Metropolis Organism blog post #24, 

The Smarter bet - Atheists or Believers?

Rethinking Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, and the quiet faith behind scientific certainty

I recently remembered a writer who once felt like an intellectual companion to me: Richard Dawkins. His brilliant book The Selfish Gene profoundly shaped my thinking. Dawkins is a rigorous scientist, an elegant writer—and an unapologetic atheist.

His atheism reached its full volume in The God Delusion, where he argues, with great precision and even greater confidence, that belief in God is irrational.

Now, I’m in no position to challenge Dawkins’ intelligence. But I will anyway.

Because here’s the strange thing: Dawkins and I agree that there is no scientific or logical evidence that a God exists. That much is obvious—to him and to me. So why does he (and why do we atheists generally) perform intellectual backflips to prove an already obvious point?

Why do we treat our conclusion—“there is no evidence for God”—as if it’s a moral triumph?

The more I think about it, the more I suspect that what we call “rationality” might also contain its own form of faith. A quiet, unacknowledged faith in the scientific method. A belief that because we rely on reason, we are somehow superior to the people who rely on God.

Put more bluntly: we assume we’re smarter than believers.

But lately I’ve been questioning that assumption.

Consider this:
A God-believer lives under the gaze of a loving father figure and anticipates eternal life. They have cosmic reassurance. Purpose. A guaranteed continuation.

We—atheists, rationalists, science-minded people—live in an indifferent universe and anticipate eternal death. No cosmic comfort. No metaphysical insurance policy.

So I find myself asking a very uncomfortable question:

Which worldview is actually smarter?
The one grounded in reason but offering no comfort—or the one grounded in faith but delivering profound psychological benefits?

And if the answer isn’t obvious, then perhaps the intellectual hierarchy we rely on—the one that places “reason” above “faith”—deserves a second, more honest look.


This article resonates with themes explored in The Metropolis Organism — a video series examining cities as literal biological systems, where human beings function not as masters, but as necessary organelles in a living urban body.

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