"A neuroscientist’s irreverent guide to the brain.- Kirkus review (see: THE IDIOT BRAIN
In this witty and informative debut, popular Guardian science blogger and sometime stand-up comedian Burnett (Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences/Cardiff University) describes “the weird and peculiar processes” of the brain and the bizarre behaviours that often result."
In his recent post (soon to be deleted) Robert aka Second said :
"If I said I believed in fairies or aliens people would either chuckle or say GOOD ON YOU.This made me think of The Idiot Brain where Burnett discusses religious belief and suggests that it isn't a delusion - at least not in psychological terms.
But to say I believe that Jesus died for my and everyone's sin brings a tirade of condemnation and abuse."
Burnett opines that religious beliefs are incompatible with scientific evidence and observable reality, but aren’t considered to be delusions.
"If someone told you, in all seriousness, that they talk to invisible beings who control the universe, you’d probably back away slowly, nodding and smiling, while desperately looking for the nearest exit or escape route. If this person then said they wanted to be in charge of your life, you’d probably do the same, but more urgently, and with a view to finding the nearest police officer. And yet, this happens all the time. Jacob Rees-Mogg recently blamed his extreme and unpleasant views on his Catholicisim, which was seen as a valid excuse by many. Ex UK prime minister Theresa May has made a big deal about how her Christian upbringing makes her suitable for the role. And despite the lawful separation of church and state, every official and wannabe US president has had to emphasise their religious inclinations. Even Trump, whose enthusiasm for maintaining the noble traditions of the presidency can be described as limited at best."- The Guardian (article adapted from The Idiot Brain).
Psychosis is defined as a loss of contact with reality manifested by seeing things that aren't there. Delusions can be defined as believing something that is demonstrably not true but, because delusions are about what someone believes, not sees, it's harder to easily disprove them even though they are inconsistent with reality.
We do look askance at people who have delusional beliefs about aliens sending messages to their brains and that the Inland Revenue Department is spying on them but when we criticise delusional belief by religious people in some mythical creator who rules their lives the immediate response is that we don't have faith because were atheists.
Here's The Guardians's interpretation of Dean Burnett's take on this:
But then, that begs the question, why do religious beliefs get a free pass? People are very resistant to those being challenged too. And believing that there’s a kindly-but-all-powerful father figure in the sky who watches and judges everything you do and his son who died but came back to life two millennia ago is going to return any minute, surely that’s no less likely than someone being targeted by a shadowy government conspiracy? It’s substantially less likely, in actual fact. What gives?
Well, delusions are believed to stem from anomalous activity in the brain’s system for interpreting what does happen and what should happen. The brain essentially maintains a mental model of how the world is meant to work, and what things are meant to happen and when. Beliefs, experiences, expectations, assumptions, calculations; all are combined into a constantly-updated general understanding of how things happen, so we know what to expect and how to react without having to figure everything out from scratch each time. Luckily, the brain is usually quite good at filtering out irrelevant information and occurrences that would otherwise challenge this model of how the world works.
Delusions are what happens when, due to illness or other disruption, this delicate system fails, and things we perceive that would usually be dismissed as innocuous or irrelevant end up being processed as far more significant, and our belief system alters to accommodate it, however wrongly.
But the thing is, our brains don’t come with an understanding of the complex science of how the world works already preinstalled, like Windows 10 on a new laptop. This mental model of the world is built up over time, from life experiences and other learning. So, if you’ve been raised in an environment where you’re told by everyone and everything that there’s a kindly deity in the sky, or that the world is 6,000 years old, or that there are thousands of multi-armed gods controlling the world, or whatever, then why wouldn’t you believe it? There’s nothing that you experience on a day-to-day level that contradicts this, so your mental model of the world is fine with it.
That’s why delusions are only diagnosed if they’re not consistent with the person’s existing belief system and views. A devout creationist talks to God while in church, that’s fine. An avowedly atheist lawyer starts doing it in the middle of a meeting, they’re probably delusional. If both of them suddenly started saying the world is going to end in 30 minutes because of angry frogs living in the sun, they’d both be considered delusional.
