Richard Dawkins' Theory About Mental Illness Is Flawed ...

But the famed atheist's best disciple might help him

Eminent biologist Richard Dawkins believes rising cases in mental illness are attributable to the “astonishing rate” of technological change.

Before we get to that hypothesis, can we pause for just a moment to point out the irony?

A man who has devoted his entire professional career trying to convince everyone that life has no existential meaning is worried about the mental health crisis.

Spare me.

While Dawkins’ comments on rapidly changing technology might have some validity, his recent comments on Christianity deserve far more thought.

The world’s most famous atheist shocked the world in April when he declared himself to be “a cultural Christian”.

After claiming in his best-selling book The God Delusion that religion was “a deeply malevolent, dividing force in the world” Dawkins has had a change of heart, or a brain aneurysm.

After spending the past 20 years flaming people of faith as “simpletons” who believe in “a sky fairy”, Dawkins now says …

“You know I love hymns and Christmas Carols. I feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense”.

Dawkins is a man who, sitting on a branch he’s been relentlessly sawing through, now nervously surveys the ground far below and releases just how big a drop he is about to experience.

To be clear, he’s not saying he believes Christianity, but he sees the benefits in pretending to believe it.

So before we get to the damage TikTok and AI are inflicting on the mental health of people in the Western world, lets just for a moment consider the mental angst of all those sitting on Dawkins’ rather shaky tree branch.

We came from nothing. And we end up as nothing. That has been Dawkins’ message.

People are smart enough to do the math. If the evolutionary biologist is correct, then life is worth nothing.

No wonder Nietzsche, who famously declared “God is dead”, went insane.

A man can put up with many afflictions, but meaninglessness is not one of them. And a man can tolerate all sorts of trouble, but he cannot tolerate a brutish, uncaring world that offers no hope.

Richard Dawkins is 83-years-old. How does one contemplate the looming abyss without dissolving into debilitating fear? Well, it seems he takes a hesitant, tentative step toward the Divine.

He’s not a Christian.

No. No.

But he’s a cultural Christian.

Which is a way of saying … watch this space.

But for now, Dawkins is worried not by the fact that life is completely and utterly without meaning or purpose, but that technology is changing faster than our ability to adapt.

He told a podcast at the weekend …

“Many people do worry that the pace of change is such that we are no longer well-adapted to live in it. This is a worry.”

He continued …

“Much of the mental illness that afflicts people may be because we are in a constantly changing unpredictable environment in a way that our ancestors were not.”

Can I just butt in here. Sure technology is changing rapidly, but so are other things - like science and history.

It was only yesterday that we understood there were two genders. Now you’re a bigot if you don’t subscribe to 74!

It was only yesterday that Captain Cook was an explorer to be admired. Now you’re a racist if you don’t want to smash his statue.

It was only yesterday that pedophiles were sickos. Now they’re minor-attracted people who need to be understood.

It was only yesterday that our Australian flag was a source of pride and national unity. Now it’s a divisive piece of cloth that our political leaders seem embarrassed to be seen with.

It was only yesterday that everyone agreed on certain “oughts” and certain “ought nots”. Now there’s only what’s right in your own eyes.

It was only yesterday that we understood reality and truths. Now there’s
”your truth” and “my truth” and “your reality” and “my reality”. We are told that only fascists believe in objective truth.

It was only yesterday that we knew for sure women did not have a penis. Now even the British PM says that’s not quite correct, insisting 99.9 percent of women do not have a penis but …

Sorry to show you that, but there’s the source of your mental health crisis right there!

Need I continue?

The problem is obviously Instagram. Sigh.

Technology is creating problems mainly in that technology amplifies what is already in the culture. And what’s in the culture is a toxin that Dawkins himself has spent years helping to spread.

As Nietzsche famously pointed out …

When you give up Christian faith, you pull the rug out from under your right to Christian morality as well. This is anything but obvious: you have to keep driving this point home, English idiots to the contrary.”

Dawkins concerns about technology being the death of us might be overblown.

An international study involving two million people from 168 countries, however, appears to show concerns about the influence of social media and AI are overdone.

The study, published last November in the Clinical Psychological Science journal, “looked very hard” for a “smoking gun linking technology and wellbeing” but found none.

Oxford scholar Professor Andrew Przybylski concluded …

“It is indeed possible that there are smaller and more important things going on, but any sweeping claims about the negative impact of the internet globally should be treated with a very high level of skepticism.”

So the question remains - what is behind skyrocketing rates of depression and anxiety in the Western world?

It’s fascinating that one of Richard Dawkins most famous disciples, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself recently converted to Christianity after recognising it was a “spiritual void” that was making her near suicidal.

She said she experienced a personal crisis, involving anxiety, depression, and self-loathing, and got to the point that she didn’t want to live any more.

She started self-medicating and consulting psychiatrists. But nothing worked until one therapist diagnosed her with “spiritual bankruptcy”. 

Hirsi Ali started praying because, in her own words, she “had absolutely nothing to lose”. 

She told Dawkins in a forum they shared earlier this year that she immediately felt “connected to something higher and greater than herself.”

She describes her discovery of Jesus and the consequent change in her life as a “miracle”.

If Dawkins, and indeed the professors at Oxford are looking for a smoking gun to explain not only the mental health crisis but what do do about it, they could do worse than to talk more to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.