The claim that religious belief might be associated with forms of mental illness at worse or are delusional at best are, of course, well trotted out. However, I have never, until now, heard the claim that atheism is a mental disorder. It does, of course, seem counterintuitive. Why would not believing in gods be a sign of mental disturbance any more so than not believing in fairies or Big Foot? Well, apparently Fr. John J. Pasquini certainly thinks so. I recently came across his book on Amazon.com: Atheist Personality Disorder: Addressing A Distorted Mindset

Amazon provides the following description of the book:

Fr. Pasquini’s work puts to death the intellectual hopes for atheism and brings to light the mental disorder behind the atheist mindset. . . . With the advances in molecular biology, ‘cosmic’ mathematics, and the psychology of atheism, atheism has lost its intellectual validity-being more the product of a psychological disorder whose origins are found in childhood development.

My goodness! Where can I find my nearest in-patient clinic?

Of course, I have not read this book, but I immediately became suspicious of the three 5-star reviews (alongside a 1-star review) that it has received. It seems that the good Father needed a few stooges to boost his rating, as the three reviews more or less say the same thing:

“This book is a well written, fully footnoted, truly academic work…A must read for all academics…Academically very sound and richly footnoted book – presenting a brief philosophical examination of the various mindsets of atheism…This book is well footnoted and only cites world renowned academic scholars in their particular fields. Just as the pschology of religion was an area of study in the past century, the new century is marked with the advent of the pscyology of atheism.”

Using footnotes is good, but it seems that Father Pasquini is not an academic – at least not one formally trained in psychology. The author’s description describes him as “an author, columnist, counselor, and lecturer on topics of systematic, moral and spiritual theology and philosophy.” The book itself is published by the self-publishing vanity press AuthorHouse. I’m not saying that that is necessarily a bad thing, but, one has to wonder about a Catholic Priest writing about distorted mindsets.

The single 1-star review gives an equally biased but probably more accurate description of the book:

“Don’t bother spending your money on this book. Just after reading the first few pages it’s easy to see that the author is obsessed by and living in a world of the supernatural. I then discovered he has written several other “booklets” that make the real world look like a supernatural dream world. I tried to continue reading, but it became clear this book belongs in the fantasy category. What a distorted mind, indeed.  In this book, he starts with the premise that what he thinks is real must be real. From the parts I read, he seems to think that if you don’t believe in the supernatural, your sick, no rational arguments, no scientific basis, just an hypothesis based on scripture!”

Don’t worry – I will not be spending any money on the book. I imagine reading it would be much like having a child complain that something must be wrong with me because I refuse to see all of the imaginary friends he has invited to the pretend tea party.