@ben: My rabbi friend still wanted to be a rabbi, still wanted to be a good wife, because these things brought her joy. She enjoyed knowing families and helping others, both in good times and bad, even if she wasn't doing those things on god's behalf. She was doing them for herself. And I'd say that makes her an even more selfless person.

Enjoying it contradicts selflessness. And if she is spreading wrong religious ideas she is leading others astray. Very wrong!

My experience:

10 years of christianity, I was a member of a lot of churches always searching for the one that would bring me closer to the truth. Then I realized that most churches where just the blind leading the blind and finally that christianity itself was flawed, that's when I found freedom.

What made it easier for me is that I never was really deeply invested into it because from the very beginnings I always had doubts and never stopped asking questions. That's what helped me find the truth after all.

Now to your situation. Keep in mind that there is very little information for us to give any meaningful advice, ideally you would have to talk this over in person or over the phone/skype.

Let me point to some contradictions in your writings: you mention a genuinely wonderful family and a special man. If this is really true you shouldn't have a problem just being honest with them and talking it through. "Folks, I realized that I was wrong in my faith." Since you seem to be unable to do that I conclude that the people you mention are not that wonderful. After all those years you are now realizing that what you consider genuine persons are in fact quite a bunch of hypocrites.

You should ask yourself what is more important to you: truth or your social connections. Isn't it funny that christians always preach that we should be willing to die for our faith and yet when it comes to actually live by those words suddenly they become all insecure?

You mention a business that rests on your faith, my experience from those years in church was that people who make a living from faith are generally not to be trusted. How do you feel about all the persons you made money off, now that you realize that christianity is fake? Don't you feel that they deserve to be told the truth?

Do you really love your daughters? Well, why not tell them the truth?

I know it's not easy, but christianity was never supposed to be easy either, so I wonder what kind of christianity where you living in the first place?

I think you will have to decide if you want to be one more of the hypocrites in church or be truthful.

Btw, a good place to look for advice would be with cult survivors, because in fact christianity is a cult.

Sorry if my words sound harsh but after all those years in church, all those lies and hypocrisy I can't be totally neutral anymore.

@Jack Christopher: what is H+?

@Tom McCabe: I would have answered "yes"; eg., I would have set off a bomb in Hitler's car in 1942, even if Hitler was surrounded by babies. This doesn't seem to be a case of corruption by unethical hardware; the benefit to *me* from setting off such a bomb is quite negative, as it greatly increases my chance of being tortured to death by the SS.

It's easy to talk now about it, harder if you actually lived in Germany at that time and had to really fear the SS. Are you american? If yes did you consider the fact that the actual political situation in the states has a lot of similarities with Nazi-Germany?

As for killing Hitler you have a few hidden assumptions in there like: -killing him would actually stop the war and/or the killing of the jews.

For me it seems you have fallen for the simplification that Hitler is the personification of evil and so you failed to understand the complexity of the political situation at that time.

@Eliezer.

I don't understand this sentence:

"By and large, it seems to me a pretty fair generalization that people who achieve great good ends manage not to find excuses for all that much evil along the way."

I mean, if they really achieved great good ends and those ends have more positive utility than the negative utility of the evil along the way wouldn't this be a case where the end actually justifies the means?

@Eliezer:

To drive home my earlier point. The whole idea of jedis vs. siths reflects a Manichaeistic worldview(good vs. bad). Isn't this a simplification?

@Eliezer: Roland, these are the Sith masters.

Ok, got your point. One thing I worry though is how much those movie analogies end up inducing biases in you and others.

Eliezer,

I agree with you what regards people deceiving themselves. But I disagree regarding people that are deceiving others with purpose. Some of these people can be very smart and know very well what they are doing and on what biases they are playing. They have elevated the art of deception to a science, ohhh yes, read marketing books as an example. Otherwise a superintelligence would become stupid in the process of lying to the human operator with the intention to get out of the box.

the terrorists et al. probably do hate our freedom -- e.g., our freedom to watch DVDs of people having sex. This fact may not be particularly useful in keeping from being attacked again (I for one am not willing to give up the right to watch DVDs of people having sex).

A witchhunt tells us a lot about those doing it but little about those who are the target of it.

Denis Bider: I agree with you.