# Is belief in God a delusion? - Richard Dawkins **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 20, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286 "2006-10-20T21:55:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/21 "2006-10-21T02:08:21Z")
[QUOTE=dangermom] I know that there is a part of the brain that is ‘wired’ for religious experience, but that strikes me as perfectly reasonable in a universe with a God in it; it seems to me that we usually have brain areas for a reason. I am in no way saying that such things are evidence for God; IMO God is unproveable, and that’s for a reason too. But neither does it seem to me to be evidence for not-God. [/QUOTE] I don’t think you know what you think you know. The brain isn’t “wired” for religious experience. It’s “wired” for certain experiences that are interpreted as being religious in nature. But there is no objective reason to assume that they are religious in nature as opposed to any number of other possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![ted\_baskerville\_yahoo.com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@ted\_baskerville\_yahoo.com](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ted_baskerville_yahoo.com)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/22 "2006-10-21T02:31:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Atheist: There’s no proof that God exists, so you’re a fool for believing in him. > Theist: There’s no proof that God doesn’t exist, so you’re a fool for not believing in him. But it is pretty the theist does not believe his own argument. There is no proof that unicorns do not exist. There is no proof that Zeus and the other Greek gods do not exist. There is no proof the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist. Theists have no problem not believing in these things. Agnostics and atheists just take it one step further. Atheists and agnostics are at least consistent. Theists are not. (Dawkins makes this point) ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/23 "2006-10-21T03:22:05Z")
[QUOTE=dangermom] So your assumption is that all adults (I didn’t say kids) who convert to some form of religion do so because they are just going with a flow, not thinking about anything? That strikes me as both simplistic and insulting. [/QUOTE] Indeed. There are a great many thinkers who started out rejecting religion, but who later came to embrace it. C.S. Lewis is one such example, as he felt that the evidence pointed towards God’s existence. One might disagree with Lewis’s _interpretation_ of the evidence, but to suggest that he believed without any evidence whatsoever is simply naive. A more recent example is that of renowed philosopher [Anthony Flew](http://www.theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/21PbAr/Apl/FlewTheist.htm). Flew spent many years debating theists and denouncing religion; however, in January 2004, he declared himself to be a theist. Flew had a vested interest in maintaining an atheistic view – after all, he had publicly championed that cause for many years – yet he chose to switch sides. Again, one might disagree with Flew’s reasoning, but it would be wishful thinking to insist that he changed his mind for no reason whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/24 "2006-10-21T03:27:45Z")
Ahh, the D word. I fondly remember getting may ass flamed off for using it a couple times. I admire Richard’s spunk, but I hope he’s come to terms with the fact he’s pissing in the wind. If he really thinks he’s going to change anyone’s mind, he’s as deluded as the theists. ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/25 "2006-10-21T03:44:57Z")
I believe in air, but I can’t see it, touch it or taste it. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/26 "2006-10-21T03:58:17Z")
[QUOTE=dangermom] I am always curious as to why atheists don’t seem to know what to do with people who become religious as adults. I have frequently seen people on these boards simply shrug their shoulders about it. And yet, their proportions grow ever larger, as people feel less and less social pressure to attend church and begin to only attend if they want to. [/QUOTE] I’ll take a stab at this one. IMO, everyone has a proclivity toward theistic belief, even those with no prior knowledge or familial underpinnings of theism. And although I believe it’s a more cumbersome prospect to first become religious as an adult than as a child, I see nothing that would preclude what I see as a natural consequence of being human from occurring upon exposure. I have always contended that it’s much easier to believe in the unknowable, accept its promulgated mythologies without question, and consciously acknowledge it, as illogical that is, than to commit solely to the empirical. I believe our brains are predisposed (or wired, if you like) to providing answers for any circumstance. If we don’t know, and are unable to determine, an answer to a problem at hand with the tools at our disposal, our mind, inexplicably, allows us to “invent” an answer that most easily satisfies our query. I believe all gods and other esoteric philosophies were created this way. [QUOTE=Blaster Master] Atheists have commited attrocities too, [/QUOTE] Cites, please. Not that I doubt atheists have committed atrocities; I would just be interested in knowing which atrocities you attribute to atheists. …and if you’re thinking about invoking Hitler, he was Catholic. [QUOTE=Blaster Master] To my knowledge, you can be an atheist and not have to read a single book on it, [/QUOTE] You can be a theist without having read a single book about it as well. What are you asserting? [QUOTE=dangermom] I am in no way saying that such things are evidence for God; IMO God is unproveable, and that’s for a reason too. [/QUOTE] And what is that reason? I agree God is unprovable because it’s my contention that he/it doesn’t exist, My question was rhetorical as I’m sure you don’t know what the reason is and would probably readily admit it, but I asked it to precede my next question, which is: what makes you so sure God is unprovable for a reason, especially if you don’t know what the reason is? It sounds like you’re assigning a value based on some assumption, but what is your assumption? