The Delusions of Theology

 Marcus Alden Meredith

January 25, 2024

The Delusion of Theology

How “Religion” is the Bane of Humanity 

There is no God… No gods… No angels, demons, devils, ghosts, souls, spirits, jdins,  flying horses, sea monsters, Yetis, Sasquatches…. None of that. So, there. I said it. Now if you keep reading, I’ll get down to the heart of the explanation as to why this is true and the implications of being a rational-nonbeliever or in continuing to be a believer in the nonsense of religious thought. I’m sure that many of my reasons will coincide with the thoughts of one of the founding fathers of my country who also helped establish the University of Virginia with the stipulation that it would never allow for a department of Theology. With all his flaws (and there were plenty of them), Thomas Jefferson knew what he was doing when he helped found said University. To a rational ‘Enlightenment’ mind such as Jeffersons, such things were simply not sustainable ideas with the dearth of evidence that the early pioneers of science were accumulating even in his day and age. So I’m certainly not the first American to have these positions. But, I’ll get back to Jefferson later. Let’s get down to brass tacks…

There is no God. Now I can write such a statement because never in the history of Humanity and its investigations with the scientific method of inquiry has anything approaching experimental, reproducible evidence been put forth that has withstood the glaring spotlight of scrutiny… and yet people continue to believe. But the belief part later. Staying on task, for a rational, evidence based mind to accept that such a being  exists, extraordinary evidence must be presented since it is an extraordinary claim. Since none exist, then using The Hitchens Rule which states, “Extraordinary claims made with out evidence can just as easily be dismissed without evidence.” and a rational mind simply dismisses the claims. “Really? Just like that you dismiss the ideas of thousands of scholars and texts on the subject? Isn’t that rather arrogant?” you might be thinking. Not at all. It has nothing to do with ego or my personal convictions but the method by which the natural world is investigated by observation, empirical evidence, and experimentation. My feelings on the matter are irrelevant. When this investigative, empirical, scientific method is used to analyze the claims made by all the various religions, “God” or “Gods” or any other “mystico-religious” claims are rendered simply mute unless the evidence is found in the affirmative… and that has never happened. Now, given this, a rational mind must come to the conclusion that with no evidence, such a being simply does not exist (or for those who wish to hedge their bets, that it is exceedingly unlikely but not impossible). By reflection, if a mind continues to believe that such a being does exist but refuses to accept the evidence, how is it unreasonable for a rational person to come to the conclusion that the believer is simply delusional? Is such a conclusion unwarranted when the evidence is in favor of such a point of view? Or, by reflection and interrogation again, how is it that such a conclusion of a believers mental state NOT warranted? The evidence is NOT in favor of the super-natural explanation, but the believers psychology can’t cope and simply rejects it for a “fantasy of belief.” Is this not a sign at the very least of a kind of cognitive dissonance?

So here we come to the heart of the matter: How to reconcile the believer and the non-believer or as I prefer to put it, the rationalist. Where did the “believer“ side of humanity come from in contrast to the “rationalist” side? Or perhaps, to be as precise as possible, the Believer POV (BPOV) and the Rationalist POV (RPOV) are better terms since they do have established foundations in history and human culture. The pursuit of these Points Of View (POV) will be my evidence and my narrative in this essay. I hold the particular viewpoint that the two sides cannot be reconciled, at least not easily and not by any method I can sense in this day and age. But perhaps wiser heads than mine will indeed find a way. I hope this arrives soon since I fear that the very survival of Humanity depends upon it because the irrational believer is typically a far more dangerous individual (in potential and actions) than those who state their position as a Rationalist. 

Let me state here as a type of preamble, that I sit in a coffee shop in the middle of my city surrounded by the mass of Humanity that are the denizens of my metropolis and I do not fear the vast majority of them. Not yet. But we make the mistake time and time again of elevating out species to a place and a level in Nature and Evolution that we have yet to earn. A quick look at my days news will probably be the most succinct way to prove my point. I am as a matter of course a Humanist. I “believe” (insert irony here) in the potential of my species and the unwritten future that they could inherit but that future is not set in stone and the greatest potential of Humanity has yet to be realized. I fear, rationally, that the continued existence of religious belief systems and institutions in the affairs of Humanity will only bring waves of death and destruction to innocent people until ALL religions and such institutions are either brought under external control, diminished, or eliminated entirely (which, knowing what I know about  Humanity I think very unlikely for hundreds of generations to come). The continued existence of religious institutions will only help to propagate irrational thought processes in Humanity and consequentially to greater death and destruction in the name of a “God” that doesn’t exist with access to greater and greater methods of death and destruction at the hands of groups of humans who cannot realistically be thought of as rational. At the time of this essays writing, the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is closer to midnight and the destruction of Humanity than at anyone other time in history - 90 seconds to midnight. We… you, I, and the rest of Humanity must do what is needed to turn back the clock for there is no “God” to save us from ourselves and the planet will continue to spin and orbit through space regardless of our being on it or not. Without “God,” we are responsible for ourselves… and I’m sure that scares the living daylights out of most of you who will read this. It is a foreboding thought in my mind as well.

