(Stillness in the Storm Editor) There are valid reasons to believe in a supernatural concept of existence. Psychologically, whether you consider yourself an atheist or not, you seem to act as if the universe is personal. More to the point how you define or contextualize yourself within existence describes a personal narrative that influences how you perceive the world and organize your life.
There are far too many points to discuss insofar as the value and merit of a logically consistent concept of the cosmos and creation (or universe if you prefer that term).
The fact is what we believe influences how we perceive the world. And how we perceive the world influences what we think we can do, what we think is real, and what we think is valuable.
In short, you might say that everything you do in life emerges against the backdrop of how you see yourself in reality, your personal narrative, at the grandest of levels.
Consider this, if you think the universe is random, meaningless, and deterministic, that life is pointless, that your free will is an illusion, and that a kind of deterministic fatalism dictates your future—how does this make you feel?
Are you inspired?
Are you uplifted?
Do you dream of great things with transcendent purpose and calling?
Probably not.
You’re probably barely keeping it together, relying on a lot of pleasure-seeking escapist behavior to help you cope with the existential angst that comes from being alive in a meaningless and cruel universe.
Conversely, if you believe that life has meaning, the universe was created for a purpose and you are an integral part of that purpose, everything changes.
Now instead of every moment in life seeming like a random mix of feelings, urges and desires, a path of coherence and purpose opens before you.
You notice yourself feeling more invested in what you’re doing. Asking purposeful and thoughtful questions like, “How will this action help me in my life path and goals?”
Acting as if the universe has meaning, purpose and spiritual (all-encompassing) values has a real and markable effect on us. It changes our perception, enhances our mood, bolsters our willpower, and makes us more moral and ethical—generally speaking.
As a point of proof on this concept, consider the explosion of new age philosophies in the modern age, especially amongst younger generations who’ve rejected formal religions. These acolytes of agnosticism usually don’t have a clearly defined concept of the supernatural, but they do acknowledge meaningfulness and purpose, which is an attribute of a divine concept. Thus, anyone acts as if their life has meaning above and beyond random associations, is effectively employing a supernatural concept; they are a theist by proxy.
Whether or not your conception of deity or the supernatural is well thought out and 100% accurate isn’t really that important.
To be sure, striving to perfect your knowledge of reality is unquestionably a good idea and will undoubtedly improve your life. The point I’m making here is that we need not have a perfect belief in the supernatural to enjoy the benefits that come with using it.
Let’s think about this practically.
Take a step out of religious belief, dogma, social norms, and pressure.
What if there was an infinitely intelligent creator-being that made everything in the universe? What if this same being created the earth and everything on it for a grand purpose? What if you were an extremely important part of that purpose? Wouldn’t this recognition change your life? Wouldn’t it cause you to rethink some of your less than ideal choices and refocus your efforts to live a good life?
Of course, not everyone would become a highly moral being. But most people, who have a spiritual awakening do become better people.
Consider Near Death Experiences and Shamanic Journeys like an Ayahuasca experience.
Dr. Rick Strassman studied the effects of Dimethyltryptamine, a naturally occurring endogenous chemical found in the body, particularly in the pineal gland. It is associated with dream and vision states. If you consume this substance in combination with metabolic inhibitors that normally counter its effects while in a wakeful state, you’ll experience profound and intense hallucinations.
Dr. Strassman and many others have demonstrated that a great many people that consume DMT experience radical spiritual awakenings that completely transform the way they think and live life. Sometimes this effect occurs in the first exposure whereas others require repeat experiences. The majority describes feeling a deep sense of meaningful connection with the cosmos, nature and themselves. Additionally, many have experiences that compel them to reflect on their life choices and improve their future outlook by making personal growth steps. DMT use in addiction recovery is increasing of late, despite the fact it is still considered an illicit substance.
This DMT data suggest that spiritual awakening can and does markedly improve an individual’s capacity to bear the burdens of life with good cheer and in a constructive manner.
From a discernment or epistemological perspective, can we really know if there is a God or supernatural force in the universe?
It can certainly be argued that there are indeed volumes of evidence to suggest there is a Creator—above and beyond unsupported religious doctrine.
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Pragmatism, a branch of epistemology, deals with the fact that proving a claim with 100% certainty is impossible. Therefore, how does one act in the world when one can’t prove that the know they have to navigate it is accurate? Pragmatism suggests one needs to act as if their claims of truth—knowledge—are accurate, and then see what happens.
In closing, whether or not you believe in a God doesn’t really matter. You can act as if there is a God or a supernatural force, and if you truly explore this idea you should be able to see the effects of such a belief in your life.
I’ll share that I was an atheist for most of my life, up until about eight years ago when I began questioning the rigidity of my materialistic conclusions.
