The Psychology of Atheism
Dr. Paul Vitz
September 24, 1997
These are notes of the lecture taken by an audience member.
The talk was meant as an encapsulation of a book on which Dr. Vitz has
been working and that he intends to publish in a year. The talk takes
the opposite apprach to that usually taken in psychology and much
linked to its origin: explaining religious belief.
The concepts of psychology are two-edge swords that can explain not
only religious belief, but also the lack of belief.
He makes two assumptions about atheism:
1. major barriers to belief are non-rational, that is, psychological
2. all of us have a free choice to reject or accept God
The point is to identify factors that predispose one to atheism.
First, Dr. Vitz elaborated on the simpler, more shallow reasons for
atheism.
He reviewed his own personal story as an example. He was raised with
a somewhat Christian upbringing in Ohio, but became an atheist in
college at age 18 , and remained so until the age of 38, when he
converted, or re-converted to Christianity. Reflection on his own
life showed him that his reasons for being an atheist were
superficial.
Superficial reasons for atheism:
1. General Socialization-- social unease
e.g. Vitz is from the Mid-west, which is boring and he wanted
to be comfortable in the glamorous secular world.
Voltaire was embarrassed of his provincial origin
cf. flight from Jewish ghetto or fundamentalist Southern
background
2. Desire to be accepted by powerful and influential professors.
He noted that his professors at Stanford animadverted on every
psychological topic, but were united in two things: professional
ambition and disbelief in God.
3. Personal convenience.
Belief in God means having to give up pleasures and free time.
Mortimer Adler, in his How to Think about God, leaves the
impression the the main obstacle to belief for him lies in his own
will.
Next, Dr. Vitz moved on to the deeper psychological reasons some
people do not believe in God. He reviewed Freud's critique of belief,
his projection theory: human beings are weak and need protection so
they project their need by concocting an all-powerful father figure,
God. The problem with ad hominem arguments is that they also work on
any other belief people might hold, such as belief in scientific
theories, and can also be used to reject psychoanalysis as well.
Furthermore, the projection theory is refuted by the fact hat
pre-Christian religions didn't emphasize God as benevolent father.
Essentially, he summarized, the projection theory is really an
autonomous argument and is not dependent on psychology. Bolstering
this assertion is the fact that Freurbach had previously formulated
the same argument in a book that Freud had read. So psycholoanalysis
is neutral to the projection argument.
Dr. Vitz described an explanation of atheism using Freud's psychology
of the Oedipus Complex. Freud posited that this is a psychological
disorder that all males suffer from and consists of the desire to kill
one's father and sleep with one's mother. Now, psychologically God
and one's father are the same. Thus, the desire to kill one's father
means one also desired to eliminate God. Atheism is Oedipal wish
fulfillment.
E.g. Voltaire wasn't an atheist, but a deist: he rejected a personal
God. He strongly rejected his own father. In his twenties (1718) he
published a play called Oedipus that included heavy allusions to
religious and political rebellion
Diderot was an avowed atheist and he claimed that if man were left to
himself, he would strangle his father and lie with his mother.
Freud noted a link between diminishing of a father's authority and
belief in God.
Dr. Vitz outlines his "Theory of the Defective Father," which
attemptes to explain atheism:
1. father present but weak
2. father present but abusive
3. father absent
Freud's father, Yakov was weak and had trouble supporting his family
and was a sexual pervert. Also he was a liberal Jew, so Freud linked
his weakness to his religion.
Hobbes-- his father was an Anglican clergyman who abandoned his
family.
Freurbach-- his father was a famous legal theoriest.
at 13, his father abandoned the family to live with another woman,
though he later returned when that woman died.
Schopenhauer-- couldn't stand his mother and intially (ages 8-12) was
relatively close to his father. At age 16, his father committed
suicide.
Other staunch atheists show the remarkably common pattern of having a
father who died while they were young. For example, Nietzche,
Bertrand Russel, Sartre and Camus.
More recent examples:
Madeline Murray O'hare hated her father and tried to kill him with a
butcher knife, according to her son's book.
Albert Ellis is a psychologist hostile to religion. Dr. Vitz was on a
panel with him and outlined his theory of the defective father to him.
Ellis said the theory didn't fit him because he got along with his
father. In casual conversation, a friend told Vitz that the theory
"fits Ellis perfectly." According to a biography of Ellis, his father
abandoned the family and his weak mother was unable to support, so
Ellis and his brother ended up providing everyhting for themselves.
In his twenties, Ellis was polite to his father, though.
Anthony Flew (sp?) is a philosopher who's an atheist and the son of a
well-known English divine. At a party Flew beat on the floor
exclaiming "I hate my father!"
David Hume's father died when he was two.
As a control group, Dr. Vitz took well-known theists who were
contemporaneous to their atheist counterparts and from the same
culture: Barkeley, Burke, Wilbeforce, G.K. Chesterton, de Tocqueville,
Buber, Pascal, and others. In every instance each had a good
relationship with his father.
J.S. Mill, an atheist, also had a good relationship with his father
and so inherited his father's atheism.
To conclude, Dr. Vitz read a selection from Russel Baker, the New York
Times columnist, describing his sadness and anger at age five when his father died, and how he then became a skeptic.
Question period
[Sorry, I didn't get the questions down.]
Dr. Vitz noted other common factors he noted in the famous atheists
he'd profiled: they were all smart and arrogant.
The point of the profiling of atheists is to remove psychological
motives from explaining religious belief. The ad hominem attack on
theism posits an immature need for support, but there are
psychological causes for atheism as well as theism. So when the
atheist attacks a theists beliefs for being childish, the theist can
counter, ``and so's your old man!"
So, this argument more or less levels the playing field as far as
psychological explanations of belief/disbelief are concerned.
However, no one disputes that having a loving father is better than
having an unloving father. A loving atheist father will likely set up
his children for theism, just as an S.O.B. theist father will set up
his children for atheism.
Examples of figures who don't fit the theory:
Dederot had a relatively positive relationship with his father, though
he did have a serious dispute with his father at age twenty (too late
to count). Another explanation of Diderot's atheism may be his place
in the birth order of his family (cf. "Born to Rebel").
Karl Marx
Don Bosco's father died when he was two. He saw priests a father
figures and founded an order that helped orphan boys.
Hillaire Belloc's father died when he was two, but he sought
substitute fathers.
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Vitz is professor of psychology at New York University. He is also an
adjunct professor of the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family
in Washington, D.C. He formerly taught at Pomona College and
Claremont Graduate School. During his early years at N.Y.U., Vitz's
research interests focused on experimental psychology; since his
conversion to Christianity over fifteen years ago, he has been working
in the area of psychology and religion. He holds a B.A. from the
University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
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The Augustine Club at Columbia University, 1997