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/27 "2006-10-21T04:10:26Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > I am always curious as to why atheists don’t seem to know what to do with people who become religious as adults. I have frequently seen people on these boards simply shrug their shoulders about it. And yet, their proportions grow ever larger, as people feel less and less social pressure to attend church and begin to only attend if they want to. Why should atheists be expected to “do anything” with such people? Why should we care? What does it prove? Adults fall for all kinds of scams and believe all kinds of claptrap. So what? I will say that many of the Born-Agains types love to talk about what big atheists they used to be but in almost every case. all they really mean us that they didn’t go to church for a while. I’ve met very few (maybe one and he was schizophrenic) of these Born Again “former atheist” types who actually showed any ability for critical thinking or would have been able to articulate a coherent argument as to why they were atheists in the first place. When they tell me the reasons they abandoned their atheism it always sounds like they weren’t very difficult to convince. [QUOTE=JThunder] A more recent example is that of renowed philosopher [Anthony Flew](http://www.theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/21PbAr/Apl/FlewTheist.htm). Flew spent many years debating theists and denouncing religion; however, in January 2004, he declared himself to be a theist. Flew had a vested interest in maintaining an atheistic view – after all, he had publicly championed that cause for many years – yet he chose to switch sides. Again, one might disagree with Flew’s reasoning, but it would be wishful thinking to insist that he changed his mind for no reason whatsoever. [/QUOTE] Flew has made contradictory statements about his alleged “conversion” (which was never theistic in any case but only a tepid version of non-personal deism). Flew (who is not a scientist) had based his chain viewpoint on an amateurish First Cause argument precipitated by what he later admitted was an erroneous understanding of abiogenetic [theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew#Atheism_and_Deism). > [@](#): > > Flew also said: My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species … [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms. > > In an another letter to Carrier of 29 December 2004 Flew went on to retract his statement “a deity or a ‘super-intelligence’ [is] the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature.” “I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.” wrote Flew. Flew did not exactly turn any heads among either philopsophers or scientists. What he did was embarrass himself by falling for some creationist claptrap. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/28 "2006-10-21T04:17:46Z")
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia] Cites, please. Not that I doubt atheists have committed atrocities; I would just be interested in knowing which atrocities you attribute to atheists. …and if you’re thinking about invoking Hitler, he was Catholic. [/QUOTE] They’re going to throw the commies at you. Never mind that Communism itself was a religion. I reject it as an atheist movement because it wasn’t really atheism. It was a non-theistic ideology unto itself and it really only underlines the points that Dawkins and others make about the dangers of religious zealotry. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/29 "2006-10-21T04:22:39Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] They’re going to throw the commies at you. Never mind that Communism itself was a religion. I reject it as an atheist movement because it wasn’t really atheism. It was a non-theistic ideology unto itself and it really only underlines the points that Dawkins and others make about the dangers of religious zealotry. [/QUOTE] Darn it! You stole my thunder 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/30 "2006-10-21T04:27:33Z")
You know why there are no atheists in foxholes? Because, no one digs foxholes anymore. It is an argument as valid, and useful as Dawkins’. Tris ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/31 "2006-10-21T04:52:31Z")
[QUOTE=diggleblop] I believe in air, but I can’t see it, **touch it** or taste it. [/QUOTE] Step outside. There’s this thing called wind … . ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/32 "2006-10-21T15:03:55Z")
[QUOTE=dangermom] This would seem to discount the many people who are brought up in religious households and later leave the faith they were taught. It also discounts the many people who are brought up in “nothing” or atheist households and who become religious in adulthood. If faith only exists because it is transmitted through generations, then there is quite a bit of explaining to do for these large populations. I am always curious as to why atheists don’t seem to know what to do with people who become religious as adults. I have frequently seen people on these boards simply shrug their shoulders about it. [/QUOTE] Why do those who were brought up areligious sometimes become religious? IANAAtheist, but I can imagine many reasons. Perhaps they found in religion something that resonated with the values they learned from their secularly humanistic parent(s) and were attracted to the certainty that religion offered. Perhaps they found a group that they wished to identify with. Perhaps they wanted to distance themselves from the identity of their family of origin. Perhaps they felt the need for a spiritual/meditative self and found that prayer help them to achieve that in ways that they personally were unable to achieve ways. Perhaps they had an experience that they percieved as a religious epiphany. Any and all may occur and to imagine is to speculate as wildy as it is is to imagine why one person loses faith with a mere application of logic and another maintains faith even in the face of personal experiences that are strong evidence against an interventional God (for example believers in concentration camps). We individuals experience our own unique part of the universe equiped with unique tools the best we can. For some faith becomes an important part of knowledge production, for some for only certain sorts of knowledge, and for some it is not useful at all. All good so long as they all accept the rules of secular plurulistic society, and do not impose their particular belief or non-belief down others’ throats. And in this regard Dawkins seems nearly as annoying as a Christian Evangilst. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/33 "2006-10-21T15:30:09Z")
