The Road Less Traveled
    A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
M. Scott Peck, M.D.

The Baby and the Bath Water

- Is belief in God a form of psychopathology?
    - Case histories indicate that the answer is not a simple one
    - Answer is sometimes yes (Kathy)
    - Sometimes no (Marcia & Ted)
- Scientists prone to fall into two traps as they question the reality of God
    1) Throw the baby out with the bath water
    2) Tunnel vision
- Dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God
    - Holy war, inquisitions, sacrifices, superstition, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, dogmatism, cruelty, fear, guilt, insanity
    - But all of this is what "humans have done to God"
    - Problems stem from humans being dogmatic, rather than our basic belief in God
- Science also tends to discount religion because it is also a sort of religion
- Science can be as subject to dogmatism as any other religion
    - Notions of science themselves become cultural icons
   
- It is possible to mature into a belief in God
    - Agnosticism and atheism not necessarily the highest states of understanding
- Reason to believe that, behind superstitious notions, there is a reality of God

- Possible that the path of spiritual growth leads first out of superstition into agnosticism and then out of agnosticism toward an accurate knowledge of God
   
- Some intellectually sophisticated and skeptical people grow in the direction of belief
- God that comes before skepticism may bear little resemblance to the God that comes
    after it
   
- Because psychotherapists come from skeptical tradition, they tend to label any passionate belief in God as pathological
- Therapists who have a simplistic attitude towards religion are likely to do a disservice to their patients
    - Peck believes that psychotherapists should become more involved in religious matters than they are

Scientists tend to discount religious belief because of some of the negative behaviors generally associated with belief.  However, our dogmatism is not necessarily a product of the belief itself.  It is possible that some people, through therapy and spiritual growth, may grow towards belief in a God, rather than away from it.