Unbelievable Beliefs

Sometimes when I hear people espousing their beliefs, I wonder why anyone would want to believe what some people believe.  The other day I was reading a book in which the author was propounding his atheism and a belief system that reduced everything in life to a chemical reaction in the brain.  To this person, concepts like love, faith, and hope were nothing more than illusions.

After reading a bit of the book, my curiosity (probably one of those illusions) began to cause a number of questions to arise in my biological illusion maker.  My first one was:  Is this guy serious?  The second one was:  Does he live his life on the basis of his beliefs and what does that life look like?  Finally, I came to a question that most interested me:  Why would anyone want to believe such things?

For the life of me, I have not been able to figure out why anyone in his right mind would want to believe such ideas[1].  I guess someone could appeal to truth and claim that science has proven that we are nothing more than biological entities.  However, I believe there are a great number of scientists who would disagree with that proposition.  Besides, if we really are only a bunch of chemicals and our thoughts are nothing more than a chemical reaction, can there be such a thing as truth?  Would not this belief make the concept of truth just one of those empty God words in the final analysis? Just another Illusion?

It seems like to me that if there is no truth, it would be the prudent thing to pick a belief system that would make you happy or at least create an illusion of it.  I once read a book which propounded that the best belief system (illusion) to deal with life and death was Christianity[2].  If you believe you are just a mess of chemicals, you might try Christianity for the pragmatic benefits.  However, if you begin to really believe it, you may find your chemistry being changed.

“I tell you the truth; no one can see the kingdom of God, unless he is born again” (Jesus, the Christ).

[1] This question plagued me to the point that I spent hours thinking about it. I finally put my thoughts down in an article entitled, “The Making of a Fundamentalist Atheist”.

[2]The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker