A long time ago I was a D&D nerd (for the uninitiated, this stands for the fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. If you didn’t know that, the rest of this post may not make much sense…). Eventually I sold off all my sourcebooks and novels (coincidentally at about the same time I met FutureWife – COINCIDENTALLY, I TELL YOU!), but a thought popped into my head today whilst I was indulging in my soon-to-be-abandoned habit of calculating stats and composing character sheets for people I meet. In D&D, there are six main attributes which are possessed in differing ratios by each character: three physical (Strength, Constitution and Dexterity) and three mental (Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma). It’s the difference between Wisdom and Intelligence that got me thinking.

Characters with high Wisdom scores tend to be more contemplative and have more faith in their instincts and common sense. They are also usually capable of performing Divine magic (magic spells in D&D are divided into Arcane (wizards and sorcerers) and Divine (clerics and druids)). High Intelligence scores tend to mean that the character learns new skills easily, thinks rationally and analytically, and may be able to perform Arcane magic (if he or she is has ranks in the Wizard class). You could argue that they correspond to right-brain and left-brain activity, respectively. It comes as no surprise to learn that highly pious characters tend to be Wisdom based, whilst an atheist character (if such a thing existed in D&D) would likely have a high Intelligence score.

It struck me that there is perhaps a different mode of thinking that separates theists and atheists, and that this division might be a good way of understanding it. Theism requires a thought process based in the imaginative and instinctive – there “must” be a God because his presence can be felt, it makes sense that someone created the world, God speaks to me, I want there to be a God, I have six level three Divine spell slots and prepared Call Lighting this morning, so believe or be toast! Atheists fit into the analytical mode of thinking: there is no evidence for God, God is logically impossible, I’m a level 3 Fighter so I can’t do any magic, and so on. If D&D has taught me anything (beyond “Nothing beats a natural 20!” and “They’re dice! Not sweeties!”), it’s that both these ways of thinking can work. Clerics have as much chance as Wizards against a band of orcs. The difficulty comes when Clerics try to cast spells like a Wizard…

What do I mean by this rather torturous analogy? Well, simply that religion only works when you think like a theist. Accepting that there are things we cannot ever know, believing that some nebulous higher power is at work, submitting to what you feel “in your heart”; all these are fine and dandy as arguments for faith. I don’t subscribe to any of them, but I can accept that other people may do so. As soon as you try to apply your INT modifier to religion, however, you’re in a world of trouble. Trying to argue rationally for the existence of a god will mire you in logical contradictions and convolutions, to say nothing of the lack of evidence. It was the atheist mode of thinking that led me out of Christianity, and I suspect it has done the same for many, many others. As long as the faithful rely on their Wisdom score, their position holds up, but when you start loading up your Intelligence stat, you can’t help but swing towards atheism.