Smart people can have blind spots, but this quick and easy explanation does not do justice to the complexities of religious belief. If we genuinely accept that a believer in the resurrection can be intelligent, but also think that any intelligent person would find the idea of the resurrection preposterous, the most charitable explanation is that intelligent believers are as aware of the implausibility of their beliefs as anyone else. This is indeed what you tend to find if you bother to talk to a Christian. They don’t use the word “miracle” for nothing – they know their faith defies laws of logic and nature. [...]
What atheists often forget is that many – perhaps most – religious believers are less than completely convinced anyway. Many of them are fully aware of the dissonance between what their faith and their rational mind tell them. Religion offers many tools to help manage this. It tells people that faith is superior to belief based on evidence. “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed,” Jesus told “doubting Thomas”, adding: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Religion also tells believers that doubt is to be expected, even welcomed, as part of the journey of faith, all the time reassuring them that God is beyond our understanding. The Easter story thus ends up rather like quantum theory: if you find it easy to believe, you haven’t understood it. Illogicality is a design feature, not a design flaw.
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