The Believers

Perhaps at this point it is best to give some background as to why people would continue believe in a “God” when clearly there is no evidence for its existence. We can start directly by saying there will be some people who simply don’t care about what science states. This is perhaps a larger group of people than you might imagine. The cognitive dissonance that this state of being would bring on to most Rationalists would be utterly untenable for them, but not for the Believer. One must understand that the rational process is secondary for such a person compared to the emotional state that the believing brings them. I don’t think it’s unfair to state that it is not unlike the child who hears that there’s no Santa Clause, sees the presents under the tree, and is incapable of or unwilling to see the possibility that their parents got the presents instead but prefers to feel that “There is TO a Santa Clause… See!” And this is understandable with a child’s undeveloped mind to see as a possibility knowing with some experience in life that they will simply outgrow such a point of view and so we let it go with a playful giggle. But for some adults whose minds were never adequately trained in how to question previous beliefs and whose emotional structures have lithified into this belief, the idea of there NOT being a “God” simply is not acceptable and is rejected prima facia. “God” has to exist and nothing you say will be able to make them see things to the contrary. For them, there is very little that can be done but leave them alone and do whatever can be done to ensure that they do not harm to others.

Then there are the Believers who may have their doubts, but for whatever reason, still chose to believe that a “God” exists. Now to be fair, they may state many things about why they believe. There are those who might state, “I’m sure there is a God but just not the one that the [insert holy book] says there is.” Another line may go like, “Oh I believe in a God, but the organized religions have it all wrong and they’re only in it to control people.” This has some merit behind it especially in the mind of a Rationalist when viewing the role that revealed, organized religious institutions have in the perpetuation of the “God” idea. Believers of this stripe generally are less rigid in their dogmas being a kind of theological reductionist by reducing the whole of a religion to just the essentials of their beliefs. They may even practice certain rituals of “high holy days” as kind of cultural or familial practice wishing not to be left out the social content of religious practice but not believers who also regularly attend church, mosque, or temple. These Believers are more secularized individuals and tend to be less likely to bring their own beliefs into the domains of science or politics. From a purely practical, utilitarian viewpoint, such Believers are usually not ones prone to actions that would spur people to find them objectionable in the politico-social sense and we have not reason to want to change these people… this is a mistake in the long run.

Finally, we have the Believer that I refer to as the New Age Believer. Many refer to themselves as being “spiritual” feeling that there is a “life after death” and maybe even some idea of “a heaven” but that ideas of “God” by most religions are mistaken, dogmatic, or the product of ancient ideas that don’t work today. I must say, I find the least objection with this particular type of Believer comparatively speaking but their tendency toward “mystical/magical” systems of thought are still perturbing to the Rationalist mind. While they do the least amount of harm, their ideas can still be dangerous. Case in point, Steve Jobs who delayed his treatments for pancreatic cancer to try a macrobiotic, alternative medicine system of treatment that may ultimately have caused his untimely death if he had only worked with an oncologist sooner. But sadly, we will never know because he was prone to “magical thinking” that, while it was greatly responsible for his visions of design that were revolutionary, also put the cancer untreated for too long to allow medical science to get a hand on it before it was untreatable. And so while New Age Believers may be the least offensive of the types, they still have the potential to be just as dangerous with their mistaken ideas of how the real world actually works. 

The Rationalist

Even Rationalists are not a monolith. The variety of Rationalists come in many varieties but they do have a common thread that connects them much as the Believers have a “God” or “Spirituality.” Rationalists accept that truth is the direction that is most important for all of human endeavors so that we all benefit to the greatest extent possible. We also find that authority, while it can have a place in discovery, is not to be the final word on what is true; that is left to the Scientific Method, Peer Review, and the Scientific Consensus. Now if you are not very familiar with what constitutes the Scientific Method of discovery and inquiry, I’m not your guide in this essay. I can recommend some good places to read and learn about the fundamental method of scientific discovery and inquiry; a method that has undoubtedly changed the entire course of human history to a greater extent than any religion has and done so in the face of religious prosecution and persecution and holds the greatest promise for the living of a good life for future humanity. 