[QUOTE=Blaster Master] Further, if you’re going to assert there’s a genetic basis for religious belief, I’m curious… why? Was it an adaptation that helped us survive? Or perhaps its a genetic predisposition to atheism that was an adaptation away from religious belief to help us survive. [/QUOTE] IMHO, it’s because religion promotes both organization in primitive cultures ( we have better ways now ), and promotes attacks upon unbelievers. Therefore, the believers were both better organized and out to destroy the atheists, who are the group that are _always_ unbelievers to every side in the conflict between religions. Atheists have less of an “us vrs them” mentality, because there really isn’t any “us”. I expect that the theists in prehistory over time killed the male and child atheists ( both atheist tribes, if they existed, and individuals within their own tribe ), and raped and impregnated the atheist women with believer children. Standard genocidal behavior, right out of the Bible. And in my opinion, that’s what made religion, and fanaticism itself, a survival characteristic; the systematic murder of those that lacked those traits, or couldn’t fake them. [QUOTE=diggleblop] I believe in air, but I can’t see it, touch it or taste it. [/QUOTE] Look up at the sky. What do you see ? Blue. That’s air; with no air, it would be black. Also, you can see air due to heat wavering and strong shockwaves; you can also see air if it’s sufficiently heated. As mentioned, you can feel the wind; also a tornado can fling you into a wall, and a shockwave of air can stun or kill you. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/34 "2006-10-21T15:34:53Z")
[QUOTE=Lizard] Dawkins makes a logical point. The problem, if he is basing the use of evidence as the ultimate arbiter of truth, that there is no evidence _disproving_ the existence of God, either. So the devout and the atheist are pretty much on a level playing field. Neither can prove their key assertions. [/QUOTE] This is a ridiculous comparison. “Magical sky gods exist” is not a statement which needs to be disproven with evidence. Just because you can imagine something does not mean it acquires presumption of plausibility whuich much be overcome with evidence. There is no more requirement to justify a non-belief in sky gods than there is to justify a non-belief in the FSG, etc. “You can’t prove God DOESN’T exist” always strikes me as a bit of desperate reaching combined with more than a little special pleading. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/35 "2006-10-21T15:35:54Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] C.S. Lewis is one such example, as he felt that the evidence pointed towards God’s existence. [/QUOTE] I don’t believe Lewis studied the evidence and became convinced. I seem to recall that he had an epiphany while riding his motorcycle and only later found evidence to support his new beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/36 "2006-10-21T15:36:46Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > All good so long as they all accept the rules of secular plurulistic society, and do not impose their particular belief or non-belief down others’ throats. And in this regard Dawkins seems nearly as annoying as a Christian Evangilst. What belief is Dawkins trying to impose on anyone? ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/37 "2006-10-21T15:43:37Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] I don’t believe Lewis studied the evidence and became convinced. I seem to recall that he had an epiphany while riding his motorcycle and only later found evidence to support his new beliefs. [/QUOTE] Not according to his own account, wherein he says that he came to the faith “kicking and screaming.” As Lewis himself said in his book, _Surprised by Joy_, “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” Did he have an epiphany during a motorcyle ride? [Certainly – though FTR, he was merely riding in a sidecar, not driving his own machine.](http://www.beliefnet.com/story/178/story_17843_1.html) At any rate, this merely means that he had a realization that started his intellectual journey. It doesn’t mean than he rejected the need for evidence, and it certainly doesn’t mean that he decided to believe for no reason whatsoever. (People who believe “just because” do not do so on the basis of an epiphany!) ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/38 "2006-10-21T15:49:39Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] First of all, evidence can never prove or disprove anything. No atheist I know of claims that a disproof of god exists or is even possible - at least not for the general case. However there is no reason to act as if something exists if there is no evidence for it - that is something theists do and atheists don’t, and that is the real distinction between them. [/QUOTE] Coincidentally, no Christian I’ve ever met has claimed to have actual proof of God’s existence either. I could just as easily turn your (or any other) statement around: Atheists believe in a world where God doesn’t exist, even though they have no evidence that the world is such. Your argument begs the question. Of course, religions themselves beg the question continually, and most discussions I have with Christians end with me continually pointing out their circular logic. This shows that atheism and theism are not different, as you suppose. They both assume things without evidence. They are opposite sides of the same coin. ---
**Author:** ![Anduril](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Anduril](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anduril)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/39 "2006-10-21T16:00:52Z")
[QUOTE=Lizard] Coincidentally, no Christian I’ve ever met has claimed to have actual proof of God’s existence either. I could just as easily turn your (or any other) statement around: Atheists believe in a world where God doesn’t exist, even though they have no evidence that the world is such. Your argument begs the question. [/QUOTE] Occam’s Razor. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286/40 "2006-10-21T16:17:03Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] What belief is Dawkins trying to impose on anyone? [/QUOTE] It _seems_, from the presentation here, that he is as strident in his non-belief as many Evangelists. I’ve never understood the need that some atheists have to try to convince those of faith that they are wrong. Faith can be applied in harmful ways or positive ways. Criticize its negative applications, fine. But let people’s faiths per se alone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-belief-in-god-a-delusion-richard-dawkins/377286.md?page=3)