Belief in God, is it childish? Or worse, is it a sickness, a sign of immaturity, a lack of mental, emotional, and psychological growth, a failure to grow up?
Yes! It is a failure to grow up, if our belief in God is to avoid personal responsibility for living our lives. It is childish, if we prefer a god to master us and control us and make all the hard decisions of life for us so that we can avoid blame when things go wrong. It is immature, if one’s belief in God is really nothing more than a second-hand faith, handed down from one’s parents (or some other trusted authority figure) without ever questioning God and/or wrestling with God directly so as to truly own one’s faith as a real personal experience. (See Genesis 32:22-32.)
Many scientific rationalist types view religion as a kind of neurosis (as did Freud, for example). They view religion as a kind of mental prison for people, shackles on the mind, stultifying their mental and emotional development, a delusion. Of course religious belief can be quite irrational, authoritarian, and full of superstitious nonsense. This is true. But even gold when first discovered is mixed with dirt, dross, and other impurities; that’s why it is purified by molten fire. That is to say, it is not religion as such that is bad, but the many contaminates that may come mixed-in with it that have its bad effects on it—hand-me-down faith, authoritarian faith, superstitious faith, fear based faith, and so-on and so-forth.
Indeed, church doctrine can be “over taught, unrealistically rigid or subject to misuse or misapplication.” (See M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled.) Belief in God is not to be handed down and swallowed hook-line-and-sinker. It must be challenged, fought for, wrestled with, thought through, and then freely chosen. Thus, whether or not one believes in God is not in its self what makes a person childish or immature; rather, it is how one comes to such a belief. Is one able to challenge and to question and to think for one’s self in the believing? Is one able to wrestle with God directly?
Actually, when one wrestles with God and comes out on the other side of the wrestling match with the firm conviction that God truly IS, Life may suddenly blossom for that person. The wrestling believer may begin to feel alive for the first time ever, in a way never quite experienced before. New vistas of depth and scope and width may begin to open up as to Life’s meaning, purpose, and direction. There may even be a newfound ability to truly come to terms with end-of-life questions and issues. There may be new developments of internal, emotional and spiritual and mental empowerment along with a new sense of courage and peace. This is psychologically good stuff, not bad, and certainly not a neurosis.
The fact is that there are mysteries in the world, mysteries that science can neither explain nor study by simply applying the traditional scientific method. Not everything in this world can be examined or proven or scientifically observed and verified. There is indeed a place for mystery, faith, belief, and wonder. Thus, maintaining an open mind to possibilities of a reality (or realities) beyond what we learn and know by the scientific extension of our five senses may itself be a sign of wisdom and maturity.
It is true that religious people can be dogmatic, closed minded, and suffer from self-imposed blindness or narrow minded tunnel vision, unable to see things beyond what their own ideology tells them they ought to see. But such stubborn and willful blindness can also exist among scientific rationalist types as well. Immaturity and the more base elements of human nature can be seen in all types of people, in the wealthy and the poor or among simpletons as well as the highly educated. That is to say that sterile dogmatism and stubborn willful ignorance and closed mindedness are found among all social classes and in people from all walks of life and across the full spectrum of higher and/or formal education or the lack thereof.
And so, yes, for some, belief in God may be a sign of immaturity and lack of development—given the kind of God they believe in or the reason why they believe in the first place. Yet, for others, belief in God may be evidence of great mental, emotional, and spiritual development, reflecting the kind of person within which may be found much wisdom and depth of knowledge.
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