Cosmology, Religious Fanatacism, And Insanity

[SWIM]

- many people think that, just because a Christian believes in the Bible, that the Christian is fanatical. That stops them from paying attention to what the Christian has to say, and shrugging it off as mental illness.

Not for any purpose other than establishing where I come from, I wouldn't not be among them who say that. People believe all sorts of things that are passed on to them in a certain light, and when it becomes part of their social realities and world views, to unseat that with another perspective is to try to extricate it from a whole personal investment. This is true of any belief someone is invested in, and that they resist it and/or become irrational in the defense of it is a human emotional thing, not mental illness. They may have lacking knowledge and understanding, but that doesn't make them delusional.

 

 

I think you are confusing mental illness with a mental disease.

 

People shy away from the "mental illness" definition simply because there are so many things in this realm that are NOT cureable, however, delusion IS curable.

 

Becoming irrational in defense if it IS, as you say, an emotional thing, yes indeed! But how many mental illnesses are attached to emotional responses? PTSD is, so is depression in some cases, many things fit into this category.

 

You see, when you are, as a baby, then a toddler, then a child, taught, drilled, peer pressured into a religion, it is a slow brainwashing that puts you into a delusional state of being. It is curable though, but it is still delusion none-the-less.

 

As an irrational, unprovable solid belief, one that is defended with blood shed, or emotional attack, it is delusion. I insist on calling it this because in not just my opinion, but many people's opinion, including sigmund Freud, it is delusion.

 

Calling it what it IS, imo, is the best way to combat it. Mis-diagnosis sometimes leads to mis-treatment.

[R. S. Martin]

Interesting ideas. I read an article once about mental illness. The article cited a psychologist from about 100 years ago, who believed that mental illnesses can usually be connected to what we call today Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Basically, when people experience things that are out of the ordinary, they develop characteristics that help them survive these incidents. Then, when the incidents have passed, they can't get out of the routine or thought-processes.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is that fanaticism can be caused by underlying mental illness. However, there are two factors that must be considered:

 

- many people think that, just because a Christian believes in the Bible, that the Christian is fanatical. That stops them from paying attention to what the Christian has to say, and shrugging it off as mental illness.

 

- Christianity is all about moderation. Paul admonished Timothy to do all things in moderation. Ecclesiastes says that there is a time for everything, and a season for all things under Heaven. Christ Himself said we should enter through the narrow gate, because the way is straight and narrow. When is the path to the left or right straight or narrow? Also, we must remember that, in Christ's day, the Pharisees were like today's conservatives, and the Sadducees were like today's liberals. The Pharisees were right in their faith, but were wrong in putting ritual before what it stood for. The Sadducees were right in believing that ritual is largely useless without faith, but were wrong in their secular beliefs. Christ proposed the middle of the two paths, both of which were derived from the teachings God (Christ) gave to Moses: the faith of the Pharisees, with the sincerity of the Sadducees. Essentially, the Pharisees and Sadducees, like the conservatives and liberals of our day, took the right Way, and tore it in half; each one taking the half that suited them, and mixing it with their own brand of theological and philosophical filler. Then, God was born as Christ, and Christ restored the Way by taking the two halves together to make the true whole (and eliminating the filler from both beliefs).

 

Does that mean that Conservatives (Christians) and Liberals (Non-Christians) are right, or wrong? Yes, and no. Each and every idea has some facts in it, but not entire truth. People are prone to take the evidence, find the facts they propose, and combine the facts with fiction that suits them best to create a false or wrong idea. The key is to take the facts that are so obvious to everyone else, and eliminate the fictions people come up with from them. Then, the last part of the task is to try to understand where the authors of the books are coming from. Once you can figure that out, you can understand what they were trying to say, but perhaps couldn't say so efficiently, and get to the truth they proposed. Think of Einstein's Wheel of Truth.

 

Just found this post now. I want to respond directly to it so I have not yet read the other posts since then.

 

1. You build your argument in part on a psychologist from a hundred years ago. Based on your description, I would guess you're talking about Sigmund Freud. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that if you want to build an argument on an authority from that long ago you need to explain why you disregard all the research done in the field since then. You don't do that.

 

2. You say:

 

- many people think that, just because a Christian believes in the Bible, that the Christian is fanatical.

 

 

Who are these "many people"? If you read the article I linked for evidence of religious fanaticism, you will see that I am not one of those people.

 

3. You further say in the same part:

 

That stops them from paying attention to what the Christian has to say, and shrugging it off as mental illness.

 

 

If I correctly understand you, you are saying that "many people" shrug off the Christian's testimony because they think anyone who believes in the Bible is a religious fanatic, and therefore mentally ill. It really would benefit this conversation if you would specify who these "many people" are. It cannot possibly be the people on exChristian because most of us have been religious fanatics to some degree ourselves. The only way we got out of religion was by looking at religion very, very seriously, and confronting the issues and inconsistencies with the seriousness of life and death--often in the light of eternal consequences. Obviously, this is not "shrugging off" "what the Christian has to say."

 

Perhaps the Christian is shrugging off what the exChristian is saying???

 

4. In the last part of your post you compare Christians with conservatives or Pharisees and nonChristians with liberals or Saducees. It is unclear who you mean by "nonChristians." Do you mean the entire human population on earth that is not Christian--the two+ billion people who adhere to other religions such as Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Pagans, Zoroastrians, Aboriginal Religions, Eastern Religions, in addition to nonreligious people? You may wish to realize that significant numbers of these other religions are religiously and politicaly conservative. Thus, your analogy does not work.

