BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???

Subject: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Betsy
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:07 AM

Is it possible that Organised Religion is a form of Mental Illness.
They can't all be correct , they're always fighting each other and they seem to be rich organisations.
Whaddya reckon ?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:14 AM

Sho nuff, I rckon it can be...

...but, fotunatrely, it doesn't have to be.

I am a Christain who sees nuthin' in common with the what Bush and his followers brand of Christianity. Don't make no sense to never open the Bible up past the Old Testament.

But, yes, it can very much take over one's mind in a negative way. Actually, I think that these folks may not be mentally ill but "consumed" with a need to be part of something and just get caught up in some bad stuff. Think of the Brownshirts in Germany. Were they mentally ill? Maybe and maybe not... Bu they sure were consumed and eat up by the "Movement"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:19 AM

that comment gives a double stigma, to both mental illness and religion.

Mental illnesses can affect persons of any age, race, religion, or income.They can affect athiests.

Stigma prevents people from getting treatment.

I think the more dangerous illness is ignorance - a deliberate choice of lack of responsibility, lack of awareness, and the ignorant are the pawns of the powerful.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:24 AM

Religion is a contentious subject around here Betsy, but sometimes when I see some of the sorts of people involved in practising religions I wonder. There would seem to be a type, particularly on the female side, they have pale earnest face, and often wear glasses and no, or little makeup, and while they are obviously loving Mothers and devoted spouses, they don't seem to have an abundance of social skills. Many of them should inherit the earth, on the basis of meekness anyway, and for them I think religion is a sort of moral crutch. I don't think that religion per se is a form of mental illness, although it may be that many practitioners are not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
All in all though they are a good advert for christianity in its wider sense.
I shall now sit back and await the flak.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:29 AM

Religion itself is not. The use of religion (or anything else) as a substitute for confronting reality is always a mental mallfunction whether mild or whacky.

Organized religion is sort of an oxymoron, as the nature of reality is not very organized. But then again, folks is gonna lay down whatever they wish to discover and then discover it. This may seem crazy but its a pretty widespread sport with different topics.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Skipy
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:32 AM

Flak vest (fragmentation): Newest issue kevlar vest to the German military, comprising of six kevlar panels and one cloth cover. Cover is in flecktarn poly-cotton material, has zip-open slits for easy removal and insertion of kevlar panels. Cover features front expandable pocket, velcro openings over the left shoulder and on either side and a velcro sewn-in waist belt. Kevlar panels protect front, back, shoulders and neck. Weight is well distributed and the kevlar helps to spread the extra weight of webbing. The level of protection offered by the flak jacket is not guaranteed. Cover is machine-washable.

Staying out of this one!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:40 AM

Don't confuse religion, religious belief, theology, and a "church."

A church (and I'm not talking about a building) is a group of people who come together because they disagree about their religious beliefs less than with the religious beliefs of other people.

Theology is the human attempt to understand the structure of the Underlying Principle of a religion.

Religious belief is that body of belief, mores, and teachings that a particular church agrees upon.

Religion is what's left. When examined, religion doesn't differ from one church to another.

These statements seem to be true of ALL religions, not just that which is called "Christianity."

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 09:16 AM

Religion can be a form of mental illness, as can any other set of beliefs allied with practices.

For example...let's take your definition of religion, "They can't all be correct , they're always fighting each other and they seem to be rich organisations." ....and apply it to (big drum roll)...

POLITICAL PARTIES!!!!   (da-da-dum!)

Now let's apply it to....

NATIONALISM!!!!!   (da-da-dum!)

Those are two more areas in life which are absolutely riddled with mental illness, in my opinion. :-) Whaddya reckon? Then there is corporate competition for market share, the adversarial justice system, and organized sports! More rich organizations who are always fighting each other.

The fact is, there is are sane ways and a great many insane ways to do absolutely anything, religion included. To single out religion alone is probably an indication of your own prejudices, not a comment on religion itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 09:26 AM

Ouch Giok, that's a perceptive post! Put it in the context of folk music and it fits, too...

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 09:36 AM

Giok - I am familiar with the type of female you describe! They are rather bloodless creatures, aren't they?...but basically they make fairly good and reliable neighbours in a chilling sort of way.
Their husbands, by the way, are often boring and deadly serious prats. Sometimes, however, they are the rosy-cheeked and enthusiastic type...forever rushing around busily doing "God's work". They have religious bumper stickers. They give me the creeps.

I prefer people who are spiritually minded, but do not belong officially to ANY particular religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 09:36 AM

Glok: I am very interested in this pale complexion/spectacle wearing stuff. You may have put your figure on something significant here. I have a fairly pale complexion, and recently,alas, I have taken to using reading glasses. I also have an indecent and consuming interest in folk music, though not (as yet) God. There is obviously something going on here, possibly indicative of mental diturbance. Who can say?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 09:42 AM

Could be. How often do you feel compelled to put on a Tom Waites CD?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 09:56 AM

I would like to put forth the proposition that all adversarial and exclusivity-minded systems are a form of mental illness...given the fact that we are all of one spirit.

It's called: "Divide and Conquer" Find out who runs it from the top, and you have the scoundrels who set it in motion. The ones who run it from the top will normally be found to have the lion's share of the money, the power, the weapons, and the prestige. They will live in the largest mansions. They will command armies. They will encourage the "rabble" whom they rule over on this planet to be divided against one another, to hate one another and to fight ceaselessly over religion, politics, race, nationality, morality issues, and (most importantly) market share.

And yet we are all One Humanity in Spirit. Ask Mother Teresa. Ask Gandhi. Ask Jesus or Buddha. Ask anyone who is truly wise and loving.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 10:00 AM

That Gandhi wore spectacles, but Jesus and Buddha didnt. Not sure about Mother Teresa. All of them a touch on the swarthy side I would have thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: mack/misophist
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 10:10 AM

A recent European study indicated that church attendence skyrockets when economic and social conditions are uncertain, ie. when people are helpless and fearful. If the church they attend is absolutist.. Well, shit happens.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Betsy
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 10:45 AM

Do you ever get the impression that some people believe that they are more worthy, or "better" than you, because they belong to an Organised Religion and does / should this feeling have any merit ?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 11:07 AM

That is a mechanism induced by the keepers of the religion in order to create a magnetic restraining field in their subject to keep those dollars coming in.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 11:34 AM

Well, I dunno. I feel sane, and I've worked in the Catholic Church all my days. I know a lot of sane, wonderful people who work in various denominations. There is something about religion, however, that draws some pretty weird people. Maybe it's because they're social outcasts who don't fit in other groups, and religious people are generally supposed to be nice to others and are more-or-less compelled to accept the weirdos. Back in my recent period of being single, I had some pretty weird Catholic women pining after me. It was downright dangerous to go to church at times.

I also worry about church leaders who take themselves and their authority too seriously - the ones who have absolutely no sense of humor.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 12:19 PM

Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 12:21 PM

There is of course as Joe says a few weird people who call themselves religious adherents, but they do tend to be socially inept to start with, and when they find an organisation that that says 'all are welcome' they think 'goodie people that will speak to me'. They tend to be the sort of person who gets picked last when sides are sorted for sports, and finding someone who looks for the good in everybody, plus the turning of the other cheek, they stick around. These observations are true of religion in the UK especially as personifed by the Church of England, you folks in the US seem from here to have more robust and 'in your face' religions of the type that would never catch on here in the country of the queue, where people say sorry even when it's not their fault.
Giok
[That's GEE EYE OH KAY to you Greg, and Benjamin Franklin occurred after Jesus and Buddha, who may have needed glasses, but they hadn't been invented yet!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Justa Picker
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 12:23 PM

Yes and the more devout, the more serious.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 12:24 PM

Well, Joe, as the ex-officio Pope of the Mudcat Badlands , you seem to have kept your sense of humor intact, and a damned good thing, too! We'd really be in the soup without it!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 12:40 PM

Vatican I say Amos, if nothing else, that soup would have a lovely aROMA.
Giok

2,4,6,8 time to transubstantiate.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 12:43 PM

Organized religion can be a lot like organized crime sometimes...

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 12:57 PM

Betsey,

Read Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization to get a good grasp of how society determines and misues the diagnosis of "mental illness."

You said They can't all be correct ,--I ask "why not?" If they (in particular, the non-industrial autochthonous religions) address the needs of a given people and function in a local way, they might be correct, for each given group. That isn't to say they are--we can all see social and political inequities in places around the world, practices that are frankly inhumane, but this should be addressed in a secular manner, not pitting one religion against another. Each religion typically has stuff that has gone disused for a while, that can be revived to address new issues; give those other teachings a chance. Religion can respond to society and change, despite some of the big religions that would like society to be static and let them have the upper-hand socially. This "they can't all be correct" presumes a judeo-christian view that one over-arching god and religion is all that is needed, and others should be stamped out via converting the world.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 01:03 PM

I would be inclined to say that yes, religion is a form of mental illness except that I take freda's point. I am also uncomfortable with Giok's sterotyping as I know some very level-headed (ie freethinking) women who don't like make-up.

Once again the Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, whom I have sometimes quoted here, has put his finger on it: religion is a virus of the mind. It survives and propagates exactly like a virus and, of course, it attacks the weak. Just as I have read people who write from a religious perspective and keep the Old and New Testaments constantly to hand, I would urge believers to read Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene."

Most Christian and other belief-based stories are so shot through with internal contradictions that I can only marvel when adherents refuse to acknowledge that the emperor is wearing no clothes. Religions could not survive without being constantly revised and reinvented to stay within touching distance of whatever is the popular mood of the day. The results are miasmas of compromise – beliefs contrived precisely to give the anipulatively minded a degree of power over the feeble minded.

When the missionary David Livingstone reached previously unknown tries in Africa, his first thought was the new markets they represented for consumables like shoes. His second thought was that Christianity would be the key to unlock those markets. It's a pity that some of the hardline religious nuts in Africa who now revile the evils of homosexuality, etc, don't pause to remember why their so-called Christianity was thrust upon them in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 01:08 PM

I think that organized religion is sometimes used by people who are criminally insane as a way to manipulate people into doing or giving consent to reprehensible things that they might not do or consent to otherwise. I also think that criminally insane peope sometimes create jingoistic "civil religions" which they use for the same purpose.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 01:48 PM

I'm guessing that the point of this thread is to make the atheists feel better about themselves by putting down the beliefs of others. Kinda like whistling in the dark ?

I guess it's a form of mass hysteria since more people believe in some form of higher power than don't. This is the type of discussion where people already have their minds made up before they get here. There are evil and misguided people who have religious beliefs and there are also atheists that are evil and misguided people. Perhaps we have to look at the individuals to find the real answers. It requires more effort - and being a bigot is so much simpler.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 01:54 PM

I think religion is anything you do religiosly.

As to the churches - well thats another matter.

The churches are supposed to be the people who hold the same religious beliefs. These beliefs are brokered by the priests, ministers, etc.

I'm sure that people with mental illnesses are attracted to the boundaries imposed by church doctrine and that some of the 'keepers of the faith' are driven mad by the power they have. That doesn't mean that religion is inherently crazy.

I would say, however that faith is a pretty good excuse for lack of foresight and planning. It must be comforting to know that God is on your side at all times, no matter what you do. That no matter what the consequences of your actions may be, you will be forgiven.

That said, I think Bush has given religion a very bad reputation.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 02:02 PM

Mental illness has many symptoms. Dramatization of concepts is one of them. These can be literary concepts, concepts drawn from pop culture or TV, or even from religion. It is not the source of the concepts that makes for madness, but the dramatization of them. Deciding to go on a crusade on behalf of the old Jehovah of the Old Testament, at the expense of others' lives and mutual peace, would be an example of insanity painted with the colors of a religion.

Irresponsibility consists of displacing one's own causation for one's own condition and projecting it onto other forms, people, agents, or forces. HEre again it can be the schools, the church, the "society" (whatever that may mean to the individual), one's parents, siblings, tragedies in history, religious doctrine or even invisible metaphysical forces such as God, Jesus, aliens, radio w aves or what have you.

Again it is not the target of the dispalcement that mnakes for madness but the fact of shedding the ownership for the causing of one's own life.

In these ways and some others, religions are often used as masks of madness or vehicles for dramatization when in fact they are in and of themselves no more or less mad than any other philkosophical belief system.

It needs to be pointed out that madness in various degrees can be precipitated -- especially in the young or infirm -- by enforcing ideas with which the individual cannot readily reason. Such ideas can include irrational moral codes, arbitrary authoritarian rulings, images of all-powerful but obsessed entities who rule one's life, invisible beings who might punish one, and other imaginings used to control the thoughtsof another person. THis is the most unhealthy and toxic use of religion and does not deserve the name of religion, as it is the cognitive equivalent, when it is done, of lambasting someone with a belt or a two-by-for in order to induce understanding, a failed methodology.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Midchuck
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 02:24 PM

I'm guessing that the point of this thread is to make the atheists feel better about themselves by putting down the beliefs of others.

You appear to be saying that that's bad when atheists do it but OK when conventionally religious people do it, as the more vocally religious love to do.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 02:32 PM

I, like Wesley, find this thread to be laughable. Just as in the Wicca/Halloween thread those that don't believe are using it as an excuse to blast the beliefs of others. Many of these same folks you will find in other threads talking about diversity and tolerance. Sometimes hypocrisy, even if unintended, is too hard to ignore.

When a thread starts on this type of predicate, it is designed to cause religious folks to be on the defensive. I hope you won't mind if I don't play along. Truthfully, I could care less if you all mind.

Religion, Church, faith, are terms that are often used interchangeably when, in fact, they have very different connotations. Church, and its hierarchy, is nothing more than an institution devoted to the practice of religious ideals. It's members are a community of somewhat (operative term there)like minded individuals. Sometimes these institutions are used for good, and sometimes not. In fact sometimes these institutions can be evil. That is not unique to religious organizations. Religions, in the common usage, refer to how one worships, celebrates, or relates to the higher power they believe in. For what it is worth, I have seen some secular organizations that were almost a religion. Again, most try to do good, others great evil. And finally, there is faith. No point trying to debate that here. It is not quantifiable, nor is it consistently applied. Those of us who think we have it, will just have to disagree with those who think it is foolish and misplaced.

Here is the real problem with the entire premise of this thread. It asks us to debate whether it is an illness. That is a ridiculous premise. Of course it isn't. No more so than secular dogma that promotes ethnic cleansing. Religion is a belief system, nothing more. When one seeks to create a debate on such a flawed premise, they are really seeking to discredit and spread their own agenda. To put religious beliefs in the same category as illness completely ignores the good that has been done by so many religious leaders. Gandhi comes to mind. The Dalai Lama does as well. As do many leaders among the various Christian religions. It places all the good works done by religious folks such as Mother Theresa in the illness category.

In short, what a biased and ridiculous premise to open a thread on.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peace
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 02:37 PM

Life is a form of mental illness. What has religion got to do with it?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 02:42 PM

Mick:

I think you will agree that those who are mentally ill often use religous language or religous groups to hide behind, as well as sometimes getting into other things to cover up their probelms and seek to survive. The number of priests charged with molestation in recent years is a classic example, but it might as well be parents who beat their kids or people who teach scripture in authoritarian, dogmatic ways. And again, you might as well find them in organiuzations like the boy scouts, or local drama clubs, or any other group -- and in all these cases it ha snothing to do with where they end up, or what they dramatize. The "mental illness" is a totally indpendant variable.

The only intersection is when any group enforces data on its members such that it makes them less able to think freely for themselves.
SOme churches and some religions do this, but then so do some boyscout troops, or social studies classes. You can find insanity anywhere, and you can find people who try to heal it, and those who seek to make it worse.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 02:51 PM

Amos, I agree that folks with mental illness will latch onto any organization that is handy and allows them the room to maneuver. As to the number of priests charged with sexual misconduct, the severest critics agree that the total number is something less than 2%. How does that bolster any argument about mental illness? I have been a Boy Scout and I have been an Altar Server. Guess which organization it was that I was sexually abused in when I was just a kid? The Boy Scouts. The workplace sees many more examples, by number and by percentage, of sexual abuse and mental abuse. Does that make employment a form of mental illness?

