He has a short concluding chapter on the prevailing culture of superficial atheism in universities, the learned professions, and Western culture. This chapter is credible because Dr. Vitz is an accomplished and respected academic himself. His critique is not the typical anti-intellectualism of the American Christian fundamentalist put off by the mention of Darwin in biology class or the absence of references to God in physics class. He offers a mature and balanced personal discussion of the prevalence of atheist assumptions within academic culture in philosophy and the social sciences - disciplines that claim to be value free, but which operate within powerful ideological presuppositions. In passing, I noticed that he mentions Mortimer Adler (a writer I have reviewed in my own blog and at Blogcritics) with respect and affection.
He finishes with a short chapter stating his main conclusions. He thinks that relying on the projection theory of religion is essentially ad hominem in the context of rational argument. It has limited logical value as an argument for or against atheism. He suggests that the projection theory is basically valid, not in its own terms, but as an atheist's version of the religious insight into idolatry - the creation of objects of worship. He thinks that the Rationalist and Romantic atheists of the 18th and 19th century did not manage to get free of religion. They managed to substitute worship of psychological abstractions such the human will and the human ego for the worship of God. The great atheists were great egoists, and they worshipped projections of their own egos. Their legacy is an ideology and culture of self-absorbed narcissism.
Article comments
1 - DrPat
It's an intriguing take on atheism, and your review gives it perhaps more weight than the psychological establishment (coming from the prevailing culture of superficial atheism in universities and tainted by the prevalence of atheist assumptions within academic culture in philosophy and the social sciences) might.
2 - L. Mulry Tetlow, Ph.D.
In his Future of an Illusion, Freud defined illusion as a belief which may or may not be true but which is believed because the person wants it to be true. That is an autistic definition which has nothing in common with the accepted meaning in psychology and psychiatry. An illusion is an erroneous perception due to the configuration of the perceptual data and the functioning of the perceptual process.* Freud then gives the exact same definition of Religion. That's how he "proves scientifically" that Religion is an illusion.
* As in: Paris in the
the spring time