Is Richard Dawkins Right? Does Believing in God Make You Delusional?

richard-dawkins-god-delusionSearch for “Dawkins” or “The God Delusion” on this blog and you’ll quickly learn that my de-conversion to atheism was connected to those two terms. Of course, I’m not alone.

But, does being a Dawkins convert also mean that I think believers are suffering from a delusion?

Answer: It depends.

One definition of the delusion is: “An erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary.”

I’m guessing there are a few possibilities for that “erroneous belief” of yours:

  1. You have not heard all of the evidence. You might have been exposed to a lifetime of information from the believer side of the equation, with little to no exposure to the opposing viewpoint. In other words, you are ignorant of the arguments against your belief in God. You are NOT DELUSIONAL.
  2. You do not understand the evidence – a sort of variation on ignorance. The best example here might be that you misunderstand how science refutes your belief – perhaps you are a creationist who misunderstands how evolution works. Based on this misconception, your beliefs in creationism and god are based on that misconception. You are NOT DELUSIONAL. Wrong, but not delusional.
  3. You were raised to believe in God and have never really put much thought into it. God is sort of a default position that doesn’t occupy your thoughts to any meaningful degree. You are NOT DELUSIONAL. I think most people are like you.
  4. You’ve heard and understood the evidence, have put considerable thought into the problem and still believe in God. Sorry, but you ARE DELUSIONAL.

So, now that I’ve only got 25% of you mad at me, let’s talk about why you might be clinging to your beliefs so firmly – even “in the face of evidence to the contrary“.

  1. Belief is the lynch-pin of your entire world view: It’s known that, when their beliefs crumble, many fundamentalists don’t just abandon creationism, they go all the way toward atheism. That’s because the black and white all-or-nothing nature of their belief system leads them to reject all that they learned. Subconsciously, they know this, so they fight the evidence against their position tooth and nail. They are afraid that, if their belief system is wrong, their life is without meaning. (In contrast, when people whose world views are less literal have a crisis of belief, they tend to adopt even more liberal religious viewpoints. Some even become deists. Their religious views evolve, whereas fundamentalist views simply collapse.)
  2. You are afraid of death: Yes, I know – it’s a blanket statement that makes some people angry to hear, but the fact is that most people are afraid of death (or the death of loved ones) and will do everything they can to avoid letting go of their hope for immortality.
  3. Peer Pressure: Your family believes. Your friends believe. Over 80% of your country believes. It’s hard to go against the grain. After all, you’ll be an outcast – right?
  4. To all you atheists out there, help me out – what would you put here?
  5. I’m sure I’ve missed more than one reason. Please repeat the instructions shown in #4.

So there you have it. Some of you are delusional. But, you know, being delusional is not that bad. After all, many very smart people have been delusional about something. No one is saying you are stupid – just that you may have a logical blind spot. We also think that you have the capacity to reason your way through this. All you have to do is let go of your fear, embrace a more evidence-based method of understanding the universe, and try.

The rest of you may just need to do a bit more reading. ;)

August 27, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism

87 Comments 

Atheist Superstition?

I’ve been reading Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark – a terrific book that sheds a bright light on humanity’s history of superstitious thinking (ghosts, gods, UFOs, clairvoyance etc).

As if Sagan’s writing weren’t profound enough, today I learned of Bruce Hood’s Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable. The focus of the book is to ponder the reasons why we are superstitious – a look at everything from ghosts to lucky rabbits feet.

Although I haven’t read Supersense (I intend to), something in one of Mr. Hood’s interviews got me questioning whether I had any superstitious remnants left since shedding my belief in god.

Turns out I did – a rather big one. It surprised me since I thought I’d rid myself of all that.

About six years ago, my son fell of a ledge. The fall took place at one of my daughter’s dance recitals. Christopher was too full of energy to sit through the entire performance so I took him into the lobby area to work off some steam. He was just learning to walk so I watched him carefully and stayed close taking special note of the location of stairs.

But the danger was not with the stairs. The entire room was enclosed in glass topped with brass banister railings. These had been installed in six foot sections. What I didn’t know was that one of the glass sections was missing (it had broken and the facility neglected to replace it). As Christopher went from section to section, he would walk up, put his hands up and lean on the glass to look down to the floor below. Of course, when he got to the missing piece of glass, he toppled over the edge just as I was realizing the glass was missing. That moment was the most terrifying of my life as I watched, in utter horror, my son falling to his death …or so I thought.

It turned out there was a ledge just three feet down. He was bruised, but ok.

I was never the same. I had nightmares. The memory haunted me and I am sure I worried more than most parents probably worry about their kid’s safety.

To make matters worse, a few years later Christopher was admitted into the emergency ward for a mysterious locking up of his legs – he could not straighten his knees. After 12 hours in emergency, we were admitted to a room – in the children’s oncology ward. It was only several hours later when the nurses told me we were there because rooms were not available elsewhere. In other words, Christopher did not have Cancer. A few days later, Christopher’s knees just as mysteriously unlocked and we were sent home. He soon forgot about the ordeal. I did not.

To make matters even worse, almost exactly a year ago, Christopher was diagnosed as a Type 1 Diabetic (the insulin for life variety). All of the emotions from Christopher’s fall and hospital stay re-surfaced and, as the emotions burst forth, I cried to my wife that, “I’ve always felt I would lose him”.

The feeling that I would one day lose my son was – my last truly superstitious thought – a heavy burden I carried for far too long.

I now realize that there is no reason why past experiences should translate into a superstition that has no basis in reality. The true reality is that there is NO reason for me to have this fear of the future.

This atheist is 100% done with superstition. Rationalism is firmly engrained in my psyche and I am now truly free.

You’ll have to excuse me now – I’m going to go shoot some hoops with my son.

me-chris

August 11, 2009 · Filed Under Atheism

2 Comments 

Can Atheists Be Spiritual?

I am slowly finding like-minded bloggers who feel the need to express what they believe in, in addition to the assertion that they have no belief in god(s).

Here’s a gem written by David Garnet over at Glittering Muse.

If we are to attract more people to atheism and the humanist worldview, we need more of this kind of writing.

July 30, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

1 Comment 

One Atheist’s Abbreviated World View – 7 Pillars I Try to Live By

An excellent post from the Atheist Revolution archive made its way onto the reddit atheism what’s hot list this past week.

The post is vjack’s endorsement of the secular humanism worldview (which I like to think of as a belief system), coupled with a suggestion that other atheists follow suit.

The goal in this is to communicate to the world that atheists have more – much more – of a world view than just denying the existence of god(s).

I agree. The crux of the matter is that theists, and many people still figuring out the question of God’s existence, have a hard time imagining what atheists might believe in – if anything. In fact, I think many people are afraid of atheists due to the flawed thinking that, without a religion to guide us, we are likely to be or become amoral/immoral people.

So, to vjack and anyone else who might care to know, I too declare myself a Secular Humanist. It is a beautiful, nuanced, almost intuitive world view that is extremely close to how I try to live my life. For an understanding of this world view, I recommend reading the wikipedia entry for secular humanism, as well as the affirmations and declaration on the Council for Secular Humanism website.

I’d also like to share my “abbreviated belief system” – a little graphic I drew up that captures some of the ideas found in secular humanism (with personal language interpretations/variations) that I most closely identify with. I found the process of distilling my world view down to something simple like this to be very rewarding, and I’d love to see your version.

June 29, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

6 Comments