As a scientifically minded person, I just couldn’t accept the dogma and inconsistencies of major religions. But in 2010, I encountered a spiritual book that was so thought-provoking, my philosophic mind couldn’t ignore the merit of the ideas.
Whether or not the source of an idea is wholly accurate isn’t important, the idea stands on its own and can be assessed for validity on those grounds. By this, I mean, if a liar told you the sky was blue does that make it untrue? Of course not. Therefore, whether or not I want to believe in the merit of a creator-concept or not doesn’t matter, if it has validity, at any level, I should entertain it if I truly value seeking for and finding the truth.
So I decided to go for it. I took a “leap of faith” and started acting as if there was a Creator and a meaningful creation I was within. Within days the change it wrought in my life was profound. I felt so much better, more determined, uplifted, inspired, resilient, I decided it was practically valuable to believe in a creator concept, at least provisionally.
Since that time, my understanding of this creator-concept has improved and changed over the years, and with it, my life continues to improve.
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All of this reveals pragmatic value from an epistemic perspective.
That doesn’t mean my concept of the creator is wholly accurate, but it demonstrates that there is some merit to what I have conceived.
In the final analysis, I think that the most important factor behind why belief in the supernatural is beneficial is because it makes us more invested in life.
Apathy is death. Caring is life.
If you care about life, if you care about what your doing, your goals, and improving yourself and the conditions for others, it objectively makes your life better and the world better.
So whether you believe in God or not, surely you can acknowledge the value in making your life better?
I’m not trying to convert you, I merely offer these ideas for you to consider.
– Justin
(Ralph Lewis M.D.) Did you believe in Santa Claus? Did you feel a loss of magic and wonder when at a certain age this enchanting belief was dispelled? While almost everyone copes just fine with this little loss of supernatural magic in their life, giving up on all supernatural belief leaves a much larger gaping hole.
by Ralph Lewis M.D., December 15th, 2018
Much has been written about why religion is natural to people and science is not. Belief in the supernatural and magical thinking are intuitive. Science, on the other hand, has to be learned. Science can be especially difficult sometimes, involving arduous critical thinking and requiring conscious over-riding of our many cognitive biases and intuitions. It is indisputable that science has delivered vast improvements to quality and quantity of life, and innumerable material comforts. But belief in the supernatural, for most people, provides emotional comfort and meaning.
“To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible.”
While emotional factors, cognitive biases and magical thinking underlie many people’s beliefs in the supernatural, there are certainly also very rational reasons cited by highly educated believers to substantiate their religious belief. One of the main intellectual rationales for belief in a higher power is based on the assumption that the immense complexity of our world must have been intelligently designed and could not have formed spontaneously and unguided. Exemplifying this view, astronaut John Glenn on his second spaceflight marveled, “To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible.” But in fact, pivotal breakthroughs across many scientific fields have made exactly that possible, in the twenty-first century.
We are probably at a tipping point in the intellectual history of humankind in our understanding of how we, our world, and everything contained in it could indeed have come into existence entirely spontaneously and unguided.
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Actually, the world looks precisely as you would expect it to, if it had emerged and evolved without an iota of planning, foresight, competence or caring. This is especially true of biological evolution. Educated religious believers with more than a superficial understanding of evolution understand this, and agree with Tennyson’s poetic observation “Nature, red in tooth and claw. . . . So careless of the single life.” But they would argue that the universe and its laws of physics seem fine-tuned to allow life and evolution to have arisen in the first place. Yet, even the supposed fine-tuned universe argument now has plausible non-supernatural explanations.
Purpose without God?
The scientific worldview of a random, purposeless, godless universe in which things just happen without a higher purpose can seem sterile, nihilistic and devoid of hope and meaning. Some ask: Is this all there is? Actually, there are very many compelling, motivating and inspiring responses to counter this nihilistic assumption, but that is not the main focus of this blog post (for a deeper dive into those questions, see Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even if the Universe Doesn’t).
The allure of magic
The scientific worldview dispels all forms of magical thinking. The list of beliefs that rest upon some form of magical thinking is extremely long, quite apart from religion and superstition.
Some people are surprisingly unselfconscious about their magical thinking, while others blush as they reluctantly admit to such, and explain that they just find these beliefs hard to relinquish. People are very attached to their magical beliefs, and for good reasons. Magical thinking and supernaturalism confer very many benefits, such as hope, comfort, solace, reassurance, security, certainty, predictability, control, meaning, a sense of mystery, enchantment, a feeling of transcendence, negation of death, and much more. Moreover, large groups organized around shared belief systems provide community, cohesion, belonging, identity, shared purpose, and often a strong social support system in times of adversity.
Why are skeptics such killjoys?
Why do scientific skeptics insist on debunking supernatural and paranormal belief, dispelling the magic in the world? Is it really necessary to take that away from people, puncturing and deflating their beliefs? Why not just let people have their cherished beliefs if those beliefs confer so much psychological and social benefit to them?
Because when people are credulous and readily believe weird things, sooner or later someone gets hurt. Magical thinking and an inability to critically appraise evidence may initially be benign, but it easily leads to more consequential irrational decisions and poor judgement.
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Beliefs are powerful modulators of motivation and purposive behavior. Depending on their content and context, they have the power to inspire or demoralize. They can also be dangerous: they have the power to lead some to deadly acts, such as choosing alternative ‘therapies’ over chemotherapy for a treatable cancer. Beliefs have the power to make people fly airplanes into buildings. History is replete with examples of powerful leaders taking their nations into war based on magical ‘signs’ or omens. As the great science popularizer Carl Sagan said, gullibility kills.1
Even moderate, liberal religious belief, while motivating charity and generosity, and conferring many psychological benefits to those who can buy into the underlying supernatural premise, has at least one very important negative impact on society: it enables and legitimizes extreme religious belief by making magical thinking and supernaturalism seem respectable and intellectually serious. It also perpetuates the myth that science and religion are compatible (such as the notion discussed earlier that evolution is purpose-driven, guided by God), which impedes people’s understanding of science.
A spectrum of irrational beliefs
Irrational beliefs based on distorted reality can be tenacious and impervious to contradictory evidence. As a psychiatrist, I see these same irrational reasoning processes magnified ad absurdum in psychosis, but here we are considering irrationality and magical thinking in mentally healthy people.
There is no shortage of examples of widely held irrational beliefs, such as astrology, alien abduction, ESP, homeopathy, vaccines causing autism, and implausible conspiracy theories, to name just a few of the more blatant ones. Why and how so many thoroughly invalidated beliefs are confidently and without embarrassment shared by such large numbers of mentally healthy people has been the subject of an extensive literature. More than mere credulity and suggestibility are at play, but a lack of critical thinking skills is certainly a part of it.
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Openness vs. credulity
Sagan, famous for the 1980 TV series Cosmos, was one of the founders of the modern scientific skepticism movement. He advocated a tolerant, generous approach to understanding why so many people adopt credulous beliefs. He suggested that credulity is not necessarily a matter of intelligence, and may actually stem from curiosity and openness to new ideas:
People who are curious, intelligent, dedicated to understanding the world, may nevertheless be enmired in superstition and pseudoscience.2
Sagan also emphasized human frailty and fallibility as contributing to people’s susceptibility to believe in paranormal phenomena. Expressing his own emotional vulnerability in his longing for his beloved deceased parents, he gave the example of how easy it could be, after losing a loved one, to fall for the claims of a psychic medium “skilled” at “communicating” with the dead, concluding:
I could see being swept away emotionally. Would you think less of me if I fell for it? Imagine I was never educated about skepticism, had no idea that it’s a virtue, but instead believed that it was grumpy and negative and rejecting of everything that’s humane. Couldn’t you understand my openness to being conned by a medium or a channeler?2
Most of us who consider ourselves scientific skeptics have at some point had beliefs that we held dear but later realized were completely lacking in evidence.
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Believing in a higher purpose is a double-edged sword
Believing that the universe is inherently purposeful and that everything happens for a reason, which is the assumption underlying supernatural belief, is a double-edged sword.3 It can be reassuring and comforting but it can also lead spiritual people experiencing cruel adversity to wonder why God wants them to suffer. “Why me?” “What did I do wrong?” “What is the intended lesson?” They may blame themselves and feel punished. They may feel abandoned by God. I work with many cancer patients and have too often seen such experiences result in a devastating shattering of faith, leaving a person lost in disillusionment and anguish.
The alternative belief, that life is random, is disquieting but can be emotionally liberating. It is ultimately more comforting to know that many kinds of misfortune are nobody’s fault. And paradoxically, it can be much more empowering.
When we let go of belief in the supernatural and cease to see magic in any form in the world, the world does become less enchanting, and in many ways scarier in being so real, and with no father figure in charge. But it also becomes a whole lot more rationally understandable, and we are freed from a multiplicity of neurotic torments.
And for those who are intrigued to learn what twenty-first century science actually knows about the true nature of reality, an immensely interesting world of knowledge and discovery awaits you.4
References
1. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 218.
2. Carl Sagan, “Wonder and Skepticism,” Skeptical Inquirer, January/February 1995.
3. More nuanced theologies that portray a less interventionist God and don’t believe that specific events in our individual lives happen for intended reasons, still believe that the universe exists for a reason and that our lives have a higher purpose.
4. Parts of this article were adapted from: Ralph Lewis, Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even If The Universe Doesn’t (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2018).
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