The whole predicate this thread is formed on is phoney and agenda driven.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: mack/misophist
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 03:14 PM

Any absolute belief system is liable to criminal application. And probably will be used this way. The question should be "Are tolerant religions insane?", and the answer is "No."

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 03:18 PM

"You appear to be saying that that's bad when atheists do it but OK when conventionally religious people do it, as the more vocally religious love to do."

Peter. I never said that at all. Whatever made you jump to that conclusion ? You're adding two and two and coming up with five. Perhaps what I should have said was the atheists "OF THIS THREAD" want to feel better about themselves by putting down the beliefs of others. Does that make it clearer ?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 03:23 PM

Religion seems to be normal and many think it's hard-wired into humans.

Maybe organizations are normal, but they are almost always power structures, and we all know what power does. Pretty soon the organization itself becomes more important than whatever they organized for. The American school system, political parties -- which are organized with power in mind -- and corporations, for example.

The Rainbow Family & the Discordians don't seem to be power structures, much, and they're usually considered to be nutsy by the general population. I suspect even they have some members that are More Equal.

There's a good book called "Systemantics" devoted to what inevitably goes wrong with systems. (Note the "n.") It's one of those funny-but-serious books like "The Peter Principle" and "Parkinson's Law." and it's true! True!

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 03:26 PM

Invert the topic and see what happens:

"Is Mental Illness a form of Religion?"

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 04:11 PM

why are people so afraid of mental illness?

Anthony Mannix

1953, Australia

Self-taught artist, born in 1953, Newton, Australia. Anthony has lived with a biochemical imbalance most of his life forcing him in and out of psychiatric institutions for many years. He is not afraid calling his illness, "madness".

However he decided not to fight against, but rather to live with, to adopt it. "There's nowhere else to go. Or you jump out a window. There are three choices: it destroys you, you destroy yourself to get away from it or you do something else. I'll do something else." Inspired by the surrealists, he began making outsider art in 1980 and for some years thought himself alone in this, as then he had no contact with people. His art has a fairly direct connection to unconscious, "to the source" as he says. He uses his self-taught art as a mean of bringing his unconscious to the conscious world through numerous journals, ink drawings, paintings…

In 1984, with his friend Philip Hammial, they found the "Australian collection of outsider art" promoting this marginal art by organising the first outsider art exhibitions in Australia, making videos…

www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/nightair/stories/s861423.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 04:13 PM

I agree, Freda, but that is an entirely separate issue. The predicate here has nothing to do with discussion of religion or mental illness.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 04:27 PM

one aspect of the mental condition of being human is that we are ABLE to consider such questions, yet no one has to be logical, reasonable or cafeful in order to have an opinion. We can debate what is 'beautiful', or whether there ever was a 'creator' of the universe without having any particular evidence for or against. So, no ...no 'position' is a form of mental illness in itself, but maybe some answers on either side, by some people, in some circumstances, indicate mental laziness and ineptitude.

Mental illness should be reserved for other situations.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 04:34 PM

Mick:

I really want you to know where I am coming from on this question, obviously a sensitive one.

1. Religion is NOT a form of Mental Illness.

2. Mental illness sometimes manifests itself as extreme religiosity, a dramatization which is not, in fact, the same thing as religion.

3. In the form that it is posed, you are absolutely correct that the premise of the question is untenable. It is something like asking "Is it crazy to understand things?", a question with self contradiction woven into its fabric.

4. Organizing the inherent spiritual religiousness of the human being is risky, and if badly manbaged can drive people toward madness.

That's my two cent's worth.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 04:35 PM

Stilly - Great point! Yes, they CAN disagree with each other and still all be right!...meaning...they are right from their own point of view, given the conditions and situation within which they are working.

There is no one way that people have to live or be in order to be "right". There are many ways. It is up to each person to find the way of living that is best for him or her, but that will not be the way that is best for everybody...nor SHOULD it be.

Mick - You are absolutely right. This thread was launched on a stupid, valueless premise, indicative of gross prejudice and almost no real thought or analysis.

And folks, it is the "civil" religions that really worry me. Those are the ones that end up controlling the lives of millions and sending armies overseas to smash up other countries. Compared to those civil religions, the influence of church-sponsored religions on most people is small potatoes. Most so-called atheists are firmly in the grip of one or another of these civil religions...as are most churchgoers. You do not need to believe in God to be religious. Not in the least. You just have to believe in a concept that is larger than yourself and quite possibly mythological in nature, and then devote yourself to that concept and serve it. Like...the idea that your country stands for "liberty and freedom", for instance, when what it really stands for is military and financial supremacy and exploitation on a worldwide scale. Now THAT's a religion that has teeth, and it kills people all over the World in its righteous, crusading zeal.

The Germans under Hitler practiced a messianic civil religion of extraordinary vigor and potency. It was called "Naziism". The Russians under Stalin practiced a different civil religion, equally messianic. It was called "Communism" (or Stalinism). Chairman Mao launched a civil-religious revival called "The Great Cultural Revolution". Pol Pot did something similar and even worse in Cambodia. The USA is presently engaged in a civil-religious crusade called "The War on Terrorism".

Of those above 5 examples, 2 of them claimed to represent God in some way (the Nazis and the USA), while 3 of them didn't profess ANY belief in God (Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot). I repeat, you do NOT need to believe in God in order to be religious. You just have to believe in something that is intangible and much larger than yourself. An idea, in other words. A big idea. Dangerous ideas can persuade people to oppress and kill other people.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 05:31 PM

I think people who watch t.v. religiously are mentally ill.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 05:41 PM

Actually, a very interesting question.

In the mid-80s, two brothers who were fundamentalist Mormons butchered the wife and two year old child of their third brother, because they received direct instruction from God to do so. Dialoging with God on an active and ongoing basis is a fundamental tenet of Mormonism. If God instructs you to tear down your garage and build a Temple to Him, you are duty-bound to do His will. God had running instructional dialogues with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and many others right up to the current leader of the Mormon Church. Blood atonement, the notion that certain sins can only be atoned for by the shedding of the sinner's blood, is also fundamental to Mormonism. Thus, if God's voice comes to you and tells you your brother's wife is a sinner and she needs to die for it, can you plead an insanity defense? Belief in the unseen and the irrational is part and parcel of most faiths. Is it insane only at the extremities of its practice?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 05:44 PM

At the risk of repeating myself, once again I recommend reading The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2003 (Freeman is British, and there is a British edition also, but I don't know the publisher).

Freeman outlines the beginnings and the development of Greek philosophy, the schism between Aristotle and Plato (one road leads to scientific thinking, the other to mysticism), the birth of Jesus, the early development of Christianity, the fragmentation of early Christian belief, the development of "one true Church" under the aegis (and imperial power) of the emperor Constantine, and the adoption of neo-Platonism as a way of philosophically justifying Christian doctrine. The abandonment of—indeed, the hostility toward—observation and reason in favor of asceticism, prayer, and "divine revelation" was what led to that period we now refer to as the Dark Ages. This period of intellectual and philosophical stagnation ended with the rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle, one of a number of intellectual factors that sparked the Renaissance.

The struggles and disputes between people such as Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and others as each claimed to have a direct pipeline to The Truth makes a fascinating story (it's obvious that a lot of these folks could have used a good "shrink") and goes a long way to explaining the modern Christian church in its "infinity variety." Suffice it to say the Jesus got lost way, way early.

This is not an anti-religious book. But it does illustrate what can happen when we forget that God gave us brains with the intention that we use them. Failure to do that, at least in my theology, qualifies as sin. I would recommend the book to "heathen" and Christian alike. It gives a pretty good idea of where it all went wrong, and why. It's a bit of a tome, but it reads almost like a novel. It's one helluva good read!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Once Famous
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 05:47 PM

I think you have gone meshugonah without a doubt.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 06:18 PM

LOL Brucie!

Big Mick may find the question phoney, but it is one that has been excercising philosphers for many years. Leej's post explains why it should not just be laughed away.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Big Mick
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 06:27 PM

Peter/Fionn, I am not sure what the problem seems to be, but that is OK. I stand by my contention that this thread was started with an agenda. I also think you contention that philosophers have been exercised for years by THIS question to be without merit. If you could give me some cites, I would be happy to retract that statement.

Amos, I understood where you were coming from. I am not at all bothered nor am I misunderstanding. My response comes from the fact that I believe that debating an issue on a phony premise is a worthless idea. I understand that we may disagree on that but it is my feeling.

BTW, your last statement, Organizing the inherent spiritual religiousness of the human being is risky, and if badly manbaged can drive people toward madness. is right on the mark.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peg
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 06:38 PM

The question seems to be a faulty one, because mental illness is a condition that manifests in individuals, whereas religion is a concept that can be discussed, held, believed and followed by vast groups of people....

I think I agree that there seems to be an agenda here to get religiosos to duke it out. *yawn*

Go your way and sin no more.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 06:58 PM

The answer is 'Yes - same as Politics'

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 06:59 PM

No.


Also, it would not be amiss for Mudcatters, who profess unlimited toleration,---- (or is it "Some people do not like their fellow man and I hate people like that"--remember that one?)------to show a bit of toleration on religion, even if burned by earlier contact with it.

Attitudes like this question supposes, and many of the responses to it, are what will bring out the "true believers" in droves on Bush's side on Tuesday, and also serve to confirm their prejudice that folkies ( and non-Bushites in general) are a bunch of fuzzy-headed leftists (read "Godless Communists".

It ain't helpful.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 07:02 PM

There is an American based church operating near where I live in Scotland.
They are quite closely integrated with local Baptists
They believe strongly in the old fashioned views of heaven and hell,
and to most people these views are a form of madness, being completely irrational.

If that was the end of the story, we could just leave them in their nether world,but unfortunatly they go around collecting vulnarable people as "converts"...Depressives, schitsophrenics and other damaged people.
these converts are sooncompletely under the control of the church leaders,and are quickly relieved of any money they may have.
Iv been employed by the Church to carry out repairs and have been payed out of three separate offshore bank accounts.
I no longer carry out work for this church.

I would say that Religious views are madness, but Religion is a type of business...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 07:15 PM

Ake - You are right about religion being a type of business.

As to madness - I wish I could find out how much money different denominations invest in the business of war, weapons in particular.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: harpgirl
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 07:52 PM

Betsy reminds me of this sexual game played by hysterics:

Let's You and Him Fight (LYAHF): A Sexual Game   
From Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne


This may be a maneuver, a ritual or a game. In each case the psychology is essentially feminine. Because of its dramatic qualities, LYAHF is the basis of much of the world's literature, both good and bad.
1. As a maneuver it is romantic. The woman maneuver or challenges two men into fighting, with the implication or promise that she will surrender herself to the winner. After the competition is decided, she fulfils her bargain. This is an honest transaction, and the presumption is that her and her mate live happily ever after.

2. As a ritual, it tends to be tragic. Custom demands that the two men fight for her, even if she does not want them to, and even if she has already made her choice. If the wrong man wins, she must nevertheless take him. In this case it is society and not the woman who sets up LYAHF. If she is unwilling, the transaction is an honest one. If she is unwilling or disappointed, the outcome may offer her considerable scope for playing games, such as 'Let's Pull A Fast one on Joey'.

3. As a game it is comic. The woman sets up the competition, and while the two men are fighting, she decamps with a third. The internal and external psychological advantages for her and her mate are derived from the position that honest competition is for suckers, and the comic story they have lived through forms the basis for the internal and external social advantages.

Reproduced with permission from Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Fuzzy
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:38 PM

Bobert is a form of mental illness.

Fuzz

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Fuzzy
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:41 PM

Excuse me. I meant to say it is Brucie that is a form of mental illness.

Fuzz

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peace
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 08:45 PM

You got that right, Fuzz. About me. Bobert's just crazy.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 10:31 PM

May I suggest Eric Hoffer's The True Believer? It's old, but I think that its insights are still valuable.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 11:32 PM

Hear hear.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 11:33 PM

Meshugganah, Martin, meshugganah.

or meshugge, meshugga, meshuggeneh, meshuggener, meshuga or meshugana.

But never ever meshugonah.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 11:49 PM

A whole lot of true believers are going to troop out tomorrow and vote for either Bush or Kerry. :-) Now, THAT's what I call blind faith! Politics is a much bigger and more ridiculous religion than that of any identifiable church in present-day North America, and it's based on false gods and extremely unrealistic hopes and expectations.

Then there's consumerism! Totally leaves organized religion in the dust these days. And yet...it promises happiness to its faithful adherents, but doesn't deliver.

You can measure the power of a religion by how many people believe in it, how many practice it, and how much money it has at its command. In this respect politics and consumerism and militarism are way ahead of "the church" and have far more people enslaved, so if you want to worry about religion, look beyond the end of your nose and someone else's hymn book at the much larger picture. Where you put your trust and your money....there is your real religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peace
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 11:50 PM

Standin' in a church don't make you religious any more than standin' in a garage makes ya a mechanic.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Nov 04 - 12:40 AM

There are a lot of tangled ideas in this thread.

Let's You and Him Fight (LYAHF): A Sexual Game . . . . Reproduced with permission from Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne. I don't know what in heck this had to do with the conversation. And I am appalled that his editors didn't catch all of those horrible errors with pronouns. Ugg. That description of a game, an offshoot of the 1960s fad "I'm OK, You're OK" of pop psychology, should be set aside and forgotten. Sorry, Harpgirl, but that's the way I see that one, anyway.

Thanks, Little Hawk, so many posts later, for acknowledging that you were reading some of these remarks.

The hubris of pronouncing religion "mental illness" is too much for even this more-or-less-atheist to take. I was serious about the Foucault--it's hard work getting through from beginning to end, but he does a marvelous job of examining what society was thinking when it began pronouncing non-conformists "mentally ill." "Hospitals" as institutions didn't used to be places of healing like they are (supposed to be) today. They were institutions where the insane were stashed away. There are people who are a danger to themselves and others, and how they got that way can be quite a story. There are many genetic, chemical, accidental, and social reasons. Religious abuse may be part of it. Amos remarked I think you will agree that those who are mentally ill often use religious language or religious groups to hide behind, as well as sometimes getting into other things to cover up their problems and seek to survive. This is important, but one must recognize that "mentally ill" doesn't translate to "mentally deficient." Picking up code words is one survival mechanism that may work well for some individuals who are mentally ill. Others parrot it if they have been part of a captive audience of religious orders that mean well (we hope), but the outcome beyond speaking the empty words may be negligible. Learn the code words and 1) people feed you, clothe you, give you a place to sleep or 2) leave you alone because they don't want to tangle with what is apparently a pretty gnarly belief system you're operating under.

I'll give you a key to behavior that is part of a good psychology 101 class--if you continually treat people as if you expect them to act in a certain way, after a while this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they will begin to act that way. Especially if they are constrained in an institution or strict social situation. Those who are healthy enough to rebel may well break free. But others, subject to draconian rules or others who anticipate certain problems will find that when they behave the way they are expected, they actually get a form of approval. It's one of those bizarre aspects of flawed social science. Form the wrong shotr-sighted hypothesis and wait for the subject to finally do what you expect (meanwhile ignoring all of the rest of the behavior and a plethora of clues as to how this individual really ticks).

This doesn't mean there are no truly mentally ill people in the world. I've come across many in my work over the years (municipal recreation programs typically have special programs for emotionally disturbed and mentally retarded challenged individuals. I worked in one of those in college and after for a number of years.

SRS (who is amused that that very good definition of "hubris" comes from a christian liberal arts college in Tennessee. That site looks like an excellent reference source.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Nov 04 - 10:22 PM

Clint, he lives in Chicago, which is right on the shores of Lake Meshugana.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 02 Nov 04 - 10:32 PM

Thanks for refreshing my memory, SRS.

I worked for awhile with children who were a danger to themselves or to others. Most had been traumatized early in life. They certainly were not religious!

How can you believe when you have been severely abused and traumatized as a child? What God would allow such a thing to happen to innocent children?

I think mental illness and those that suffer from dogmatic beliefs are entirely separate. If a mentally ill person finds religion comforting - fine. Lets face it, there are too many religions and too many varieties of mental illness to lump them altogether.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Nov 04 - 10:56 PM

A God who allows free will, Dianavan, allows anything. That is the definition of free will. You either have it or you don't. It is not something that's only given out in part, and then only to people who meet certain criteria.

God is an indwelling presence and being and intelligence and life that is living at the heart of every human being like an eternal flame. You can draw on that highest presence which is within you...or not...as you freely choose according to the light of your own awareness. If you love, you will draw on it and be strenthened immeasurably by it. If you fear and hate and indulge in that sort of negative emotion you will cut yourself off from it, to the extent that you do fear. You will not even know it's there.

Would someone who truly loved abuse a child? No. It's not up to some external God who is out there and must be petitioned to stop these things, it's a matter of whether or not people let the presence of God within themselves breathe and move through them and express itself or not. It's totally up to them, because they are totally and absolutely free beings at all times and under their own jurisdiction, nobody else's.

Total freedom is a big responsibility, and all do not use it wisely. In fact, those who always use it wisely are so rare that I would bet they are less than one in 10,000. Nevertheless, most of us manage reasonably well, and are reasonably good and harmless in our nature most of the time. And that speaks rather well for humanity, I think.

My remarks are not made on behalf of any particular religion. Spirit needs no particular religion, because it's non-denominational by its very nature.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 12:00 AM

Mr Don Firth, you got no shame. :)

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 12:31 AM

I believe everyone has their own religion, as Mick said, religion is a belief system, and we all have a belief system no matter if it's a god you praise each morning or a corn flake, if you praise nothing but believe your just lucky to be alive this morning, it's still your religion.
So is religion a form of mental illness? I can't answer that, but, if it is, we're all nuts.

I have a little motto, "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it"

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 03:03 AM

Little Hawk - I don't think an abused child would be able to understand your God of free will.

I would venture to say that your God is a God of a privileged few.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 05:49 AM

Read a rather old book, but still highly relevant - "Battle for the Mind" by Sargent. A son of a Minister.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 07:56 AM

SRS, while I do agree that Jacqui Schiff sullied the conceptual model of TA, "Betsy" is playing this game. She sets up an argument, then decamps while watching us fight among ourselves. Simple concept to understand, my dear.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: harpgirl
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 08:04 AM

Oh, and Mick, I am so sorry to hear about your experience with the Boy Scouts. I think it takes a great deal of courage to admit to such an experience in a public forum. And it makes me angry to hear it. I hope someone did something to punish those involved but I fear not, knowing the organization. For the record,I am against Boy Scouts because it doesn't sufficiently protect young children from predators.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 08:41 AM

What God would allow such a thing to happen to innocent children?

Not only the god Little Hawk has described allows that but also the deist's god. This god once has done an act of creation (creating the universe and the physical laws) many billion years ago and since then does not interfere at all with the creation and for all they might know doesn't even care now.

There are lots of different concepts of god(s).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 08:50 AM

Of course the abused child would not understand it, Dianavan. Virtually nobody understands horrible things like child abuse when it's happening to them OR to somebody else.

But people do understand free will, and they have it.

God is not going to suddenly pop out of the sky and take their free will away from certain people just because they are doing awful things. God is not separated from the process. God would have to BE separated from the process in order to step in and intervene. Whether an abused child understands that or not is hardly relevant to the matter.

A God-force that is present within literally every atom, right down to the neutron and electron level is not separate from anything except the emotional and mental processes of people who refuse to tune into their highest impulse at any given time.

How the hell can such a God belong to a privileged elite when it is part and parcel of every living being?

You have intelligence, right? How well do you use it? How many beings operate at the full potential of their intelligence? Very few. How many operate at the full potential of their compassion? Less than one in 10,000. How many are completely without fear? Find me such a one if you can. To the extent that a person is utilizing intelligence, compassion, and every other good and useful quality whatsoever that person IS bringing forth the presence of God within him or herself. Is that hard to understand? I don't think so.

If you think that the present of evil somehow invalidates the concept of God, consider this: If you didn't have the example of cold to observe, then how would you know what "hot" is? If you didn't have the example of "short" to observe, how would you know what "long" is (no sexual puns intended). If you didn't have the example of "evil" to observe, how would you know what "good" is?

You wouldn't, because we draw comparisons between in order to form ALL our concepts about reality in a World of relativity...in which we observe everything as separate from ourselves. (that's a somewhat arbitrary observance, by the way, but it works as long as you believe in it...and no longer than that)

If you want a World where "bad things" that you find too horrifying to accept simply don't happen because of some divine intervention, you are whistling in the wind. This World you see and touch is not the whole story anyway...it's less than one fingernail clipping of the whole story.

You didn't get my drift at all. I am not suggesting that God is a God of the privileged few, and that is completely contrary to my understanding. God lives within every man, woman, animal, plant, and atom. I am saying that only a very few people completely succeed in bringing forth the highest possibilities they are capable of...and those people certainly do serve to inspire others to further efforts in that direction. Some examples: Gandhi, Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, the Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, and various others...some of whom are famous, some of whom are not.

Less enlightened people then tend to form organized religions in the names of those saints and prophets and they go around doing awful things like burning people at the stake, abusing children, and fighting religious wars with each other. That is not the fault of the enlightened beings who inspired people in the first place, it's the fault of very unaware adherents who got all excited but didn't really get or understand the message they were given...they just followed their own fractured little fears and desires wherever they led them. That's their responsibility, not God's, because they have free will, and must decide for themselves how to use it.

Nothing you or I say about the matter will be of much particular comfort to an abused child...or an Iraqi family who just lost their house and their daughter to another useless American bombing run or another suicide bomber.

Free will is a very risky business, but it's better than being a mind-controlled robot or a slave, wouldn't you say?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 08:55 AM

Free will is a very risky business, but it's better than being a mind-controlled robot or a slave

The dichotomy is nonsense. A theist's god interfering with his creation even today does not make anyone a robot. Everybody would have free will and only in cases of extreme abuse might interfere which for most people qwould be never during their lives.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Kim C
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 09:48 AM

Let's see... I consider myself religious, although not in the "traditional" sense. Although I was raised a Christian, and identify most closely with that, I also find truth and wisdom in Buddhist and Hindu beliefs - many of which are not so different from what Christians believe. Instead of allying myself with a particular church, I worship on my own time and at my own pace, not when anyone tells me I should.

I wear makeup and I fix my hair. I like fashion, at least what I can afford. My husband thinks I'm cute.

I also have a mental illness. I have fought depression nearly all my life, and continue to do so. I do think my spiritual grounding has given me a much better handle on my condition.

But I don't see that any of those things are necessarily related. I do think that fanatical religious groups prey on people who are weak of heart, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with mental illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 10:56 AM

Little Hawk - What you fail to understand is that a small child is so damaged by abuse that it is very difficult for that child to find God. To know God, you must have an open heart. Some little kids never have that opportunity. Where is God in their consciousness? Their trust has been destroyed.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 09:47 PM

You're absolutely right about that, Dianavan. I've seen personal cases of it. There is no simple solution to such heartbreak and trauma. The faith of such a child in themselves and in other people has to be restored a bit at a time. One must help them to understand that:

1. They weren't to blame in any way for what happened.
2. The person who did it to them was absolutely wrong to do that.
3. Other people still love them, and they is nothing wrong with them because they ARE lovable just as they are.

