As a deconvert from Christianity as of early February, I think this article makes some good points.
If you'd like to read the testimonies of other deconverts, visit unreasonablefaith.com, de-conversion.com and debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com
Many of them are former pastors, missionaries and apologists. Some of their testimonies were what helped me 'see the light'...
Interestingly, while I was a Christian, I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional. Ultimately, Christianity is responsible for forcing me to think things through, since you have to check everything by 'the Word' (Bible)
I wonder if 'G-d' is angry with me for posting this on 'Resurrection Morning.' Oh well. See you in hell...
Many Worlds quantum theory seems to be a correct interpretation of our universe. How do you know you aren't living in one of the improbable universes where Christianity is literally or partially true?
No. People have to stop saying this. Atheism does not depend on faith. It is a falsifiable hypothesis that fails if anyone presents repeatable, concrete evidence that a higher power exists. After millenia of trying, the overwhelming evidence is in support of atheism. Before science, religion was seen as an explanation for lots of things -- as science has explained more and more, religion has been forced into increasingly smaller corners for explicative power. Atheism doesn't take anything on faith -- that's the point.
Religion is not falsifiable, which makes it fundamentally different from atheism.
I guess I touched a nerve there.
Much of science is still theory, and theories are a very valuable way to help explain things, but they are not 'overwhelming evidence'. Also, this thinking that religion has been forced into a corner is dependent upon the crowd you are a part of (crowd behavior). The opposite crowd might have you thinking the opposite. If an atheist believes without faith, then that means that they are completely sure of everything. Another term for this is close-mindedness.
Atheists do not believe. They lack belief in the assertions of theists. It is the burden of the theists to provide ample evidence to support their assertion that we all live under the watchful eye of an omnipotent God.
This argument just doesn't hold. The atheist believes that the assertions of theists are incorrect and have faith that they are correct in that belief.
The mere fact that you have replied to my post says that you <i>do</li> feel the burden to explain your belief in atheism - which in turn reinforces that your belief is based on a faith.
faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof
Being atheist is not a matter of faith; it's a matter of logic and science. To have faith is to believe in something that does not make logical sense and has not and cannot be proved scientifically. There is NO faith involved with an atheist.
Your argument implies that all knowledge is simply a system of beliefs cemented in by faith in those beliefs which leaves us on an equal playing field in regards to the validity of each side of the argument. By doing so, you're undermining all that we know to be true by equating logical facts with faith based beliefs and that is truly selling human intelligence and reason short.
I don't have a belief in atheism because there is nothing to believe in atheism. Like I said before, atheism is a lack of belief in the assertions of theists. This lack of belief is supported by a logical appraisal of the assertions of the theists, not the non-evidence based blind faith of theistic thinkers.
Your assessment of the argument is correct. At the base of any body of knowledge is a collection of axioms or assumptions that are taken as true without any proof required. Consider the scientific method. It is taken as a given that an experimental result will hold for every observer who attempts the same experiment at any time or location (provided that the result is true). This is wholly unprovable, but we consider it to be a reasonable thing to accept on faith.
But the point is that an atheist does not know and is not completely sure. Religion, on the other hand, tends to sell itself as having all the answers (except when it doesn't, then it's simply a matter of God's will). Atheists simply can't believe that religion has all the answers, there just is not any proof in that being the case.
It sounds as if you are confusing agnosticism with atheism. The atheist asserts that God does not exist; the theist asserts that God exists; and the agnostic asserts that they cannot know if God exists or not.
Skepticism is healthy and good. All truth claims should be carefully examined and only accepted if enough supporting evidence exists to satisfy you.
I'm not sure where "crowd behavior" comes into this. In the 16th century, we believed that the species of the Earth were created whole by a God. Now, science has provided a better more defensible explanation. It is this pattern I was referring to, that's been repeated endlessly cross many phenomena formerly best explained by religion, to the point the religion is only left with "well, where did the big bang come from?"
Science still hasn't explained where the world came from. The idea that something just appeared just because is no more or less plausible, and has no more or less evidence than God, the Matrix or whatever. In such circumstances, if you make your position the default as you just did you automatically win.
What is the overwhelming evidence? I don't know of any on either side - please enlighten me. I don't count theories or the volume of theories explaining something as evidence so don't bother if that is all there is.
If atheism is a falsifiable hypothesis, then so is theism (the belief that God exists). The same experiment that could be performed would prove one of these beliefs true and the other false.
