How Science Can Help Us Live In Peace. Markolf H. Niemz

and dislocation of countless orphans and widows who were forced to face a shattered wartime economy. More than 60 nations were involved in the Second World War and over 60 million human beings died.9 A third world war would most likely be a nuclear war that is fought on all continents. It could bring about the end of humanity.

      Our doctor from a distant galaxy would flip out and shout: “What a delusion!” Of course, we are assuming that he has a voice in the first place. He would hit the nail on the head in spite of his galactic distance. What happened during the years 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 came from a fixed idea: the delusion of a nation’s need to impose its political power thereby threatening the life of others. Political self-delusion is very short-sighted because life flourishes only in peace when all forces are balanced.

      Political self-delusion also spreads domestically, especially in dictatorships. There is no separation of powers in them: Legislative, executive and the judiciary are united in one, that is, a dictator or a party. Dictatorships pursue ideologies that are not allowed to be questioned. Their delusion makes them fearless to suppress their own people. The largest dictatorship is presently in China in spite of the fact that it calls itself “the peoples republic”. Chinese people have very little to say about their government: Whoever criticizes the regime is locked away. It’s shameful to trade with a country that tramples on human rights so blatantly. By doing this we alienate the basic rights of humanity.

      Political self-delusion infects rulers as well as political parties and entire peoples. The threat is just as great for humanity. Politics is always concerned with protecting own interests. That makes good sense as long as equal rights are preserved. Decisions have to be made in case there is any conflict of interest. Political self-delusion thrives whenever human rights are disregarded during this process—if, for example, a government suppresses its own people or a nation wages war against others. In either case, human beings identify themselves with their own nation and masquerade personal interests for the “good of the nation”. The breeding ground for this behavior is nationalism.

      Thank God that the atrocities of the German Nazis are over. But nationalism is still part of the political landscape. Populists are very much part of this landscape because they promise their people the things they want to hear. The political dialogue has become harsher—not only in the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. It is in vogue again to be against anyone who’s not part of “your group”. With regard to Russia, I completely understand that—since the fall of the Soviet Union—it feels increasingly threatened by a West that grows stronger and stronger. If a political foe becomes weaker, it is always up to humanity to meet him eye-to-eye and uplift him so that he won’t lose face. Deescalation and keen foresight as during the days of Mikhail Gorbachev are history, unfortunately. We need politicians who keep an eye on both their peoples and all of mankind including this planet—politicians who think and implement democracy globally.

      Today when humanity is becoming more and more compressed and interlinked because of the population explosion and globalization, political self-delusion is finding new victims: Hatred of foreigners is active. Many people reject the idea of sharing their belongings and their alleged “own country” with others whose lives are being threatened. The most recent wave of immigrants into Europe illustrates this missing compassion. Some people are ready to help, but many countries shut themselves off against immigrants even though they agreed to the Geneva Refugee Convention. Of course, every human being knows from experience what all people need in order to live: something to eat, something to drink and a roof over their heads. Whoever is not prepared to grant even these basic needs to “foreigners”, doesn’t deserve living on earth that is home to all of humanity.

      A wall between the United States and Mexico? This would be a serious setback for humanity. Europeans have felt and had to endure for more than 40 years a wall that gashed their continent. They know what it means literally and symbolically: If you shut yourself off, you are going to fall! The fall of the Soviet Union and the fall of the German Democratic Republic serve as evidence. Barbed wire (see figure 5) has never been a solution. Shutting yourself off is destructive and against our nature. Separation always comes from ignorance, greed or envy, and fear. It is greed and fear in the United States today; it was envy and fear in Eastern Europe. As we will conceive soon, nature takes the opposite direction: It seeks understanding and love.

      Fig. 5: Political self-delusion

      Political and economic self-delusion often go hand-inhand as can be seen in Great Britain. A close majority voted for the “BRitish EXIT” (BREXIT)10 to break away from the European Union. Catalysts for the split were not only political issues, but also economic issues. Many British citizens had grave concerns about their supposed independence, and the refugee crisis increased the number of BREXIT supporters even more. We see a dark specter of poverty where human beings and entire nations think about themselves first. They forget that the European Union was conceived primarily to be a community of shared values. Now, instead of taking these shared values to heart, they demand “special terms”. If these are not granted, nations move apart.

      War, dictators or hatred of foreigners—at the political level people also cause harm to themselves again and again. The loser is and will always be humanity because it’s humanity that will be weeded out if it doesn’t come to terms with the problem. We can’t count on nature to help us. Her eye sees horizons far beyond what we can understand, and she will lead evolution onward with other species in case we botch it and don’t cherish life. Is humanity ready enough to learn from the past? I don’t think so. Or better: not yet. Aggression is festering in so many places and among so many nations that a new escalation of trouble seems unavoidable. Whether a third and possibly final world war will develop remains to be seen. The future of humanity will depend chiefly upon political diplomacy. It’s never power, but good diplomacy that can defuse political self-delusion.

Religious Self-Delusion

      Dawkins wasn’t entirely incorrect when he certified religion to be an explosive force in itself. I strongly suspect that religious self-delusion has the greatest overwhelming power of all four types of self-delusion. Many religious followers are very fanatical when it comes to defending their faith. “My own God” holds far greater rank than “my homeland”. Fanaticism—the irrational zeal of being possessed by an idea—leads to delusion if people are silenced and can’t speak out. Religion is useless if people have no freedom to ask questions and to scrutinize!

      Religion is and has always been the most important “revelation of truth” for many human beings even though science has claimed the right to that throne. But the truth is that religion has provided a great contribution to our consciousness of self. Whether you believe in God or not—now or later you will have to ask yourself questions: “Why am I here?” “What is my place in this universe?” And precisely these questions, for which science has no answer, are deeply religious. Their theme is the self and its relationship with the world. The answers religions give us vary widely, but all of them strive to isolate the self from the rest of the world and arouse great hope even to that of achieving immortality. Reasonable hope gives assurance, but blind hope stupefies. Whoever promises his followers immortality shouldn’t be surprised if they intensify this belief and live in its delusion up to the point that they fight for “their God”.

      It isn’t scientifically correct to speak of a “God delusion” because no one knows—not even Dawkins—whether a God exists or not. A delusion is always about something that doesn’t correspond to reality. If we try to talk about God, we’re groping in the dark. It even adds more difficulty that the concept of “God” isn’t clearly defined. Many people conceive of God as a person, others (especially scientists) view God as a causal force of nature11 or as the primal order of cosmos.12 Even if a personal God were a delusion, an abstract God could still be real. The delusion that’s really happening here is that many people think they know how God feels and thinks.