And yes, this is my experience as well. In all walks of life, one finds very intelligent people who continue to believe in God and an afterlife. Why is that?
Well, for one, I've found that many who have success in a particular area gain that by focus, that is exclusion of other areas of inquiry and close examination of a singular topic. That leaves them with their cultural equipment largely intact. They were brought up believing, and remain so. Ceasing to believe is very hard. It is much more rare to begin to believe when one was brought up without belief.
In addition, ceasing to believe is a very painful process, that may mean unraveling other assumptions about the world, breaking ties with friend and family, and perhaps most important, leaving a supportive community that religion may form. I've known many people within a particular religion who cease to believe, but keep their mouths shut and go through the motions, rather than give up this very real support.
Perhaps most importantly, ceasing to believe requires the abandonment of hope for an afterlife. When I examine that carefully, I see in myself that yearning for more, the hope for continuation. I don't find a lack of another life bleak and nihilistic, but it sure would be nice to go on. And beyond that, the thought of being reunited with loved ones is nearly irresistible.
It's so damn hard to give that up.
But then again, it is worth it.
How, you ask? Perspective, my friend. Give up all that, step back from the mess and it becomes possible to begin to see how it all works. Science, history, hell, even philosophy. None of it really comes together when you must force it into a particular believe system.
And something very astute from the article.
"Colin Humphreys says that quite a number of his colleagues at Cambridge are also believers. 'My impression is - and it is just an impression - that there are many more scientists on the academic staff who are believers than arts people.'
Tom McLeish says something similar. He cheerfully offers several reasons why that might be so, one of which might be called the postmodernist effect. 'Our dear friends in the humanities do get themselves awfully confused about whether the world exists, about whether each other exists, about whether words mean anything. Until they have sorted out whether cats and dogs exist or not, or are only figments in the mind of the reader, let alone the writer, then they are going to have problems talking about God.' "
For simplifying effect, let me lay out a few things that helps me:
1. The world is real.
2. While I'll grant that there may be more than "one way of knowing", science is the ONLY way of uncovering the fundamental workings of the universe AND communicating them reliably.
3. With an open, critical mind, one can always update and change one's maps.
"Christ, what an imagination I've got."
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