The statement that 'atheism' does not take anything on faith is wrong and silly. The experiment discussed above that proves that God either exists or does not exist has been run. Until it is conceived and executed, one has to say that 'I believe God does not exist despite the fact that I do not have conclusive evidence that proves it'. The same also goes for theism - no experiment and conclusive proof, it is a matter of faith.
Stating "religion is not falsifiable, which makes it fundamentally different from atheism" does not change the facts.
You said Atheism is a falsifiable hypothesis that fails if anyone presents repeatable, concrete evidence that a higher power exists
That sounds great, except it isn't.
How would somebody go about creating a repeatable falsifiable experiment that showed that there was a God? Try it out in your mind. It just doesn't work.
I point to a rock and say "This rock is God. Therefore you are wrong." How would you refute such a claim? Point to a rock and say "No it isn't?" We easily end up simply contradicting one another.
You can't refute a claim about the existence of God without getting into a discussion of the definition of God. Because without a common definition, there's nothing to falsify. You could say "There is no God according to this definition," which is a fair thing to say. If we all shared the same definition, it might even work. But we don't.
So I simply pick "God is some subset of that which cannot currently be proved"
We know that there are things in formal systems that are true yet cannot be proved, and we know that throughout history there are things that are true that could not be proved for a long time, so such things exist. Yet because we are unable to attach our grappling hooks of logic and reason to the concept it defies our Popperian paradigm that we would quite reasonably apply to all other things scientific.
God is simply a belief that we don't know everything. Under that rubric, of course there is a God.
Now is he a big guy in the sky with a beard, etc? Beats me. I think once you establish belief in the unknowable you have to acknowledge that anything past that point is going to be speculation, personal opinion, creative storytelling, etc. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not rational in the same way science is. Your "falsifiable" qualification ends where God begins.
And that's why atheism is faith-based. It presupposes the existence or access to all facts and methods regarding dealing with God. In that sense it's actually quite more irrational than other religions which continually twist and morph as understanding changes. Atheism will always be the same -- because at it's heart it's always about applying science to dreams: a ludicrous idea at best.
Atheism allows you to take it further. Atheism says that since the world is governed by physical laws alone, anything not forbidden by the laws of physics is achievable. You don't have to concede that one day you'll join her in a hole in the ground: we become masters of our fate and, with enough creativity and engineering, throw off the pessimism imposed by religion.
Not really. It may be possible in theory to cure all diseases, but whether we can do so in time for YOU is doubtful (the older you are, the more doubtful it is). If we can, you'll die of an accident sooner or later. If you upload your mind into a computer with backups, you can avoid accidents but it's questionable whether it's really "you" who would survive. And even if everything goes perfectly and you consider the upload to equal "you," you'll still die in the heat death of the universe.
Atheism isn't a belief any more than fasting is a meal or a bare chest is a shirt. This argument rests on the misconception (bordering on a straw man) that atheism is the positive belief that there are no gods. That's not what atheism is. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods. There is a difference between "I do not believe that God exists" (atheism) and "I do believe that God does not exist" (so-called "positive atheism").
Some atheists are positive atheists, but for most of us it's at best a suspicion or a working hypothesis, not a matter of absolute, infallible, unquestioned belief.
Even if we are to consider the belief that there are no gods, I would still question whether or not this belief depends on faith any more than the various beliefs that there are gods. If you study the history of philosophy you'll find a number of supposed "proofs" of the existence of God. There are also many arguments for the non-existence of God. It's a matter of argument and cautioned reasoning, not faith, whether or not to believe that God exists.
Faith is an epistemic position that the atheist does not share. Most atheists tend to acquire beliefs based upon evidence. Just like everyone else, an atheist goes home at night expecting that his house is where he left it that morning. But, just like everyone else, an atheist would be surprised to find that his house had burned down. Yet, after some amount of emotional torment, the atheist would be forced to believe that his house was, in fact, no longer standing.
Contrast this with religious belief. A positive atheist, upon coming across some unquestionable evidence of God's existence, would be surprised but would be forced to accept what the evidence has shown. Someone of religious faith would come across unquestionable evidence that God did not exist and refuse to believe it. They would in fact rearrange their entire belief system simply to preserve their non-rational, privileged belief that God exists and will save them from eternal damnation in exchange for their faith.
