A number of my recent internet wanderings have brought me to The Garvanian, a site popular among atheists as a place to poke fun at its mentally disturbed author. It’s like a modernised version of Bedlam, but with only one inmate. I don’t want to dwell too much on Garvan, since he clearly needs psychological and possibly psychiatric help, but his recent ravings did get me thinking about the relationship between religion and mental illness. More specifically, I started thinking about whether or not we should be trying to dispel the delusions that religion creates.

As Richard Dawkins pointed out in The God Delusion, religious insanity has a cachet that other delusions do not possess. A man who believes that an invisible leprechaun lives under his bed and controls the Prime Minister’s brain using radio waves is considered mad, whilst a man who believes that an invisible superman lives in the sky and watches everything he does is considered an upstanding pillar of his community. There is some debate in psychology circles over whether it is ethical or even necessary to puncture the beliefs of Leprechaun-man (and Invisible-Sky-Bloke man is considered sane anyway), based on the idea that if his delusions are not affecting his quality of life, then there is no reason to remove them. Many delusional patients actually need their strange beliefs in order to function, so removing the framework of their worldview can be unproductive and even dangerous.

With that in mind, can we claim that our ongoing crusade against religious insanity is in fact morally prudent? Many theists incorporate their faith very tightly into their sense of self and personhood, and knocking this support mechanism out from under them can be psychologically quite damaging. Most, like Garvan, have entwined religion so inextricably into their psyche that no amount of evidence or argument will ever convince them of their fallacy, but if one could unravel and break the faith-wire wrapped around their minds, would that be a kind thing to do? It’s not as though anyone is getting hurt by their delusion (unless they get on the wrong end of Garvan’s crossbow, of course…).

My own opinion is that one is always better off knowing the truth. In a Matrix-like universe, I’d be chugging red pills like jelly beans. It seems to me that being given the chance to experience and understand reality is a basic human right, and if one’s mental machinations get in the way, they should be stripped back. That’s just me though, and I’m open to being convinced otherwise. I’d be really interested to hear other people’s answers to the question: if we actually had the ability to convince someone like Garvan that what they believed wasn’t true, would it be ethical to do so?

***edit – quick link to Eshu’s response. ***