Religious Belief as a Mental Disease

This just sorta slipped out in the New York Times:

Slipped ever so casually into a New York Times profile on Dr. Francis Collins, the new director of the National Institutes of Health, is this stunning and not-so-objective example of reporting:

First, there is the God issue. Dr. Collins believes in him. Passionately. And he preaches about his belief in churches and a best-selling book. For some presidential appointees, that might not be a problem, but many scientists view such outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia.”

Excuse me. Rewind the tape, please. Did the New York Times just say that people who believe in God and talk about it have dementia?

In an otherwise unremarkable profile, this offhand remark, which is never backed up by anything that could even remotely be considered “evidence,” is included as part of a discussion on whether Dr. Collins, who happens to be Christian, could possibly handle the reins of NIH and believe in God at the same time. Quoted in the article is another doctor who says that Dr. Collins’ two-year search for God after being questioned by a patient about his beliefs and his conclusion that yes, there is a God, is “enough to cause concern.”

One of the many things which amazes me is how monumentally stupid some people will be as regards religion. The knots some people twist themselves in to over their insistence on non-belief is amazing. Its plain as a pikestaff that God exists (one of a hundred examples: if the universe is expanding, it must be expanding in to something…meaning there is something before, and thus outside, the universe; try and work that in to Darwinism, suckers), but here come the non-believers who simply will not admit that there might be something smarter than they are. Its really rather sad – and sterile, too.

While some do hold to “special creation” – that God created everything as is at some relatively recent time – most people are ok with a universe billions of years old. Most are also ok with evolution – I mean, if we’re talking about a creature which, via slow stages, changed from ape to man, who really wants to argue against it? Especially since so many men can be ape-like in their day to day affairs? But what is stupid is to say that it happened by accident – that some self-creating microbe billions of years ago by accident changed in to a man…and also in to a whale…and a fruit fly…and a lizard…it just can’t happen. It defies common sense to believe such an idiotic notion…but it is believed. And so stout is the belief that, per the above article, these people are coming to view belief in God as a mental disorder (which, even if they are right, it can’t be – if we really did evolve by accident to have the best means of survival, then belief in God is proven to be part of our vital survival evolution…those who are denying God are denying evolution, and essentially trying to kill us all…if we take their views at face value; such is the topsy-turvydom of the non-believers).

I also wonder why they bother – it takes a lot of work to be a non-believer. You have to continually reinforce your non-belief – can’t for a moment allow even a sliver of the supernatural, or the jig is up. Meanwhile, believers are free to believe in God and evolution – both of which tend to make sense of the world as we know it.