The Archbishop of Canterbury and the little old lady might use a different vocabulary to try to explain why they believe, but it comes to the same thing in the end. They believe because they believe. This is not about intellect or learning: it\u2019s more basic than that. It is both more profound and more simple.<\/p>\n
I suspect that on the most primitive level it is not all that different from the little scrap of blanket that so many small children rely on. They need it whenever they get tired or life looks a bit threatening.<\/p>\n
I invite you to imagine the impossibly grand figure of the Archbishop of Canterbury sitting on the steps of his cathedral with his thumb stuck in his mouth, stroking his bearded cheek with the little bit of satin at the edge of his comfort blanket.<\/p>\n
This image may not do a great deal for the dignity of the primate\u2019s office, but the comfort blanket is not a million miles away from what religion offers at its most simplistic. Strip from Christianity the notion of proof, evidence and historical events (or nonevents) and what drives belief has little to do with the head and a great deal to do with the heart.<\/p>\n
Many atheists, as my list suggests, say that people believe because of the way they were brought up: children are credulous and accept what they are told. As they grow older they get rid of their comfort blankets and often the beliefs with which they were inculcated. But not everyone does that \u201d\u201c and even those who do may return to belief, in one form or another, in later life.<\/p>\n
There remains what the atheist philosopher AC Grayling calls \u201cthe lingering splinter in the mind . . . a sense of yearning for the absolute\u201d\u009d. There is a profound longing for something that will stimulate and satisfy emotionally and spiritually.<\/p>\n