Generally we can divide Rationalists into Atheists, Agnostics, and Humanists although there can be some substantial overlap of these groups. Atheists such as I are ones who take the lack of evidence for a “God” and state simply that the chances of a being like this existing are more toward the non-existence than the affirmative. Quite simply, we reject the notion of Pascal’s Wager and simply, straightforwardly follow the evidence and it simply doesn’t exist. End of story. There is no “God.” In short, if you want me to believe what you do, you have to show me the evidence and let it be scrutinized. This does not mean that most Atheists would say you’re stupid or dumb for being a believer (although there are some exceptions) but would ask that you leave your beliefs to yourself… and that if you bring your beliefs out as “The Truth” that all others must believe as well, then we have a problem. This situation is where the two groups will clash and sometimes violently (though more likely on the side of the Believers than the Rationalists… I leave you to read the history of people such as Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Ripoll, Thomas Paine, etc.). 

Next, we have the Agnostics who are as the etymology of the name implies, state that they “don’t know” if their is a “God” and so withhold judgement but are most likely to follow the Scientific Method in how they view the Universe around them (but there are New Age Believers who can fit within this category to a certain extent and this is the only real place where Believer and Rationalist have any overlap at best). The Agnostics are prone to withhold judgements on the existence of “God” until Science or Believers present evidence concretely either in the negative or the affirmative. They are the most ardent of the “I don’t know” group of Rationalists and this sometimes leads more ardent Atheists to give them a bad time about things like “fence sitting”, but I find that a bit unfair. They are more prone to fall for the Pascal’s Wager sometimes (especially if they are “newly agnostic”) but this is not a very common occurrence. 

At this point in time, I’d like to take the time to discuss a position that I’ve mentioned twice but some of my readers may not be familiar with, Pascal’s Wager. The celebrated philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal is famous for stating a position which basically goes as follows: I am not certain that there is a “God” but if there is a chance that he exists, then it would be better to simply believe in his existence than not. In essence Pascal was hedging his bets on the definite existence of a “God” and figured that you should just believe even if there isn’t one because the consequences of NOT believing (in Pascal’s mind) are too severe. It is here that most Rationalist Atheists call “B.S.”My personal argument against such a “God” is one similar to that which Epicurus the Greek father of the Epicurean School of philosophy had about “God” and from it I argue that if the Believers “God” is all knowing and all wise and all powerful, then he knows why I don’t believe he exists since he refuses to provide any evidence of said existence. In addition, to demand that  rational, sentient beings such as we are supposed to be should simply abandon reason and “just believe” in such a supernatural being is irrational, self-contradictory, and immoral. A “God” with such attributes simply would not behave in such a way (but humans writing about what they think a “God” would want from them certainly would… that type of psychology is plain).  

Finally, we have the Humanists. Now on the Venn diagram of Rationalist positions, there is a great deal of overlap between both the Atheists and the Agnostics and the Humanists. I in fact consider myself to be in both the Atheist AND the Humanist camps. The Humanists, in short, consider the focus most appropriate to the study of our place in the Universe to be on Humanity in the collective sense and NOT on any notions of a “God.” In some ways, the Humanists consider the study of Theology to be a waste of time limited time and energy for most people. Instead, they state that the focus should be how we can best be the kind of beings that we are for the greatest benefit to ourselves and the rest of the planet. Being creatures with limited life spans, the Humanists essentially are interested in how to get the biggest bang for the buck so that all of Humanity improves through our mutual efforts. Such a focus essentially renders the need for a “God” unnecessary and irrelevant. Could a Believer be a Humanist? This is a more difficult question since the focus of the Humanist is on humanity itself and they basically ignore the question of “God” but I have seen nothing in Humanist philosophy to exclude Believers except that full blown Humanists consider the idea of a “God” to be irrelevant or a waste of time. I suspect that the number of Humanist Believers is relatively speaking a small one in the mass of people inhabiting this rock.

Cognitive Dissonance 

With the different “flavors” of Believers and Rationalists having been presented, you might look at the question of the existence of or the absence of a “God” as completely one of personal choice with no consequences but for the person involved. You would be half right, and half wrong. While in a socio-political/legal sense you’re spot on: belief is in the purview of the individual alone as we must all work on the path we are choosing and the beliefs we decide to make our own. As the wise among us are want to say, “You must find your own path in life.”Buuuuuuut….. when our beliefs end in behaviors that impinge on the freedoms of others, these beliefs invite an increased level of scrutiny about how holding such beliefs AND the exercise of said beliefs increase or decrease what benefits humanity collectively. This examination of the cost/benefit analysis of human belief systems also raises questions about what kind of metric can/should be used for the analysis of human belief systems. This is a complicated question indeed and one that is probably too broad for this essay. As a way of untying the Gordian Knot I just presented to you, let’s focus on the idea of the cost/benefits of one consequence of what Believers exercise in being a Believer: Cognitive Dissonance. The Oxford Unabridged Dictionary defines cognitive dissonance as follows:

Cognitive Dissonance

noun, Psychology.