Keep in mind, that is the ideal case. People of faith can be better empiricists than the demands of faith allow them to be, just as empiricists can be more dogmatic than the demands of empiricism allow them to be. But while most atheists consciously choose empiricism (and reject belief in God because there is no good evidence for it), people of faith consciously choose faith. This is the real difference. It's not about God, it's about how people choose to form their beliefs.
(OK--let's be more clear here. An atheist can still have faith in something else. For instance, most Buddhists are atheist because of their faith in the possibility of mystical enlightenment and so forth. The real difference isn't between religious people and atheists, but between religious people and secularists. Just as atheists can be religious, secularists can believe in God. Such secularists are known as "deists" and many of them did remarkable things, such as writing the Declaration of Independence.)
> ...it's about how people choose to form their beliefs.
Right. Which raises the question of how _do_ people choose to form their beliefs?. Is one's basis for a belief a post rationalization of one's existing beliefs, carried out long after such beliefs are deeply ingrained? (e.g. Religion drilled in as a child, basis for belief only examined later in life). Or is it more innate? e.g. in our genes?
If it is a post rationalization, then is it really a basis for belief at all? If so, is that basis used consistently through-out one's life, and if not, is it anything other than a device used to feel good about some particular faiths? What would it mean to have multiple bases for belief?
I claim that many atheists if shown incontrovertible proof that God exists would rearrange their entire belief system simply to preserve their non-rational privileged belief that God does not exist and there is nothing after death.
This is not a religious vs. non-religious issue. Many people are not comfortable accepting every fact they are faced with. You will however find that the reasonable people in both camps do believe in looking at the facts honestly and drawing conclusions from those facts where appropriately. However, rational people of any stripe are rather hard to come by.
"I claim that many atheists if shown incontrovertible proof that God exists would rearrange their entire belief system simply to preserve their non-rational privileged belief that God does not exist and there is nothing after death."
Maybe, but they would be hypocrites for doing so--most atheists will tell you they don't believe in God because there's no evidence for God, whereas most people of faith don't care about evidence at all. That's what I meant by "People of faith can be better empiricists than the demands of faith allow them to be, just as empiricists can be more dogmatic than the demands of empiricism allow them to be."
You're mistaken, people of faith care just as much about evidence as secularists. Any respectable belief system, and Christianity is one of them, encourages you to look at the facts and decide for yourself. Asking hard questions and being skeptical is a healthy thing. Because of their implications for how one lives one's life, truth claims about religion especially should be examined.
This doesn't sound like any Christianity I'm familiar with, and I was raised in it.
In fact, to me this sounds a lot like someone is overconfident in their apologetics. Every knowledgeable Christian I've discussed this with ultimately conceded there was a need for faith of the epistemic type, and no room for skepticism.
"Because of their implications for how one lives one's life, truth claims about religion especially should be examined."
Absolutely.
"Any respectable belief system, and Christianity is one of them, encourages you to look at the facts and decide for yourself."
I disagree. I grew up in church-my father is a pastor, after all. I don't remember anyone being encouraged to look at the facts. You were to believe it because the Bible says it, and disregard what "those intellectuals" and the 'secular humanists" had to say. I'm in Jamaica, but its quite similar to the fundamentalists in America.
And let's be honest: most people don't 'come to faith' because they are convinced of it's truth.
Mainstream evangelical Christianity. Traditional doctrines such as Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Incarnation, the death burial and bodily resurrection of Jesus, the substitutionary atonement, Biblical inerrancy, infallibility, the five solas of the Reformation, the Trinity, the fall, the rapture etc.
For us to argue the existence of god, we need to define 2 things: What does it mean to exist, and what does it mean to be god?
As previous commentators have noted, 'god of the gaps' explanations have historically been disappointing for theists. If we were arguing 500 years ago, you'd say: "But we don't what causes lightning! It must be god!" (or the gods, depending on who you asked) Now we know it's electrostatics. "But we don't know why people get sick! It must be demons!" And then Redi and Pasteur kicked God out of that hole. "But we don't know the origin of the universe!" Well, not yet. But I know this: The same evidence that shows that the universe had a beginning ALSO shows that the universe is billions of years old, not ~6000 as the Bible teaches. So you can't have it both ways. And CS Lewis' argument from morality (Universal Lawgiver) is suspect as well: Before the fall, Adam and Eve had no conscience (knowledge of good and evil). Yet, they were "very good."
Interesting that you threw the whole thing out. Why not just throw out sola scriptura? There are lots of really smart Christian scientists who don't believe all the stuff other Christians do.
