Dutch psychiatrist: atheism is an aberration

[LongJohnSilver]

Disclaimer: I translated this myself from a Dutch catholic news site. Any translational errors are on me.

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Hilversum, 4 februari 2010

If you are not receptive for religious experiences at all, you miss something important, states retiree academic psychiatrist Herman van Praag in an interview in VolZin magazine.

Insensibility
“I have compared atheism with insensibility to aesthetic experiences”, says Van Praag. “If someone says ‘Paintings mean nothing to me’ or ‘I care little for literature and music’, than something there is missing that makes life more rich and interesting. (…) Even if religion is an illusion, it is the most noble illusion a human being can imagine.”

Creative pathology
Not all religiosity is healthy, says Van Praag. Religion can also ‘thicken’, as with fundamentalists, or become ‘hyper’, as with some patients he encountered in his doctor’s practice, with religious illusions. But sometimes this hyper religiosity is a “creative pathology”, says the psychiatrist.

Above normal
Van Praag: “Take the prophets from the Bible, who have a literal and social extraordinary important message. Those must have been strange characters. They heard voices, thought God spoke to them - today they would be considered abnormal. I call them above normal.”

(source: katholieknederland.nl/actualiteit/2010/detail_objectID702390_FJaar2010.html)

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I thought this might be interesting. Is this a new idea? Does Van Praag have a point? Can atheism be explained by a insensibility to religious experiences? Can it be compared to insensibility to aestethic experiences?

 

[John21652]

Disclaimer: I translated this myself from a Dutch catholic news site. Any translational errors are on me.

---

Hilversum, 4 februari 2010

If you are not receptive for religious experiences at all, you miss something important, states retiree academic psychiatrist Herman van Praag in an interview in VolZin magazine.

Insensibility
“I have compared atheism with insensibility to aesthetic experiences”, says Van Praag. “If someone says ‘Paintings mean nothing to me’ or ‘I care little for literature and music’, than something there is missing that makes life more rich and interesting. (…) Even if religion is an illusion, it is the most noble illusion a human being can imagine.”

Creative pathology
Not all religiosity is healthy, says Van Praag. Religion can also ‘thicken’, as with fundamentalists, or become ‘hyper’, as with some patients he encountered in his doctor’s practice, with religious illusions. But sometimes this hyper religiosity is a “creative pathology”, says the psychiatrist.

Above normal
Van Praag: “Take the prophets from the Bible, who have a literal and social extraordinary important message. Those must have been strange characters. They heard voices, thought God spoke to them - today they would be considered abnormal. I call them above normal.”

(source: katholieknederland.nl/actualiteit/2010/detail_objectID702390_FJaar2010.html)

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I thought this might be interesting. Is this a new idea? Does Van Praag have a point? Can atheism be explained by a insensibility to religious experiences? Can it be compared to insensibility to aestethic experiences?

Some years ago, sociologist Peter Berger wrote a book called The Sacred Canopy. In it he theorised that humanity has a ‘need’ for religion, that it is part of who and what we are. He said that religion is a part of the process of how we subjectively make sense of the objective world. He also wrote that religion is a great legitimizing force, as opposed to the secular societies we live in. Berger also claims we should study the development of Christianity. Secularization, he tells us, undermines the power of Christianity to govern society’s main institutions and determine public values. Therefore Christianity was the source of the process that undermined its own power. More secularisation means less belief in the legitimizing role of religion.

 

[Voice_of_Reason_1]

Translate some scholarly, peer-reviewed articles and we’ll talk. Shall we take the half-baked droolings of some Dutch psychiatrist as being true because he fancies the position? Most contemporary literature shows not only an insubstantial difference between atheists and believers on measures of creativity, appreciation for beauty, and like things, but shows also that believers weild more prejudiced views, more authoritarian attitudes, and are rated higher on belief in a just world.

Some prominant figures will be claiming “atheism is an aberration” until belief in God is an alleged abberation. It’s nonsense is what it is.

 

[reggieM]

Can atheism be explained by a insensibility to religious experiences? Can it be compared to insensibility to aestethic experiences?

Interesting questions. I don’t think it can be fully explained by insensitivity, but that does seem like a very strong characteristic of atheism (as it is manifested in atheists). Aesthetic experiences are spiritual in nature. Some people have no taste for art or music – or perhaps they respond to such things in a pragmatic way. For example, they would reduce a Beethoven sonata to its materialistic or practical components. The value of aesthetic encounters would be measured by their function or “production” (financially or in measurable impacts).

If someone says ‘Paintings mean nothing to me’ or ‘I care little for literature and music’, than something there is missing that makes life more rich …

Right, because those things are so important to human life. Religious experiences are even more important. The spiritual writings of the Catholic saints, for example, are very profound even on the human level. To have a complete lack of interest or sensitivity towards such things indicates that “something is missing”.

I have concluded that atheistic-materialism, as a worldview, is inhuman. One should easily recognize the importance of religious belief in human culture and acquire a respect for it – even if one doesn’t believe himself.

But also, the spiritual faculty can be atrophied or damaged from non-use or mis-education and that can cause this insensitivity and crudeness that is so commonly found in atheism.
It’s similar to what we would find among people who were never exposed to the appreciation and experience of the power of art.

 

[John21652]

I have concluded that atheistic-materialism, as a worldview, is inhuman. One should easily recognize the importance of religious belief in human culture and acquire a respect for it – even if one doesn’t believe himself.

But also, the spiritual faculty can be atrophied or damaged from non-use or mis-education and that can cause this insensitivity and crudeness that is so commonly found in atheism.

Perhaps by living in a sterile, man made big city environment?

 

[reggieM]

Perhaps by living in a sterile, man made big city environment?

That could very well be true also. If we add the greater access to immorality that is found in big metropolitan centers, that could be another influence.