1. anxiety or discomfort that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like, such as when someone likes a person but disapproves strongly of one of their habits.

Let’s examine this closely. As stated above, being stricken with cognitive dissonance is having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. If one takes examples of  Believers and their collective behaviors that derive from their belief in a “God” from whatever faith they may profess, we can begin to build a list of inconsistent and contradictory beliefs that would be to large to reasonably list here. Examples run the gamut from believing the Bible commands that “thou shalt not commit murder” and yet being for the Death Penalty, to Paul in Thessalonians stating, “Prove all things.” and yet saying one must have faith and just believe, to a “God” that states over and over again how much he loves us while having created a place of eternal torture, pain, and damnation for the beings he so professes to love (which has always reminded me of the Abusers excuse of, “See what you made me do to you!” as justification for the abuse by gaslighting  the abused). As a means of cutting to the chase, I think it is fair and accurate for the most part to equate Believers with being ones who suffer with Cognitive Dissonance and that it may be a required mental state to be a Believer. This is a somewhat ominous thought because of the consequences of the possible actions someone suffering from such a mental state may be capable of since it allows for justifications that the Rationalist would find frightening and abhorrent. I think that if Believers find behaviors of their fellows to be disturbing or immoral in spite of the fellows seemingly justified (let’s say Biblical) reasoning, that they are disturbed by such behaviors not because their faith tells them to be but because they would be disturbed simply because they are good people regardless of their faith and beliefs. It is the later group of Believers who I hope will come the inevitable conclusions that their faith is a delusion and try to walk a more rational, less dissonant path to a more enlightened state of being.

Some readers may feel that I am equating the cognitively dissonant state of Believers to a type of mental disease or defect. You would be correct. It is my reasoned opinion that religious belief is a type of mental disorder the severity of which is commensurate with the level of displayed religious fervor. Think of it this way: We all suffer from the effects of anxiety at some point in our lives but there are those of us who learn to deal effectively with the anxiety and then there are those who have it interfere so dramatically and detrimentally with their lives that they fail to function well or adequately. This is part and parcel of what characterizes a mental disease or defect. But, unlike most mental defects, Theology has inherent in it the need to spread the fervor of the disorder with the mistaken idea that it is beneficial to be in such a state. This is part of the insidious nature of Theology, ideas like “were making you suffer and diminish the joys in your life so that you can find a place in an imaginary paradise after you die.” The mentally disturbed nature of such an idea should be prima facia. So, while many, many Believers act in a perfectly acceptable manner in their daily lives, they hold within themselves the potential to do great harm to those around them when they drift to the devout end of the Believer spectrum. “But this could be said of almost any individual,” might be the reply to such a statement. True, but most mental disorders do not have the power of governments, laws, and the threat of violence upon non-Believers that religious fervor can summon all wrapped up in the shell of “holy” texts and religious institutions or cultural norms. Believers quite often have this power… and are often seen to use it. The delusional state of the Cognitive Dissonance of Theology has built into it the potential for grave harm to a vast numbers of people… I invite my readers to to sample history with its crusades, witch trials, inquisitions, and the like to make my case.

I do not have the space or time in a simple essay to like this to offer solutions or explanations for the myriad reasons (and they are myriad) why people get themselves in to such mental states. The study of psychology, history, and sociology would be the best place to start. But I can put forth a warning: For the Human Race to continue to allow for the continued spread of theological thought is to invite disaster and possibly the eventual destruction of our race on the planet. I submit here that we cannot allow for the unfettered spread of of ANY theological teachings in school settings any more and that we begin to treat theological thought and all things associated with it to be a symptom of the beginnings of a mental disease or defect I term “Religio-delusional Disorder.” It comes down to understanding the realization that religious, theological thought is a primitive response to evolutionary forces that we no longer have to deal with in a civilized society but which our tribalistic tendencies as human beings have not found the wisdom to deal with effectively. I do not know if the Human Race can collectively and/or effectively come to this realization and have the wisdom, fortitude, or the resolve to put Theology in a safely locked cage where it belongs, I can only express a hope… and be “faithful” that it’s not a forlorn hope.