Think about this -

[Mister Agenda]

If your dog suddenly starts speaking to you, telling you what you can or can' t do - and you try to convince your neighbors about it - they send out the men with the butterfly nets and drag you off to the nuthouse.


Same thing - but instead of your dog - you say it' s an invisible man who created the universe - your neighbors will all pitch in and buy you a building so you can tell everyone about it. Tax free.

Conclusion: people are dangerously stupid.

But there are billions upon billions of people who believe or believed in God, yet there is no one that I know of who says that his dog speaks to him.
Would you like to restate your analogy?

Thanks,
Ed

Right, when a belief is common in your society it is not delusional (in the sense of psychologically diagnosable as delusion) to accept it, no matter how far-fetched it may be. It may be maladaptive to not accept it if the social cost is high. For instance, most African (speaking very generally) believe that witchcraft constitutes a serious threat to society.

When Somali Bantu refugee children I was mentoring several years ago accused one of the other Bantu children having the Evil Eye (that he was making people sick by looking at them), I didn't try to argue them out of believing the Evil Eye is real when it's taken for granted in their culture, but I did convince them (I think) that it doesn't work in America. But the children weren't delusional for believing what their parents taught them.