How Can Smart People Be So Stupid?



My tennis buddy approached me soon after hearing about the Heaven's Gate mass suicide: "These people were computer programmers, right? And they thought a UFO was going to beam them up? How could they be so smart and so stupid at the same time?"

The next day, Scott Simon on National Public Radio answered the question more gently than I could: "Intelligence does not always produce wisdom." But that's not really an answer -- it only begs the question that has been nagging at me since I first heard of this tragedy: What is it about religion that leads perfectly rational people to embrace the most ludicrous beliefs?

The question surfaced again as I discovered, on page two of the Ann Arbor News, a quarter-page ad listing eight of a claimed "167 converging clues" that reveal "overwhelming" evidence of Jesus' imminent return. It's well-written, carefully researched, and (I'm sorry to have to say this) really stupid. People have been confidently predicting this event since the day when, as the story goes, Jesus floated into the sky (or was transported into a waiting craft, depending on which preachers you believe).

How many times must we fail to predict Jesus' return before we achieve a skeptical mind about such claims? What do we make of these, and countless other, examples of intellectual lobotomies performed in the name of God? And let's be honest, what assurance do I have that the same hasn't happened to me? After all, is belief in the resurrection any more ridiculous than belief in UFOs hiding behind Hale-Bopp?

I put the question bluntly because lives are at stake. While mass suicide in fulfillment of an allegedly divine purpose is rare, membership in mind-numbing cults is all too common. Closer to home, lives are routinely ruined on the shores of irrational religious doctrine, from gays persecuted in the name of infallible holy writ to emotionally vulnerable persons falling victim to faith-healing hucksters. Religion can shroud the most blatant forms of exploitation and discrimination in the mysterious aura of God's good name.

No wonder so many good people associate religion with snake oil. Who can blame them, when religious leaders tell us to turn against our God-given reason as if it were the devil's own voice?

My atheist brother used to say, "Never trust anyone who says, `Trust me.'" Good advice in a day when televangelists raise millions of dollars on the strength of doctrines that blithely defy the most fundamental principles of scholarship.

Those who are not familiar with the intellectual traditions of Christendom may be shocked that these words come from a minister. But in fact the the majority of Christian scholars would agree that the challenge of faith is to deepen the spiritual life and the intellectual life simultaneously. Those who say the two are mutually exclusive are suggesting that we sacrifice the full wisdom this precious life offers.

Of course, atheists have their own blind spots. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I made the acquaintance of a post-doctoral fellow in astrophysics. He bragged about his genius level IQ, and upon learning that I was a Divinity School student, sniffed that there could not possibly be any geniuses teaching there, since any belief in God was clear evidence of an inferior mind. I suggested he read a few chapters of Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology before he made such judgments, but he categorically dismissed the idea.

Sometimes the smartest people can be really stupid.

Religion is a powerful force. In the wrong hands, it can be used to destroy lives as completely as it saves them. All we have to protect us are our common sense and the wisdom of our skeptical elders. Faith requires deep questions, not easy answers. In the end the truth is never captured in simple formulas, but in the restless engagement of inquiring minds and discerning hearts.

To settle for anything less is to court disaster.



The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology