I agree, needing to believe in myths are hardly the characteristics of people with a superiority complex problem in fact I think the opposite would be true, it would point towards people who are very unsure of themselves and who would be unable to cope with their lives (or their deaths) on their own.
On the other hand.....
Ask religious people how they would feel if they were to somehow lose the backing of their gods, most of them if not all of them would just fold, which means their mentally generated Gods give them a feeling of elation and well being which could cause them to feel ever so slightly superior.
I am sorry, but that really is not true. You clearly don't have a clue what you are talking about.
It is a natural part of any faith for that faith to be tested, and for that testing to involve 'losing' God. Some people end up losing their faith altogether, others become strengthened by it. It is not right at all to say that most if not all of them would just fold, because probably the vast majority of believers who have had a faith for more than, say 20 years, will have experienced this at some point. And those who have not, soon will.
St John of the Cross called this the Dark Night of the Soul. Isaac of Syria talks of it as experiencing the abandonment of God.
Having experienced this dark night, and come through it to find God once more, the end result is not superiority, I can assure you. It is far more gratitude, and a request to God to keep us from any further such trial, if at all possible.
THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL / SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS
DURING the time, then, of the aridities of this night of sense (wherein God effects the change of which we have spoken above, drawing forth the soul from the life of sense into that of the spirit--that is, from meditation to contemplation--wherein it no longer has any power to work or to reason with its faculties concerning the things of God, as has been said), spiritual persons suffer great trials, by reason not so much of the aridities which they suffer, as of the fear which they have of being lost on the road, thinking that all spiritual blessing is over for them and that God has abandoned them since they find no help or pleasure in good things. Then they grow weary, and endeavour (as they have been accustomed to do) to concentrate their faculties with some degree of pleasure upon some object of meditation, thinking that, when they are not doing this and yet are conscious of making an effort, they are doing nothing. This effort they make not without great inward repugnance and unwillingness on the part of their soul, which was taking pleasure in being in that quietness and ease, instead of working with its faculties. So they have abandoned the one pursuit,[71] yet draw no profit from the other; for, by seeking what is prompted by their own spirit,[72] they lose the spirit of tranquillity and peace which they had before. And thus they are like to one who abandons what he has done in order to do it over again, or to one who leaves a city only to re- enter it, or to one who is hunting and lets his prey go in order to hunt it once more. This is useless here, for the soul will gain nothing further by conducting itself in this way, as has been said.
Experience of abandonment - St Isaac of Nineveh and Syrian Mysticism / - Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev
By assuming that we all have a 'mentally generated' God (a comment not lacking in superciliousness, btw), and that this concept of God is infinitely fragile, you miss a lot. There are a great many people in this world whose faith is not fragile, but who also do not take a superior attitude to the world. Our model is Christ himself, who shows us that a Christian leader is the one who gets down on his knees, and washes other people's feet. In wordly terms, the leader is served. In Christian terms, the leader is a servant of his brothers and sisters.
You suggest that admitting we cannot survive on our own is a weakness. Actually, it is not. Man is a gregarious creature, and one of the most harmful things to do to any of us is to impose social isolation, whether physically or emotionally.
The myth in what you say, if there is one, is this;
people who are very unsure of themselves and who would be unable to cope with their lives (or their deaths) on their own.
You seem to indicate that by doing away with the concept of a personal God, an atheist is capable of standing alone before the universe. In fact, nobody can do this for long; if we tried, we would find insanity. The atheist just replaces God with some alternative; a belief in humanity, or in reason, or in science, probably without realising it. No man is an island.
ABBA'S FOOL,