I guess what interests me is the entire fuzziness of the debate. "Christian" means to follow Christ. That's it. There are Christians that believe all sorts of things, from Zen Christianity to Agnostic Christianity to Charismatic Christianity.
Heck, for all I know you can be an atheist and a Christian. After all, many of the first Christians were put to death for being atheists.
Yet we lump all those hundreds of millions of variations all into some cartoon conglomerate and then poke sticks at it. Talk about straw man arguments. Why the oversimplification?
"Interestingly, while I was a Christian, I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional."
I think I should clarify this. By delusional, I don't mean in a mentally ill sort of way; rather they dogmatically believed things that simply had no Scriptural support. Any attempt to show them otherwise would be met with an accusation of 'trusting in your own intellect', rather than 'being led by the Spirit.'
I don't disagree with the author, but I do think he underestimates the beneficial effects of the drug to its users in that he fails to mention the often large social benefits that one can obtain by belonging to a church, especially in a world where contact with one's local community seems like it is becoming less common. The IRL social network that religion provides, in addition to its palliative effects, comprise the major sources of utility from religious belief.
And I think it does a good job of explaining the uphill battle that evangelical atheists have. In order to convert someone, you have to convince them that being correct on a technical metaphysical issue is worth the real costs that they will bear for abandoning their religion. It's not the most appealing sales proposition.
Religion has been around for as long as humans have. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. And despite the fact that I think it's wrong, I have serious doubts that the world would be a better place without it.
This is also the crux of the disagreement that I have with the self-proclaimed rationalists (see the blog Less Wrong for examples). Rationalists believe that what is true is also always beneficial, but I am not convinced that this is necessarily so. I find it easy to imagine a world where believing some false propositions was beneficial, and I suspect we may even live in such a world.
Everyone has two brains, a "people" brain and a "stuff" brain. Most people use them roughly equally, but some use one more than the other.
When we were kids, my sister and I used to argue because she thought that her stuffed animals had feelings, and that birds had conversations about specific things. She was always attributing human emotions to things that didn't have them. Even now, she does it with her cat: if the cat trips and falls and walks away with its head down, my sister will say, "Aww, she's embarrassed!" -- even though cats don't understand embarrassment and the cat is probably just tired.
Unsurprisingly, my sister is religious and I'm not. Religion is what happens when people misapply their people brain to thinking about stuff. They get a vague sense that the world is alive, and then explain it in whatever concrete terms their culture provides (God, in our case).
Nerdiness is what happens when people misapply their stuff brain to thinking about people. Nerds misinterpret other people because they fail to attribute emotions to them. However, unlike religious people, nerds usually realize at some point that they have a problem and can try to change. Except in extreme cases, religious people suffer no consequences for being wrong, so they have no reason to change.
Since women tend to be more interested in people and men more interested in stuff, this also explains why women are more often religious, and men are more often nerds.
37 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 84.1 ms ] threadIf you'd like to read the testimonies of other deconverts, visit unreasonablefaith.com, de-conversion.com and debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com
Many of them are former pastors, missionaries and apologists. Some of their testimonies were what helped me 'see the light'...
Interestingly, while I was a Christian, I came to the conclusion that some genuine, sincere Christians were genuinely and sincerely delusional. Ultimately, Christianity is responsible for forcing me to think things through, since you have to check everything by 'the Word' (Bible)
I wonder if 'G-d' is angry with me for posting this on 'Resurrection Morning.' Oh well. See you in hell...
My feeling is that if religion is a drug, then atheism is as well. They are both a belief that depends on faith.
Religion is not falsifiable, which makes it fundamentally different from atheism.
Being atheist is not a matter of faith; it's a matter of logic and science. To have faith is to believe in something that does not make logical sense and has not and cannot be proved scientifically. There is NO faith involved with an atheist.
I don't have a belief in atheism because there is nothing to believe in atheism. Like I said before, atheism is a lack of belief in the assertions of theists. This lack of belief is supported by a logical appraisal of the assertions of the theists, not the non-evidence based blind faith of theistic thinkers.
Skepticism is healthy and good. All truth claims should be carefully examined and only accepted if enough supporting evidence exists to satisfy you.
The statement that 'atheism' does not take anything on faith is wrong and silly. The experiment discussed above that proves that God either exists or does not exist has been run. Until it is conceived and executed, one has to say that 'I believe God does not exist despite the fact that I do not have conclusive evidence that proves it'. The same also goes for theism - no experiment and conclusive proof, it is a matter of faith.