Wolfgang - Really, I can't take you seriously when this sort of thing is being discussed. Why should I even bother talking to you about it? But what the heck, I will anyway...because someone else might be interested... So consider this: A God that intervenes in human affairs must, by definition, be separate to what he is intervening in, mustn't he/she? The God (She/He/It) that I propose as existing is NOT separate from anyone or anything...because all things are part OF He/She/It. Imagine all of reality as a single piece of cloth. The cloth is woven out of trillions of fibers. It is colored in trillions of unique patterns. It is of infinite size (beyond definition or measurement). It is self-governing, eternal, and sentient...which is to say, it has self-awareness. Let's say that every single fibre in that cloth shares in part of the whole collective awareness, but its particular part thinks of itself only in isolation...thinking in effect, "I am alone and separate from all others and all that is around me." That is the mental circumstance of the ordinary person or animal or other sentient embodied being. Suppose that the overall sentient whole that is God/Life/Existence/Manifestation endows each sentient part of itself with autonomy (complete free will to act and think within the limitations of what that embodied part can actually do within its tiny physical circumstances).

That is an approximate description of what I am alluding to. I assert that God in no way intervenes with the free will of any such fiber in the entirety, anymore than you, Wolfgang, intervene in the free will of the individual intelligent cells in your body which are very helpfully processing food and oxygen for you at this moment. (And if their free will goes badly awry, then you can get sick in some part of the body.) You influence them, by your larger decision-making process and your general emtional condition, but they are still autonomous. The overall consciousness that is God also definitely influences people...toward positivity, creativity, courage, and so on...but each person still makes their own decision and can reject or oppose that influence if they choose to, because they have free will.

Now, suppose that one of the fibers actually calms its mind down enough to become aware of God and of its commonality with all the other fibers. Suppose that when it looks at another fiber, it sees that they are one in spirit. If so, it will love the other fiber in an unprejudiced way. In looking at another it will see its own beloved Self and behave accordingly, with only love.

That is precisely what distinguishes any truly enlightened being from someone in an ordinary state of mind. He looks at another person and see himself...because he sees the One, the Great Self which is simultaneously expressing as...ALL of us...as...Everything.

Such people exist. I know they do. They are very rare, but they exist. And what do they do? They help the rest of humanity ceaselessly, with tremendous courage, and with absolute selflessness as long as they are in a body to do it.

If you can't believe that, it just shows me you have either never met such a person, or never even been willing to consider the possibility of one existing. If so, you have deprived yourself of something wonderful.

We all are One. We are parts of what some people call "God" (which is just a word people made up for it...). You could just as well call it "Life" or "Being" or "Love" or "Truth", because it is all those things, and it goes completely beyond organized religions and NEEDS no organized religions. In fact, it might be much better off without them.

You can experience it. You can BE it. Some people have. When you do that, you love yourself, you love others, and you love Life, without qualification or demand or expectation of any sort. You become harmless. You heal. You bless. You give. You create. And you no longer fear anything, not even death, because you know that there is no death.

The God people seek lives inside their own heart, and inside everyone else's, simply waiting to be recognized.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 04:16 AM

In Taiwan today, a guy jumped into the Lion Pit, yelling "God Will Save You!"

Must have, cause the lions had just been fed - if he had not chased them around scaring them, they probably would not have bitten him at all....

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 05:45 AM

For the last couple of years I have had an elder ( I think that's what they call themselves ) of the Watchtower bible and tract society ( Jehovah's Witnesses ).This close at hand experience has led me to believe that people like this are seriously self delusional, status and materially obsessed ( take out the position held in thier movement and they are nothing socially or even jobwise since they, at least where I am, seem to work for each other etc.), and are dangerous to those in society who are remotely vulnerable to the intense circularly reasoned garbage that they sell.
It has been fascinating to see at close hand the outward arrogance of these people, which is merely a thin veneer over thier desperate fear of being found out just to be like everyone else. I have had a few good laughs at this guy desperately mowing lawns and tidying up the whole road ( in rain, hail, snow and even in the dark ) just ahead of more of the ridiculously overdressed clones arriving for some meeting or another. This kind of behaviour ( and alot of other very wierd and sometimes very unneighbourly stuff ) starts to look an awful lot like mental illness or at least some kind of disfunctional compulsive disorder.
As people they have proved to be some of the most unpleasant self obsessed neighbours one could wish to have. I see people arriving for these mideweek house meetings, usually mothers with thier children in tow of young families, always dressed in Sunday best, including the little kids. They always look almost afraid as they get out of thier cars, and will always sit in their cars right up to the last minute if they arrive early.
Knowing what I know about thes people, having to live closely to them, it sickens me to see them getting away with such ugly physcological manipulation of others.
It is a sadness that this type of extreme, often under eduated, self serving rubbish, goes to tarnish those who have a faith, choose to live by it and in doing so actually try to understand, respect and do something useful for the reast of this planet, lets' face it, we need all the encouragement we can get.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 08:41 AM

Little Hawk,

even reading your post twice hasn't helped me to understand on what statement in my posts you answer here? Nice reading, you have made your position clearer, but what has that to do with me?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 08:43 AM

The best man won... oh, sorry, wrong thread!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 09:15 AM

Just to try to lighten up this heavy Subject, which I started, I offer this :- someone once who wrote "It is better to live your life believing in God , then die, and find that there isn't , than live your life believing there isn't a God , then die, and find there IS.
Apologies I can't remember whose quotation it is, but the former has always been my Credo.
Much joy to all you who quietly enjoy your religion , but my question was much more prompted by the behaviour of Zealots and people who are constantly claiming to have God on their side or God belonging to their Nation etc. I find them very worrying .
In addition , I simply cannot understand all the pomp/ceremony and dressing-up which goes on - and it is bizarre for me to think that these same people can claim to be nearer to God than you or I .
Amazing !!!
I am of the same type of religious background as Joe Offer - unfortunately I am a lapsed member - however, after a few beers and a night out - I shall bid you farewell as you go off into the night with " Good night-God Bless ", which is my best way to round off an evening.
If you ever use this phrase ( try it ) and you are asked why you said " God Bless " ( by someone imagining that you are being a bit over-religious ) just simply reply "'Cos that's his Job".
O.K.,O.K., I can hear some PC people as I write , God might be feminine - but as they say - that's another matter.
Or as a famous Irish Comedian Dave Allen used to say at the finish of his show " May YOUR God go with you " a phrase which I've "borrowed" for a new Song.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 09:19 AM

I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of Jehovah's witnesses, GUEST. :-) Two of them insist on visiting my elderly mother frequently, and they have as much chance of converting her as they do of turning the moon into a frisbee, but she's nice enough to keep chatting with them anyway. Her religion is political analysis. She watches CNN about 6 hours a day. (shudder!)

Well, Wolfgang, perhaps it doesn't really have anything to do with you...I'll check later when I have more time, and see if I can figure it out. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 11:07 AM

I always liked that Dave Allen ending also, and have used it on occasion as a response to religious friends who try to bring me under their umbrellas.

Points to clarify: "religious" and "spirituality" are related but are not the same thing.

Religion: institution to express belief in a divine power [emphasis on "Institution"]

religious belief: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny

A Jungian reading from http://www.tearsofllorona.com/jungdefs.html">this site (one block west of LaLa land, so wade through here at your own peril, but its kind of interesting in a California sort of way).

Religion: a subjective relationship to certain metaphysical, extramundane factors. A kind of experience accorded the highest value, regardless of its contents. The essence is the person's relationship to God or salvation. Jung called them psychotherapeutic systems and believed they contained, offered a gradiant for, and transformed instinctual (hence asceticism), nonpersonal energies, giving people a cultural counterpole to blind instinct, help through difficult transitional stages, and a sense of meaning. They also help separate the growing person from his parents. For Jung, the unconscious had a religious function, and religion rests on an instinctive basis. Different from creeds, which are codified and dogmatized versions of a religious experience. Creeds usually say they have THE truth and are a collective belief. For Jung, no contradiction existed between faith and knowledge because science has nothing to say about metaphysical events, and beliefs are psychological facts that need no proof.

Increasing exogamous libidinal tendencies over the centuries have caused endogamous libido to react by forming religions, sects, and nations (see cross-cousin marriage, aion).

