Sometimes I seriously wonder how long it will be before the American Psychological Association declares religious belief to be a mental illness. Such a worry would seem far-fetched, until one reads passages like the one I came across three weeks ago in The New York Times. In an October 6, 2009, article on Francis Collins, a Christian who is the former head of the human genome project and the new director of the National Institutes of Health, New York Times reporter Gardiner Harris offers the analysis that “many scientists view such outspoken religious commitment [as that of Dr. Collins] as a sign of mild dementia.” Francis Collins has ruffled feathers in the scientific community because he insists that the complex designs evident in nature presuppose an Intelligent Designer, a Being Dr. Collins believes to be the God of the Bible. Since modern science has no real answer to that claim, it engages in the sort of attack we call ad hominem, arguing that in this one area of his life, the otherwise brilliant Dr. Collins must surely be suffering from a mild mental illness.
Source: www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health
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