God, Delusions, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Prior to Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, perhaps the most famous person to propagate the idea that God is a delusion was Sigmund Freud. Freud asserted that belief in God is a flight from reality, a comfort and a crutch to those who cannot handle the psychological challenges of life, a projection of their own desires to have an all-powerful, all-knowing daddy in the sky who looks out for them and protects them from the evils of this world. Others have called religion "the opiate of the masses" and likened belief in God to belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or a flying spaghetti monster.

Is there merit to these assertions? Do we believe in God simply because we want to, despite a lack of evidence, in order to assuage our fears?

First of all, these accusations cut both ways. When Stephen Hawking claims, "There is no heaven or afterlife...that is just a fairy story for people afraid of the dark", we might respond with John Lennox that, "Atheism is just a fairy story for people afraid of the light." (Can Science Explain Everything, loc. 306).

Similarly, the Polish Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz wrote,

"A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged." (ibid, loc. 292).

Many atheists have acknowledged they don't want there to be a God. Surely some are atheists as a result of searching the evidence, but many have said they don't want a divine being who has something to say about who they sleep with, how they handle their finances, or how they live. And so the argument goes both ways.

Second, I don't know of anyone who ever came to believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy as an adult. Yet many people come to believe in God as educated adults, including myself. Such testimonies are well-documented and easy to find, especially among Christian apologists and scientists.

Third, these are not scientific or evidential arguments. Both sides can make such claims all they want, but we must look at the scientific, philosophical, and historical evidence if we are to proceed beyond the realm of name-calling and shaming. Only then will we begin to obey Jesus' command to love God with all our mind.