Religions collect projections of parent imagos (Pope, church as mother, etc.) in a positive way--let the imagos live on in a changed and exalted form within traditions that preserve living connections and roots for centuries. Instinct expresses itself in traditional form, and when the traditions break down or the images are lost, the energy activates the unconscious dangerously. Isms and the State then replace tradition and hierarchical order.

From a more generalist site: (generic definition of "religion"): A means of getting in touch with and of attaining at-onement with "ultimate reality." In slightly different words, a religion is a system of symbols (e.g., words and gestures, stories and practices, objects and places) that functions religiously, namely, an ongoing system of symbols that participants use to draw near to, and come into right or appropriate relationship with, what they deem to be ultimate reality.

Many more definitions here

"Spirituality" (the most generic definition I could find, not co-opted by a religious organization):
(a) relating to spirit or sacred matters; (b) being connected to the essence of self, others and life; (c) an experience of coming home to self and connecting to others

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 02:10 PM

Spirituality is the ticket allright, Stilly. It's the body, so to speak, of the matter, and organized religion is a suit of gaudy clothes that some people want to dress that body up in. They then fight each other over differing clothing styles, which is a total waste of their time and energy.

Religion involves rules and restrictions, ceremonials, hierarchies, temporal power, political power, and money. It defends old territory and seeks to conquer new territory.

Spirituality involves the building of self-awareness and awareness of others, and the accomplishment of positive personal change through expanding those awarenessnesses. It does not set forth a list of rules and restrictions. It discovers new territory, but seeks to conquer only self (in the sense of overcoming one's own weaknesses and finding one's strengths).

Religion is an organizational matter. Spirituality is a personal matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 05 Nov 04 - 12:02 AM

Try this:

Religion is normal but organized religion is what some used to call "un-sane," like many governments and reality TV.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ooh-Aah2
Date: 05 Nov 04 - 07:27 AM

I would like to endorse Don Firth's recommendation of 'The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason'. The roots of the rot are very well analysed there.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 11:43 AM

There is a married guy in our office - reads the Bible every lunchtime at his desk ( likes everyone to see he's reading it ).It's also common knowledge that he is shagging - sorry - having an affair- with a married woman who works in our office.
I just can't get my head round these situations.
I don't care who is shagging who - that's life - but flaunting this Bible - what is it all about ?? Is it an invisible protection mechanism that I haven't been told about ???

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 12:01 PM

Well, he obviously thinks he's superior to the rest of you...and he's obviously mistaken in that assumption.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 10:44 AM

The Bible has probably been used as camouflage as long as it has been in print.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Fuzzy
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 10:53 AM

Religion is a form of therapy that keeps one from going mad.

Fuzz

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 01:29 PM

Like a great many people, I am not conventionally religious- and I mean 'conventionally' in the context of my day and time, background and region. I am, however, a believer in the unseen and the currently unknown. I suspect that there are many things around us that we just don't see. Hypnosis can demonstrate the human being's ability to ignore what someone else readily sees. And if there are physical things we don't see, how much more likely it is that we are not aware of the intangible.

I remember once hearing a preacher say, 'You don't get to pick and choose the parts of religion that you like. You have to either believe or not believe.' I say, Of course, I get to pick and choose! What is true for me, judged by my experience and personality and current understanding is what fits me.

It occurs to me that every sentient being needs the knowledge that there is something or someone greater than itself. Dogs accept that, calves accept it, churchgoers accept it, children accept it, adult humans accept it, the pope accepts it. I accept it. Whether or not it is a need based on fear and insecurity is something else again.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 01:48 PM

"Religion is a form of therapy that keeps one from going mad."

does it follow that IF you are not religious, you are mad? Or IF you are mad, you are not religious?...or does anything at all follow from a vague little aphorism?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 01:52 PM

I'm a practicing Buddhist. It does keep my stress level down, but I hardly see how something like Catholicism could do this. How could you keep you stress down if you're worried about being guilty all the time?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 02:29 PM

It occurs to me that every sentient being needs the knowledge that there is something or someone greater than itself. Dogs accept that, calves accept it, churchgoers accept it, children accept it, adult humans accept it, the pope accepts it.

I would politely but emphatically dispute every single claim in that sentence, Ebbie. You're speaking for all of them? Dogs, calves, and humans around the globe? I don't think so. To begin with, take me off of that list. I would base my argument on the premise that people in different cultures have different beliefs, and much of their common belief system is contained as baggage in their languages. What your remark displays is an acceptance that what your language (English) and culture (new-world, industrial-religion, christian-based) tell you are somehow "universal," but this isn't the case. You didn't take into account the Unitarians or many other nations around the world. And human language and ideas can only convey what humans think, not what animals are capable of thinking or feeling.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 03:29 PM

'Need' may not be the correct term, SRS; perhaps the 'norm' is better.

I am speaking of 'pack' animals- whether it's the wolf or its descendant, the dog. I'm spaaking of the normal child's admiration and emulation of the adults in its life. The calf's pursuit of and reliance on its mother- or on any other adult bovine that will protect it. The churchgoer's reliance on the dogma of its order. The pope's yearning for God. My own innate belief that I don't koow everything.

I would say even Universalists and Buddhists are in pursuit of Truth, which one might say is a 'greater' good.

On the other hand, I'm not locked into this concept. I was musing.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,The Pope
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 03:33 PM

Thankyou.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 03:36 PM

*G*

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 03:38 PM

Betsy, I think there's a difference between religion and religious and spiritual action. A great definition given to me was that religion is essentially about love and a cult is about the dissemination of hatred. We can see that today it's easy to spot the difference.
The basic principles of almost every religion are quite powerful and a metaphorical guide to social behavior. When it gets crazy is when it is interpreted by those who would use it to acquire power.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 07:08 PM

Oh dear, I just returned from a short walk and discovered a new, Pentecostal, store-front ministry just blocks from home. I have never seen such a thing in Vancouver. Looks like its spreading to Canada.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 04 - 09:30 PM

Regarding the concept of a "personal God" who interferes in human affairs, there is a passage from an extraordinary novel by Mary Doria Russell, very literary, part science-fiction, and very much a novel of ideas:   After a long and harrowing inquest into the disaster that happened to an expedition, which included a number of Jesuit priests, to the newly discovered planet Rakhat orbiting Alpha Centauri, the Father General of the Society of Jesus and a couple of other priests are walking in a garden and trying to sort out what they have just learned

         . . . He sat back in the bench and stared at the ancient olive trees defining the edge of the garden. "There's an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everything and everywhere, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, creation exists."
          "So God just leaves?" John asked, angry. . . . "Abandons creation? You're on your own, apes. Good luck!"
          "No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering."
          "Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine, " Vincenzo Giuliani said quietly. "'Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.'"
          "But the sparrow still falls," Filepe said.
         They sat for a while, wrapped in their private musings.

Respectfully submitted for your own private musings.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 10:27 AM

To "Frank" especially , I appreciate your comments but the premise of the original question was related to Organised Religion - I never mentioned "spirituality" - a word / condition which is subject to many interpretations , however, you now have me musing as to whether a Cult is an Organised Religion and should be taken under the umbrella of the original question.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 11:21 AM

Cults are not necessarily about hatred, Frank. They may well be about a number of other things, such as: control, political power, popularity, money, etc...

Those do not necessarily equate with hatred, though they do tend to link with other less charges vices such as selfishness and greed.

The reason people connect cults in their mind with hatred is merely that those cults which are possible the most dramatic are those which encourage and practive hatred.

Ebbie, you are so right. Everyone believes in someone or something greater than themselves...even Stilly River Sage! :-) She just doesn't want to admit it, or else she is interpreting your phrase in far too narrow a fashion. That's my opinion, Stilly. You can't be human and NOT believe in someone or something greater than yourself unless you're completely insane and ready for a padded cell.

There are such people, but I know you're not one of them. Or do you wish to assert that there is NOT anything or anyone out there that is greater (meaning "larger" and possibly more important, though not "better") than yourself? Well?

As Spock said in many Star Trek episodes: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." That is the recognition of something greater than oneself. That is the recognition that moved Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Einstein, and every other great benefactor of the human race that has ever lived. It is the recognition of a dog that freely gives its own life in defence of its human family too.