Stating "religion is not falsifiable, which makes it fundamentally different from atheism" does not change the facts.
That sounds great, except it isn't.
How would somebody go about creating a repeatable falsifiable experiment that showed that there was a God? Try it out in your mind. It just doesn't work.
I point to a rock and say "This rock is God. Therefore you are wrong." How would you refute such a claim? Point to a rock and say "No it isn't?" We easily end up simply contradicting one another.
You can't refute a claim about the existence of God without getting into a discussion of the definition of God. Because without a common definition, there's nothing to falsify. You could say "There is no God according to this definition," which is a fair thing to say. If we all shared the same definition, it might even work. But we don't.
So I simply pick "God is some subset of that which cannot currently be proved"
We know that there are things in formal systems that are true yet cannot be proved, and we know that throughout history there are things that are true that could not be proved for a long time, so such things exist. Yet because we are unable to attach our grappling hooks of logic and reason to the concept it defies our Popperian paradigm that we would quite reasonably apply to all other things scientific.
God is simply a belief that we don't know everything. Under that rubric, of course there is a God.
Now is he a big guy in the sky with a beard, etc? Beats me. I think once you establish belief in the unknowable you have to acknowledge that anything past that point is going to be speculation, personal opinion, creative storytelling, etc. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not rational in the same way science is. Your "falsifiable" qualification ends where God begins.
And that's why atheism is faith-based. It presupposes the existence or access to all facts and methods regarding dealing with God. In that sense it's actually quite more irrational than other religions which continually twist and morph as understanding changes. Atheism will always be the same -- because at it's heart it's always about applying science to dreams: a ludicrous idea at best.
Atheism isn't a drug because it doesn't provide any comfort.
Christianity: Your mother passed away last night, son. Someday you'll see her again in heaven.
Atheism: Your mother passed away last night, son. Someday you'll join her in a hole in the ground.
Some atheists are positive atheists, but for most of us it's at best a suspicion or a working hypothesis, not a matter of absolute, infallible, unquestioned belief.
Even if we are to consider the belief that there are no gods, I would still question whether or not this belief depends on faith any more than the various beliefs that there are gods. If you study the history of philosophy you'll find a number of supposed "proofs" of the existence of God. There are also many arguments for the non-existence of God. It's a matter of argument and cautioned reasoning, not faith, whether or not to believe that God exists.
Faith is an epistemic position that the atheist does not share. Most atheists tend to acquire beliefs based upon evidence. Just like everyone else, an atheist goes home at night expecting that his house is where he left it that morning. But, just like everyone else, an atheist would be surprised to find that his house had burned down. Yet, after some amount of emotional torment, the atheist would be forced to believe that his house was, in fact, no longer standing.
Contrast this with religious belief. A positive atheist, upon coming across some unquestionable evidence of God's existence, would be surprised but would be forced to accept what the evidence has shown. Someone of religious faith would come across unquestionable evidence that God did not exist and refuse to believe it. They would in fact rearrange their entire belief system simply to preserve their non-rational, privileged belief that God exists and will save them from eternal damnation in exchange for their faith.
Keep in mind, that is the ideal case. People of faith can be better empiricists than the demands of faith allow them to be, just as empiricists can be more dogmatic than the demands of empiricism allow them to be. But while most atheists consciously choose empiricism (and reject belief in God because there is no good evidence for it), people of faith consciously choose faith. This is the real difference. It's not about God, it's about how people choose to form their beliefs.
(OK--let's be more clear here. An atheist can still have faith in something else. For instance, most Buddhists are atheist because of their faith in the possibility of mystical enlightenment and so forth. The real difference isn't between religious people and atheists, but between religious people and secularists. Just as atheists can be religious, secularists can believe in God. Such secularists are known as "deists" and many of them did remarkable things, such as writing the Declaration of Independence.)
Right. Which raises the question of how _do_ people choose to form their beliefs?. Is one's basis for a belief a post rationalization of one's existing beliefs, carried out long after such beliefs are deeply ingrained? (e.g. Religion drilled in as a child, basis for belief only examined later in life). Or is it more innate? e.g. in our genes?
If it is a post rationalization, then is it really a basis for belief at all? If so, is that basis used consistently through-out one's life, and if not, is it anything other than a device used to feel good about some particular faiths? What would it mean to have multiple bases for belief?