 

Or, by nonChristian, do you mean the exChristians on these forums? If so, you should mention that you switched focus from your earlier part (many people) where obviously you were not referring to the exChristians on these forums. I explained why.

 

5. For the record, I suspect you mean the exChristians on these forums in both parts of your post, and I further suspect that you failed to think through what you were saying. That being the case, it is highly suspicious that you have not thought through your ideas about truth. Your reference to Einstein suggests you are thinking in terms of Western society, rather than the entire human population.

 

6. Regarding truth, if you start with faulty premises, and build your argument on those premises, you cannot possibly arrive at truth. I agree that moderation is ONE component of rationality. However, one must also look at cause and effect, and how consistently the exact same pattern of cause and effect plays out across time and situations. Principles that are true stated positively must also be true stated in negatively.

 

7. For example, most exChristians have come to the conclusion via years of indepth seeking that the God of the Christian Bible does not exist. Thus, to say that truth=the middle road between the Christian Right and the Atheist Left is ludicrous. You cannot go halfway between no-god on the right and no-god on the left. In light of this, your analogy about the straight and narrow road to heaven, and the roads leading to left and right disappear into thin air.

 

Cambion, you may want to rethink your arguments and come back when you have looked at the facts and considered their implications. I will now read the other posts in this thread.

[R. S. Martin]

- many people think that, just because a Christian believes in the Bible, that the Christian is fanatical. That stops them from paying attention to what the Christian has to say, and shrugging it off as mental illness.

Not for any purpose other than establishing where I come from, I wouldn't not be among them who say that. People believe all sorts of things that are passed on to them in a certain light, and when it becomes part of their social realities and world views, to unseat that with another perspective is to try to extricate it from a whole personal investment. This is true of any belief someone is invested in, and that they resist it and/or become irrational in the defense of it is a human emotional thing, not mental illness. They may have lacking knowledge and understanding, but that doesn't make them delusional.

 

 

I think you are confusing mental illness with a mental disease.

 

 

I read your post and will comment further below. I think you have a legitimate argument. However, we're talking about legal and medical terms here. Can you provide official definitions to support this statement?

 

People shy away from the "mental illness" definition simply because there are so many things in this realm that are NOT cureable, however, delusion IS curable.

 

No, this is not why I shy away from calling religion a mental illness. I would rather call it a superstition. A superstition is not a mental illness. I shy away from calling religious people mentally ill because in most cases they do not meet the medical or legal criteria for mental illness.

 

Becoming irrational in defense if it IS, as you say, an emotional thing, yes indeed! But how many mental illnesses are attached to emotional responses? PTSD is, so is depression in some cases, many things fit into this category.

 

SWIM, humans are emotional creatures. Being emotional and irrational is not in and of itself indication of mental illness. To be really frank, I would say your insistence that religion is a mental illness is a bit irrational. However, I know something about your personal situation and I can understand why irrationality takes over your feelings once in a while. This does not make you mentally ill. Not in my book.

 

To be qualified to diagnose mental illness a person need many years of specialized education. I do not have that and I don't think anyone on these forums has that. People with that level and type of education seldom have time for forums like these. However, if we think we, or a love one, are dealing with mental illness it is wise to get checked out by a person qualified to make diagnoses.

 

You see, when you are, as a baby, then a toddler, then a child, taught, drilled, peer pressured into a religion, it is a slow brainwashing that puts you into a delusional state of being. It is curable though, but it is still delusion none-the-less.

 

As an irrational, unprovable solid belief, one that is defended with blood shed, or emotional attack, it is delusion. I insist on calling it this because in not just my opinion, but many people's opinion, including sigmund Freud, it is delusion.

 

Calling it what it IS, imo, is the best way to combat it. Mis-diagnosis sometimes leads to mis-treatment.

 

Now we're getting at the heart of the matter as I see it. Cosmologies. Religion teaches one cosmology. Science teaches another. Our generation is in the throes of clashing cosmologies. Originally, people didn't know that there were natural causes to explain so many things so they assumed it was some deity. The human brain so evolved as to see via imagination or halucination (who can tell exactly where one ends and the other begins?) non-solid beings out the the "tail of the eye." Or to hear things. Or see patterns in the events of life that foretold things.

 

The ancient Greek philosophers began to inquire into some of these phenomenon. However, another several thousand years passed before the average person in Europe (from whom I, and most Caucasians, are descended) became aware of such inquiry and knowledge. I'm a novice in the history of thought but roughly around 1650-1750 CE people began to think scientifically. That was only three-four centuries ago from today.

 

That is when the cosmology clash started. Our brains have not yet lost the ability to imagine/halucinate the extra-terrestial or extra-sensory beings and voices. But we're mentally ill only when we can no longer differentiate between religious thought and mundane or secular thought.

 

Lots of religious people suffer from common maladies like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Clinical Depression. But so do lots of nonreligious people. Abuse in the name of religion can bring it on. The cognitive dissonence of the clashing cosmologies should not be under-estimated, in my opinion. I personally suffer from quite a roster of mental issues, including PTSD and clinical depression, as a fairly direct consequence of religion. But I cannot with intellectual integrity call religion per se a mental illness.

 

I have studied with secual professors to learn what religion is. It is not a mental illness.

[par4dcourse]

- many people think that, just because a Christian believes in the Bible, that the Christian is fanatical. That stops them from paying attention to what the Christian has to say, and shrugging it off as mental illness.

At first mention of jebus, gawd, or wholly babble, I immediately assume what's to follow is mindless bullshit.

Talking to an invisible friend in the sky and fully expecting him to intervene in world events? A 6k yo earth flled with fully evolved humans that same invilible man spoke into being?

Hell, is that's not delusional, I don't know what is.