have evidence that people in the afterlife can continue killing people in the currentlife and that afterlife punishments prevent this, then I really can't give a damn what is happening there.

Also, separate belief in an afterlife (and the benefits or negatives of this) from the existence of an afterlife since they are independent issues.

Finally, your last paragraph makes little sense to me at all in what question you are trying to ask. If believing that god wanted her baby to die makes her feel better and that's how she can get through the day then who am I to personally try to talk her out of her little fantasia (personally it would make me less happy to believe that there was a god that wanted my baby dead but then I don't believe in it so I'm not trying to stay on its good side).

But that is moot as her belief in god again has nothing to do with whether there is one. If she believes in said god then the existence or non-existence of said god will not in any way impact her happiness level until such time as she is dead and finds out that she was wrong (or, implausibly, right).

That said, believing in something SIMPLY because said belief makes you happier is something that, except in this very narrow sliver of thinking, is generally regarded as defective. Personally, it would make me very happy to believe that if my child dies before its first birthday that 1989-era Elle MacPherson will come lounge about my apartment in a state of undress and grant me eternal life here on earth.

Somehow I doubt, though, that if upon the death of my child I went around saying "It's ok, because now I get naked Elle MacPherson and immortality" that people would smile for me and say "oh, I'm so glad you found this means of comfort."