Religion = Mental Disease?
Offline Is religion a mental disease? At least religious fundamentalism? As of late, I have to say yes. Religious fanatics seem to be missing key brain functions. Speaking in tongues and "feeling the holy spirit" to the point of having convulsions on the floor are both examples of serious delusions, both akin to the experience one might have as a schizophrenic. When you think about religious acts such as the attacks on 9/11 or men who bomb abortion clinics...they say "God told me to do it." How is that any different from "The voices in my head told me to do it"? There doesn't appear to be a difference. I think the American Psychiatric Association should consider adding religious fundamentalism as a symptom of some deep rooted psychological issues...at least make it a personality disorder.
Many mental patients are surely obsessed with religious subjects... but that's mostly a cultural effect.
I abosluty agree. They feel things that dont exists (like the holy spirit flowing threw them). Funny thing, theists take physocolity and dont figure out that they have a mental diease. Honestly, how does bowing on the ground staring at the roof or floor going to help them?
As Richard Dawkins said, its a "virus".
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
Let's not forget the transubstantiation insanity... :)
[quote=Derevirn]As Richard Dawkins said, its a "virus".
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
Let's not forget the transubstantiation insanity... :)[/quote]
I'm adding that to our library at RRS now. Great find.
[url=http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_root_of_all_evil_by_richard_dawkins_a_must_see]Check out his video "Root of all evil?" at our website for more on this issue.[/url]
Yeah I've seen the "Root of all evil?" twice... so scary and true. There are many more Dawkins articles here: http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/papers.shtml
Faith is definatly a delusion.
[b]Delusion:[/b]
[i]Psychiatry[/i]. A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence.
[quote=KCahill] Honestly, how does bowing on the ground staring at the roof or floor going to help them? [/quote]
Because they beleive it will. And they've been told it will for most of their developmental years. And because they're comptetely undbounded by the little details known as "facts".
I think ANYONE is "nuts" for believing in any higher power.
I can't wait until this civilization falls and the next God comes about, and the present gods are held in the same respects as the Greek and Roman gods.
I'd argue that faith is the virus, not just religion.
Read the [url=http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html]article[/url] and you'll understand. It's similar to a virus because it infects people and it's harmful.
I wouldn't necessarily think of it as a 'mental disease'. I can place religious and Holocaust beliefs as being on the level of misled. For things such as the Holocaust, people are intentionally misled due to many political/social 'influences'. For religion, things are pretty complicated. But generally, once the train gets started, it becomes hard to stop. People fear the consequences of understanding the realities of such beliefs.
i've always wondered if a person could be classified as schizophrenic if they said that "god made them do it" as opposed to saying, "the voices in my head". its a good point to make.
ahh, a good point debaser...maybe it would have something to do with how religious the doctor was maybe?
hhm, yes, perhaps. :P
i wonder if the same would apply when bush says that god talks to him and that he's on a mission from god. would he be classified as schizophrenic if the united states didnt have a christian majority?
probably, if bush truly meant that, he would be kicked out, but sense our nation is blinded, well, there you go. He's still there.
so if a child is told that his imaginary friend is true, and he believes it, and he starts to believe that his imaginary friend is telling him things, then he starts talking back to it, and this lasts until they die (of old age) they never had a mental illness?
Doctors generally see mental diseases as the brain acting abnormally.
Religion is almost built in, we are genetically susceptible to it, and as such it is not a disease, just an example of bad design. I blame God for religion.
[quote=No_worries]
well if thats the case then couldn't everything that a child is taught be considered a virus or a mental problem to another person who has been raised up and taught differently than the first child?[/quote]
It isn't about different it is about why the person is believing something...
[quote]i mean as long as their is a majority that thinks one way as to what is the normal state of mind?[/quote]
No not really, at least in what the state of mind should be... At one time the majority thought slavary or killing people was ok. Majority does not make anything true. If most of a village thought killing the virgin was ok would it be ok? If most people thought the world was flat would that make the world flat?
(I had a better comment but I lost it.)
I don't think they're mentally insane. They just get a euphoric sensation from something that's ingrained in them. They induce it in themselves, just like when I'm listening to a son I really like and I get a happy feeling in myself. They have been raised to love something different, and that's God. They're conditioning themselves to feel the "holy spirit".
lol, i know what your talking about...every morning when my dad drove me to the hub last year, there would be a radio advertisement for harry potter, and the music made me get the tingles and i started to act hyper.
lol, you might want to change "son" to song, when i first read it, i thought you were pretty weird.