Beneficial or Detrimental

Is there any benefit to having friends? The most immediate answer is yes, obviously. To be honest, if you asked the whole world whether it is better or worse to have a lot of loving friends, I would say at the very least 70% of them would say it is better. I remember my time in school, claiming someone had no friends was one of the biggest insults. Saying someone had no friends meant a lot of things in one. It didn’t mean that they smelt bad, or that they were bad at sports, or ugly, it meant all of the above combined. Having no friends meant that no one in school liked you and that you were probably bullied and never invited to any parties. it is from this social conditioning that children carry on the belief, that having friends is empirical, into adulthood, and once a belief is held by a majority of adults it is usually considered a fact. However, I take the narrow path always and therefore I cannot believe something simply because the majority of people believe it. Instead, I will analyse, discuss, and decide on the answer.

The first argument for friendship is that it is natural, coming from an evolutionary need to protect oneself by having others back you. This need to protect in groups can be seen in most mammals. It is true that the more people you have on your side, the less likely you are to be messed with, and I can see how the view that friendship evolved from this need came to pass. Going back to my school analogy, if you had strong friends, nobody messed with you. No one would bully you, because your friends would retaliate and bully them back. Also, those with the largest friendship group attracted the most attention, girls wanted to be around them, and boys wanted to be them. Most groups stem from shared interests like sports and so many of the popular friendship groups are filled with the most athletic, most well-built boys in the school. From an evolutionary point of view, it can’t be argued that being part of a strong group is beneficial. However, there are two problems with this argument. The first issue is that not all groups are strong. We are not so much worried about whether or not it is beneficial to be part of the strongest or most popular groups, but groups in general. What about the group of friends who all share a similar interest in croquet or hockey? They aren’t so cool, and not so athletic either, so much so that they might even get bullied by those whose numbers are less than theirs. So, if friendship evolved from an evolutionary benefit of being part of strong groups, what about those who are in weak ones? What is the explanation for that? I am sure a lot of people think their friendship groups are the strong ones, and not the weak ones, but think bigger than school, and bigger than the area you live in or the people you know. Your friendship group is extremely small, certainly smaller than the freemasons, or whatever other society or sorority group which started in university and ended up dominating politics, business, and religion. Furthermore, the groups of the ancient days were tribes, where every member was most likely related by blood, perhaps sharing the same great, great grandfather or whatnot. Like the twelve tribes of Israel, each son of Jacob formed their tribe, and they lived together in Israel, dominating all foreign countries whilst being peaceful (for the most part) with themselves. This isn’t friendship in the way it is described today, but instead family and business ties, something very important no doubt. If the question was on whether family is important the answer would be absolutely, but there is a massive and obvious difference between a brother or even a cousin, and a friend, which we will touch on when looking at negatives.

We could also say that friends are beneficial financially, as a group of friends can come together and start a business. Absolutely, they ‘could’ do this, but just because something can be done does not mean it will be done, and more importantly, just because a group of friends can start a business does not mean that having a group of friends is beneficial in general. It means having a group of friends who are financially successful is beneficial, but without financial success, we can’t say this. There is of course financial strength in numbers, but the numbers we are talking about are huge, like those mentioned above. These come with so many negatives, for example differing interests and morality, but we will get to that later*. Another argument for friendship being beneficial is that friends give each other company and make each other happy. This is probably the most logical argument for the positivity of friendship simply because it applies to all friendships. I can confidently say that most people’s friends do bring emotional happiness to their lives, and vice versa. However, the happiness that your friends bring to you may or may not be beneficial. For example, you can be happy with your friend because he’s brought some weed over, which is of course a negative or on the other hand you could be happy. After all, your friend got you an interview at a prestigious company, a positive. So, although all your friends will bring you happiness the happiness which they bring could be detrimental, and a lot of times they are.

From a Christian perspective, I really cannot give you a solid reason as to why friends are important. However, I can give you two reasons why they are detrimental. In 1 John 2:15 John tells us not to love the world as loving the world means you do not love God, whilst Jesus says, in Matthew 7:13-14, that wide is the gate and wide is the path that leads to destruction. Friends, in today’s society, will almost certainly keep you attached to the world with petty gossip and football arguments. These take your focus away from what truly matters, which is God. I have written a lot about how we must seek God with all our hearts if we wish to find him, half-hearted attempts won’t work. Spending hours on a twitter group chat arguing about football is in no way beneficial to us as Christians, and do not get me started on gossip or celebrity news. Even talks with friends who focus too much on money aren’t necessarily beneficial from a Christian perspective, as they keep you focused on the world rather than on God, as much as petty gossip and sports do. Now to be clear, loads of people in the bible have money, and acquiring wealth, or watching sports is not a bad thing, however in today’s unholy world, the chances are you spend loads of time talking about these with friends and probably spend only a small amount of time on your own getting closer to God, and your friends certainly won’t encourage you. As for Jesus’ warning about not taking the ‘wide path’ i.e., following the crowd, I don’t think it needs much explaining. I mean, there is nothing keeping you more in the crowd than a large number of friends. Drinking, smoking, and whatever other worldly habits you have is not going to go away by hanging out with others who share those same behaviours. You have to understand, this is Satan’s world, and most people are in it. The more you hang with the crowd the more you will sin, listen to Jesus and follow the narrow path, the path of the few.

Friends can be detrimental to your mind because of a psychological weakness of humans, known as social proof. Most humans will subconsciously do what others are doing. Again, this might not have been a bad thing if we weren’t living in such terrible times, but unfortunately, most friends will just lead you astray. Would my friends and I have started drinking at thirteen, if we all had never met? I still vividly remember being encouraged to watch porn and masturbate because ‘it feels so good’. Would I, a Christian ever have done anything if I had been living somewhere remote with my mother, father, and two brothers? No, as an older brother, my job is to take my brothers away from sin, and of course, it is every parent’s goal to protect their children. Away from a wicked society controlled by the evil one, most will not develop such bad habits which they now have to try and remove as adults. One thing is for sure though, those that encouraged you and were there with you during the development of a habit won’t put even 10% of the effort to help you remove the habit. As for those who do not subconsciously do things because others do, much like taking the vaccine, we are ridiculed and laughed at by others.

Which leads me to my final point, I am not sure two people have to truly care for one another to be friends. I used the word truly because I am sure a lot think they care for their friend but deep down do not. There are many instances of men/women going after their friends’ significant others, and many friends getting each other hooked on drugs and porn. I got in a lot of trouble in school due to friends and also got friends into trouble, and we were never there for each other when one of us got caught. Sometimes I even think about whether or not people want equals to have fun with or just people to do the same thing they’re doing to reduce the anxiety of doing it. Maybe doing cocaine or embezzling money on your own is a bit scary, so then you invite your ‘friend’ to come to do it with you.

Honestly, it depends. It depends on the society, it depends on the friend, and it depends on how many friends. It is very possible to have one person care for you deeply, shown through their actions, but when you have four or five best friends you are leaving yourself open to manipulation. Of course, there are also people who have a multitude of friends who can withstand peer pressure, or who have friends who all wish and want the best for each other, but honestly, this is rare. I cannot advise you on whether or not you should have friends, but what I can tell you for sure is to remember 1 John 2:15 and Matthew 7:13-14. Do not love the world or anything in the world, because to love the world is to not love God, also do not follow the crowd, but instead walk the path only a few have ever walked.

By TheNarrowPathBlog