This is not a religious vs. non-religious issue. Many people are not comfortable accepting every fact they are faced with. You will however find that the reasonable people in both camps do believe in looking at the facts honestly and drawing conclusions from those facts where appropriately. However, rational people of any stripe are rather hard to come by.
Maybe, but they would be hypocrites for doing so--most atheists will tell you they don't believe in God because there's no evidence for God, whereas most people of faith don't care about evidence at all. That's what I meant by "People of faith can be better empiricists than the demands of faith allow them to be, just as empiricists can be more dogmatic than the demands of empiricism allow them to be."
In fact, to me this sounds a lot like someone is overconfident in their apologetics. Every knowledgeable Christian I've discussed this with ultimately conceded there was a need for faith of the epistemic type, and no room for skepticism.
Absolutely.
"Any respectable belief system, and Christianity is one of them, encourages you to look at the facts and decide for yourself."
I disagree. I grew up in church-my father is a pastor, after all. I don't remember anyone being encouraged to look at the facts. You were to believe it because the Bible says it, and disregard what "those intellectuals" and the 'secular humanists" had to say. I'm in Jamaica, but its quite similar to the fundamentalists in America. And let's be honest: most people don't 'come to faith' because they are convinced of it's truth.
For us to argue the existence of god, we need to define 2 things: What does it mean to exist, and what does it mean to be god?
As previous commentators have noted, 'god of the gaps' explanations have historically been disappointing for theists. If we were arguing 500 years ago, you'd say: "But we don't what causes lightning! It must be god!" (or the gods, depending on who you asked) Now we know it's electrostatics. "But we don't know why people get sick! It must be demons!" And then Redi and Pasteur kicked God out of that hole. "But we don't know the origin of the universe!" Well, not yet. But I know this: The same evidence that shows that the universe had a beginning ALSO shows that the universe is billions of years old, not ~6000 as the Bible teaches. So you can't have it both ways. And CS Lewis' argument from morality (Universal Lawgiver) is suspect as well: Before the fall, Adam and Eve had no conscience (knowledge of good and evil). Yet, they were "very good."
I guess what interests me is the entire fuzziness of the debate. "Christian" means to follow Christ. That's it. There are Christians that believe all sorts of things, from Zen Christianity to Agnostic Christianity to Charismatic Christianity.
Heck, for all I know you can be an atheist and a Christian. After all, many of the first Christians were put to death for being atheists.
Yet we lump all those hundreds of millions of variations all into some cartoon conglomerate and then poke sticks at it. Talk about straw man arguments. Why the oversimplification?
I think I should clarify this. By delusional, I don't mean in a mentally ill sort of way; rather they dogmatically believed things that simply had no Scriptural support. Any attempt to show them otherwise would be met with an accusation of 'trusting in your own intellect', rather than 'being led by the Spirit.'
And I think it does a good job of explaining the uphill battle that evangelical atheists have. In order to convert someone, you have to convince them that being correct on a technical metaphysical issue is worth the real costs that they will bear for abandoning their religion. It's not the most appealing sales proposition.
Religion has been around for as long as humans have. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. And despite the fact that I think it's wrong, I have serious doubts that the world would be a better place without it.
This is also the crux of the disagreement that I have with the self-proclaimed rationalists (see the blog Less Wrong for examples). Rationalists believe that what is true is also always beneficial, but I am not convinced that this is necessarily so. I find it easy to imagine a world where believing some false propositions was beneficial, and I suspect we may even live in such a world.
Everyone has two brains, a "people" brain and a "stuff" brain. Most people use them roughly equally, but some use one more than the other.
When we were kids, my sister and I used to argue because she thought that her stuffed animals had feelings, and that birds had conversations about specific things. She was always attributing human emotions to things that didn't have them. Even now, she does it with her cat: if the cat trips and falls and walks away with its head down, my sister will say, "Aww, she's embarrassed!" -- even though cats don't understand embarrassment and the cat is probably just tired.
Unsurprisingly, my sister is religious and I'm not. Religion is what happens when people misapply their people brain to thinking about stuff. They get a vague sense that the world is alive, and then explain it in whatever concrete terms their culture provides (God, in our case).
Nerdiness is what happens when people misapply their stuff brain to thinking about people. Nerds misinterpret other people because they fail to attribute emotions to them. However, unlike religious people, nerds usually realize at some point that they have a problem and can try to change. Except in extreme cases, religious people suffer no consequences for being wrong, so they have no reason to change.
Since women tend to be more interested in people and men more interested in stuff, this also explains why women are more often religious, and men are more often nerds.