In Richard Dawkins´ 2006 book, The God Delusion, his title sums it up, but the book includes statements like, "“The take-home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism - as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of real, decent religion."
A McGrath, a Biologist and Christian thinker and his Christian wife and psychologist, have written some of the more extensive responses to Dawkins in two books, the latest being The Dawkins Delusion? The McGraths agree that not a few criticisms of Religion are appropriate, but examine with significantly informed arguments what they term in part Dawkins´ "theater" and lack of scholarship.
My own thoughts on the matter build on my background in Bio Anthro and International Relations and appreciation for the Philosophy of Science, since Dawkins simply demonstrates the problem of substituting "Science," the popularized name of Scientific Philosophy, for appropriate information and personal opinion, which most markedly makes it ideological Scientism. In an interesting contrast, Eliot Chapple was a Biological Anthropologist who analyzed human social and cultural behavior on the basis of the Biology of conditioned symbols and emotional-interactional rates, which he later identified as "rhythms." Economics and Politics is built out of specific kinds of interactions, and Religion is as well. Religion is built out of two basic human biological experiences that benefit from the somewhat well-known Rites of Passage and rituals which address larger impacts on many individuals in a group, like a Harvest time, called Rites of Intensification. The development of the supernatural fits in to this, although the role of religious experience demonstrates a character that involves other dimensions and levels of analysis. From Abraham to Jesus in the Christian tradition, and Jesus´ legacy community including eclectic resources like Islamic scholars, has additional elements to be considered. Gandhi, moreover, is an example that suggests the larger significance of religious experience in Indian culture that made him a spectacular example of synergistic effects and syncretism.
However, Dawkins himself as a Scientism ideologue in the public sphere is only part of the philosophical problem of adequate scholarship in knowledge domains. A 2012 academic article by ED Murray et al in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences analyzed Biblical prophets in terms of modern psychiatric pathological models. In their abstract, they state, "Analysis reveals that these individuals had experiences that resemble those now defined as psychotic symptoms, suggesting that their experiences may have been manifestations of primary or mood disorder-associated psychotic disorders." They conclude by saying, "It is hoped that these findings will translate into increased compassion and understanding for persons living with mental illness."
They begin their article by referring to an encounter a doctor had with a patient, "A man in his late 20s with paranoid schizophrenia explained during a neurological evaluation that he could read minds and that for years he had heard voices revealing things about friends and strangers alike. He believed he was selected by God to provide guidance for mankind. Antipsychotic medications prescribed by his psychiatrists diminished these abilities and reduced the voices, and therefore he would not take them. He asked, “How do you know the voices aren’t real?” “How do you know I am not The Messiah?” He affirmed, “God and angels talked to people in the Bible.”"
A key problem is revealed in their Abstract, and it is their myopic lack of an interdisciplinary survey and simplistic reliance on a rigid and non-fluid pathological paradigm that reflects their negligent exclusionary bias. They begin their observation empirically enough, saying, "experiences that resemble those now defined as psychotic symptoms." However, even in this statement, they restrict their basis of comparison to "psychotic symptoms." It doesn´t take a Social Scientist to recognize that "Biblical prophetic experiences" have traits also demonstrated by "pathological" individuals, but also share similarities with art like songwriting and performance, creative writing, theater performance, and political kinds of speech, to one degree or another. For example, Russell Brand´s "Messiah Complex" comedy show, the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, poetry like that of G M Hopkins and Walt Whitman, and in the political and spiritual realm, Gandhi, or centuries earlier, George Fox´s visionary experiences and reflections in his Christian dissidence that led him to a successful effort in the English Reformation and beyond. The medical context is extremely restricted and incomplete in the first place. Their reasoning then takes the nascent empiricism of "resemblance" to the myopic, contextually limited, and downright fallacious term "suggesting...manifestations of...psychotic disorders."
That´s not Science, for one, but reveals the fact that so-called "Science" is in fact a popularized name of Scientific Philosophy. Worse, it takes sociocultural "Medical Authority" and mixes it with philosophical fallacy. Well, fortunately we don´t live in a total medical totalitarian state and dystopia. We can ask, "How about the the patient´s power of a second opinion?"
From a similar clinical point of view, H Koenig provides one example of many with that problematic, yet resolvable question of "Medical Authority." He wrote a survey in the field around this issue a few years earlier. He wrote in part about "how clinicians can distinguish pathological from non-pathological religious involvement." Another even more qualified scholar is Roger Walsh, a psychiatrist and philosopher at U Cal Irvine who talks about the legitimacy of spiritual and religious experience.
A reviewer of Walsh´s book, "The World of Shamanism," wrote, "one of Walsh’s major contributions is his refutation, based on both field reports and psychological evaluations, of the notion that shamans are “hysterics,” “schizophrenics,” or “psychotics” (pp. 96–99), a claim made over the decades by several psychoanalysts and other mental health professionals (see Krippner, 2004). Indeed, Walsh correctly points out that psychology’s contributions to this field have been “decidedly mixed,” hampered by “superficial interpretations, insufficient anthropological data, and lack of personal experience of shamanic practices” (p. 7). He credits the turnabout to humanistic, transpersonal, and Jungian psychologies, research in altered states and placebo effects, and the psychologists who have undertaken shamanic training (or at least workshop attendance) themselves."
There are a number of other approaches to critiquing a psychopathological model of Religion, such as studies of the health benefits of prayer and meditation. Any attempt to frame Religion in terms of psychopathology is further falsified by the total lack of consideration of such perspectives as J Campbell in Anthropology and related fields. He cites J Silverman of the NIMH regarding an article about Shamanism and schizophrenia. Carl Jung as well and the (sub)field of Transpersonal Psychology also would need to be considered, as would the perspectives of Psychosomatic Medicine. Schizophrenia itself has been studied by social theorists like G Bateson and by holistic psychoanalysts like W Reich.
Given the complexity of modern society, and the manner in which psychopathology reflects socio-cultural fragmentation and isolation, a well-informed response to the patient by a well-informed psychiatrist with Roger Walsh MD, PhD´s knowledge-base might include the following, "You need to get out and learn the skills to translate your potential into your ability to contribute. Gandhi said 'You are important no matter how small a part you play.' Gandhi the interfaith Hindu himself got a law education as he studied Jesus, Thoreau, Tolstoy, and others. Let´s look at your options. I think you want to be more like Gandhi, and less like, say, Jim Carrey as Edward Nygma in Batman with Val Kilmer." Scientism has its own issues in its own Metaphysics, and religious nature. There is no less, the problem of the psychopathology of Scientism, in such infamous examples as Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber and Bill Ivins the Anthrax killer.
What are your thoughts and experiences around the relationship between Science and Religion (and Spirituality)?
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