semantics, religion, indoctrinationI think of religion as a mental illness, one that is spread similarly to a virus. The infected frequently suffer from delusions (especially of grandeur) and other symptoms normally classified as mental illnesses and a side effect seems to be an eagerness to spread the disease. The best preventative and cure is religious education, but that is frequently not enough. Am I being too harsh, or does anyone else think this is accurate?
No, religion is not a mental illness, though I think you are onto something in terms of “virus-like” memes. Religions DO plant a number of thoughts in the minds of the young which are very effective, evolved thought processes that work to retain members. They essentially involve inculcating circular reasoning (See Tim Minchin’s song “The Good Book” for one explanation) and decapitation of ones’ reasoning faculties when it comes to moral authority or self-determination. No, you can’t think for yourself, only the Bible is the authoritative source of right, wrong, and your path. Look in there… and if you can’t find the right way, see a duly ordained interpreter. :-)
Religion is, finally, a form of tribalism or “fictive kinship.” It’s a gang. The members think there are perks for belonging, and the leaders work to find more and better ways of growing and/or maintaining membership.
Mental Illness? You’re entering, I think, a very specific and contested field of human inquiry and understanding. As a society we have managed at times to define several things as being psychiatric disorders including masturbation and slaves running away. It would be reasonable to suggest that unjustifiable truth claims held in disregard of available evidence are ludicrous but to label them within a disease model is fraught with danger. That said, there is no reason to preclude those with religious beliefs from usual diagnostic paradigms.
It isn’t an illness. It can be, under many sets of circumstances, very healthy behavior. Just because a religious person, by definition, holds as true something that they can’t possibly know to be true, doesn’t make them sick. We all hold unprovable assumptions about ourselves, our families, our groups. Until very recently, not holding a religion was far more dangerous to health than holding one, though this was because of the persecution by the religious doesn’t make it less true. Is it an illness for a child to believe something both her parents have told her is absolutely true her entire life? No, it is entirely normal, whether the idea is the existence of God, Santa, or the innate superiority of one race, nation, or belief system.
I prefer to think of religion as something akin to drug use. It’s something that makes people happy, can act as a social bonding medium, but in its more extreme forms it can cause terrible suffering. Routine caffeine drinkers are like your friendly unitarian, you don’t mind it at work because it’s totally normalized and almost universally harmless. Alcohol is something more intense, which people should do at work, but occasionally you see someone on the street being a little obnoxious, and when it gets out of control it can cause real harm. Then there are all the wacky-trendy pharmacologies that have narrow appeal and produce strange behavior, sometimes resulting in a death or several, but on the grand scheme mostly more of an acceptable oddity. Then there are the hard ones- crack, heroin, the KKK and the Jehadis. They have tremendous appeal for people in a vulnerable state, but rarely let go once they’ve got their claws in. These are the types you really hope your kids never get mixed up with. They kill routinely, they take over and then ruin lives.
We shouldn’t be upset at the guy getting his second cup of coffee for the day because a drunk driver ran over our friend. Not should we beat up the poor unitarian just because someone just blew up another abortion clinic.
I think when considering this question, it’s important to be careful with terms. What is “religion”? What is “an illness”?
Taking on the latter question first, I’m having trouble pinpointing the etymological derivation of “illness”, so I’m hoping you won’t object to me picking up a different word: “disease”. The etymology here is quite evident: dis-, meaning without, and ease. A discomfort, a difficulty, etc. When I think about “mental illness” in terms of “disease” in this sense, what comes to me is a question of whether the “illness” is creating distress in someone’s life. For example, the so-called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (note the similarity between disorder and disease) has, as one major feature (for at least some diagnosed as such) of hyperactivity. Is hyperactivity a (or does hyperactivity cause) disease? I think that really depends on the person, and, importantly, on their environment.
For a kid in a classroom whose teacher wants everyone still, it’s a problem to be hyperactive. For the same kid out on the playground with the other kids during recess, it might not be, at all. And for that same kid, grown up, later in life, it may depend a great deal on how they occupy their time: if they’re a professional comedian, for example, it might actually be a huge benefit to their chosen occupation. So, is it a disease? Well, it might be, if it also causes problems in other areas of their life. But again, this may be more a function of their environment than some inherent notion that hyperactivity is “bad” or “an illness” or something. If we change “hyperactive” to “energetic”, surely “energetic” is a useful thing in all manner of environments, yes? And yet, it’s probably not the best feature to have while in an opera audience, say. Or at a funeral. Or whatever.
There is a huge amount of context-dependency for questions such as this, which I think too often gets ignored by our society.
Are “religious people” “ill”, or “diseased”? I don’t know, I think it depends on how you look at it: they probably find “ease” from their religion, when at church, say. They may have difficulty with it at other times. Similarly, an atheist may well have a “disease” when surrounded by religious people – not because they’re “ill”, but because they’re ill-matched to their environment.
So, the question I would be asking is: given the presumption (which I’m sure many religious people would disagree with) that atheism (and various world views that tend frequently to flow from it) is something more inline with “truth” than religious beliefs, and another presumption (which I think the religious people would mostly agree with) that knowing the “truth” is a useful thing: How can we find ways to cause religion to be a “dis-ease”, and atheism to not be one?
Does that help you answer (or at least have new thoughts regarding) your question?
No, religion is not a mental illness. If anything, it’s symptomatic of a person’s psychological condition and shows some of the inner workings of their mind, which could demonstrate mental illness.
Yes. As absurd and offensive it might be, it is.
You can claim it isn’t because it is so obviously brought on by nurture, but even that seems like a weak argument. Innateness isn’t a property of mental illness. However, acute irrationality, invisible companions, and a belief in some sort of cosmic usefulness are all categorical symptoms of illness. Some also argue that because the majority of humans are theists “illness” shouldn’t apply; but it should be said, the majority of American’s are also overweight and we refuse to lower the bar for “fitness.” It is probably more accurate to call religion a result of unintentional mental abuse; in the same way that Gonorrhea can be a result of sexual abuse (by an afflicted abuser, to continue the analogy). Either way you cut it, it seems rather pointless to needlessly pander to sensitivities and shed the term “illness”.
There is even some work on pointing to a genetic cause for religiosity – granted, this doesn’t seem too secure as a theory yet.
On the up side, I think it can be probably be cured with drugs, therapy, and education. Something like a heavy dose of Adderall to give the needed attention span, Marijuana to provide the receptiveness to new ideas, and a few hours of Carl Sagan documentaries.
You might find this article to be interesting. Religion, not as a mental illness, but as a byproduct of the development of social behaviors.
Wow, hot question.
I’ll say yes it is a mental illness only if does the person or group harm. I have a internal dialog in my head and that is normal, if the dialog told me there were ants under my skin and I had to cut them out then I would have a mental illness.
BELIEF in religion is, by definition, a form of insanity.
To illustrate, consider seeing a guy constantly jumping up and down on the streets. You may find this behavior odd, but it may or may not be insanity. It might be due to a medical condition, or for exercise, or even simply for fun. So you ask him why he does it, and he responds “I’m afraid to step on the leprechauns! I know they’re all over the place!”
Can we all agree this person is acting insanely?
The reason this is insane is because a person is acting upon data for which there is insufficient evidence. Heck, there might be invisible leprechauns around for all we know, but I’m not going to live accordingly.
Now replace “jumping around due to leprechauns” with “praying\fasting\reading the Bible because God wants me to”. The motivation of the person is important for diagnosis - simply reading the Bible is not a form of insanity, but doing it to appease God is insanity.
Also, it doesn’t matter if that guy was afraid of leprechauns because his parents told him to. Still insane. If that is the case then his parents are simply the cause of his insanity.
I personally think most “religious” people are just following the norms in their society and don’t really believe in the stuff, and therefore NOT insane.
No. Mental illness is when an individual has a problem. Religion is when an entire group of people have certain beliefs.
Yes, its a mass delusion.
Jesus was probably a schizophrenic: delusions of grandeur, hearing voices, thought everyone was out to get him.
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