"What Child Is This?"
"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe."
- Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-450 A.D.)
"Once there is a desire to believe the metaphysical doctrines of the religion, the mind is ripe for self-deception.... [The] person forms a belief in violation of his usual standards of evidence and judgment—what philosophers call epistemic norms.
- Neil Van Leeuwen, "Self-Deception and the Problem with Religious Belief Formation" (2006)
"There’s also the phenomenon of self-deception: people often claim to believe things that they merely want or are in some way committed to believing, even though 'at some level' they know the belief is false. There are the standard examples of people ignoring the symptoms they have of some dread disease, or the obvious evidence of the infidelities of a spouse; or doting parents exaggerating the talents of their child. ...This is my hunch about what passes as 'religious belief.' Despite appearances, most Western adults who’ve been exposed to standard science and claim to believe in God are self-deceived; at some level they know full well the belief is false."
- Georges Rey, "Meta-Atheism - Religious Avowal as Self-Deception" (2004)
TITLE - "What Child Is This?"
WHERE - San Diego, California (2017)&