And THAT is the cornerstone of spiritualiy: Love that is large enough to overcome mere self-interest.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 11:56 AM

"Cult" is a christian term that is applied to groups that christians don't approve of, including splinter factions of christian religions. Like calling non-christians "Pagans" instead of the many other descriptions that exist, or the acutal name of their belief. It's a code word that is in the language and is one of many we don't unpack in light of day very often. "Cult" has negative connotations, and one of the earliest uses of the term was to describe the religious following of the goddess Diana. She was big, really big, and the christians took a lot of material from Diana (and Artemis), creating Mary from the bits they approved of, before declaring that Diana's followers were a cult and intentionally and wilfully demoting her to a sideline role in the world. (Colonizers did the same thing to the American Indian trickster figures who were originally gods, but with a didactic nature that christians didn't understand as the "don't do as I do" school of thought).

Artemis and Diana from Wikipedia.
SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 12:01 PM

Correct, Stilly. "Cult" is mostly just a nasty insult word used to abuse people who have a different form of belief from the one who is saying the other is in a "cult". People who don't like Catholics could just as well say that Catholicism is a cult, after all.

It's kind of like calling someone a "liberal" or a "redneck". :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 04:30 AM

You don't have to be mentally ill to be brainwashed. It is my own opinion that much religious education amounts to a form of steady and systematic brainwashing, from childhood on. Religion can be like a roadmap which has been impressed over and over into your mind until your mind equates the map with reality, with truth. For some people who have been raised in a very religious community it then comes as a huge shock to go out into the world and find that other people are using other maps.

Thank you all for the book recommendations. If you're interested in understanding more about what Lonesome EJ was talking about, look for Jon Krakauer's latest, called Under the Banner of Heaven.

PS - I should say that it's not just religious education that can resemble brainwashing - that claptrap we teach elementary students about the Pilgrims and the Indians at the First Thanksgiving is a form of brainwashing to my mind as well. It doesn't have to be about manipulation and mind control - we're just, as human beings, impressionable.

BTW, there was an interesting article in the Guardian Online today about a lawsuit by parents in one of the eastern states concerning a a school district that was persuaded to put stickers on the outside of all the science textbooks saying that evolution is just a theory. I think there'll be a lot more of these, in the next few years.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 07:03 AM

You can't be human and NOT believe in someone or something greater than yourself unless you're completely insane and ready for a padded cell

Time for me to be locked up in that case. I have as much difficulty in accepting that there might be something greater, as you do in accepting that I *don't* believe in something greater!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 07:06 AM

After much serious and informed discussion about this Subject I recieved an Email today from a friend of mine which some of you may like.
It is a little lighter than some of the comments and I hope it offers some fun and cheer in the difficult world of Faith and Religion :-
( Bear with it - even though you may not be very good at Science )

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) [I knew that!] or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed)or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1.        If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2.        If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, " it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 08:56 AM

Heh! Yes, that's a funny one, all right... :-)

Fibula - You mean to tell me that you think you are the largest, most significant, and most important matter in this overall existence here that we refer to as "life"? In a general sense, I mean? Do you think the World...even the Universe...revolves around you and your concerns?

If so, I submit that you are not playing with a full deck, as they say. :-)

If not, then you DO believe in something larger than yourself. It's just not "God", that's all. It's something else. It does not have to be God to be something larger than yourself. It could be family, country, justice, freedom, morality, truth, etc....

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: moocowpoo
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 09:36 AM

ALL questions have an agenda!! (rhetorical ones too)
This particular question (of course!!) arises from an agenda and, has incited some excellent thoughtful responses, perhaps THAT was on the poster's agenda, even if it wasn't, I've enjoyed reading the posts here.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 09:51 AM

I'm with Fibula on this one. And LH you aren't playing fair! Saying that no one being is greater than yourself, does NOT mean the same as saying I am the greatest.

We were all created equal in my book. That makes me no better or worse than anyone else. It is a really easy concept to understand. Unless you belong to the mindset that needs an all seeing being in your imagination to provide you with a reason to be, and a code to follow.

Some of us can work out right from wrong all on our own. We don't hurt people intentionally anymore than someone who wears their knees out praying.

And of course there are 'things' such as nature and family etc that have greater force than our individual strengths. But these are not there because of religion. Their existence/power would not be diminished one jot if religion were to disappear.

It amazes me how people have such difficulty accepting others points of view where religion is concerned. And no I dont think it is a form of mental illness. It just attracts alot of followers who don't find a place to fit in society.

Some people need to be led. Nothing wrong with that. But don't deny others their freedom to forge their own paths?

You can tell the convent education really worked on me.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 11:10 AM

Right on, milk monitor!

Ah c'mon LH, I know you're a spiritual kind of guy, but you're a smart one too, right? ;-) So you can probably recognise that it is possible not to hold any one thing as "greatest"? Why should there be some universal Truth?

I see it that we're here through the right sort of circumstances arising to allow our existence and to allow any evolution to fit any changes in those circumstances. We don't matter any more or any less than anything else that fits such circumstances.

People often use the "oh, but life/nature/the universe is so complicated that there must be a designer behind it" instead of thinking that conversely, life is so complicated because it is a web of nature that fits the circumstances, and anything that didn't fit in was lost along the way, hence we're left with something intricate that works because the alternative is all the stuff that doesn't work... am I being coherent...?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 11:13 AM

...and if the pope shits in the woods and there's no one there to hear it, does it still make a sound?
;)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 11:23 AM

Nice one, Fibula. I agree with the last few posts. I think that people only put faith in a "higher power" when they don't have faith in themselves, and this counts for the people who need to follow and be lead. I personally don't think there's some Divine Being working with the force of Nature. Although that's what many sheep would like to believe... baa... baa...

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 03:05 PM

Moocowpoo,
How perceptive of you !!!! and I share your thought on "excellent thoughtful responses".
Blessya.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 09:37 AM

You can't be human and NOT believe in someone or something greater than yourself unless you're completely insane and ready for a padded cell. (Little Hawk)

Same as the last time I quoted you in this thread, Little Hawk, you are using a nonsensical and this time even insulting dichotomy. Either a person is accepting your thoughts or she is insane.

And please if you answer don't answer this time with a long rant about your faith that has nothing at all to do with my post as you did last time.

My issue is not your faith. You have explained it beautifully and clearly and there is nothing to criticise about personal faiths (unless..., but that's a different story). My issue is with your way of arguing and with your cheap trick of using insulting and wrong dichotomies.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 01:45 PM

Little Hawk, what on earth (or in heaven above) is the point of ranking abstract concepts like freedom alongside those superior beings who exist in gullible imaginations? Compare religion with a comfort blanket and you might start to make sense....

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 02:15 PM

Wolfgang , the question raised at the beginning was "Is it possible that Organised Religion is a form of Mental Illness".
Some have examined the other avenues related to this thread - it did not seek to examine personal religious beliefs , faith or spirituality. The two entities are quite clear .
Little Hawk is kicking the subject around with the effect promoting discussion - calm down , the element of mischieviousness in his remarks is pulling the subject around and trying to make us look at it from different angles and perceptions .
The effort ( and amount ) he puts into his writing tells us he's genuinely interested in the subject - and , just because we don't like an opinion - that's no reason to get bent out of shape.
He's enjoying the intellectual jousting - try to enjoy it also and gain something from the experience - that's what we're here for - to challenge and possibly learn from each others views and opinions .

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 02:23 PM

Wolfgang, you post made perfect sense to me. You managed to state your case without the overbearing need to try and persuade anybody that their way of thinking is the wrong way.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 02:32 PM

Don't just sit and say "Wow that's so inexplicably wonderful God must have made it" Go out and look for an explanation. Too many lazy people prefer to credit someone or something else, rather than think about it in case their brain hurts.
If God made it prove it!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 02:43 PM

Right on the mark, GUEST. :-)

Fibula, Peter K., milk monitor, etc...the fact is that you and I actually agree on the essential philosophical points in this discussion. I would indeed compare much conventional religion to "a comfort blanket". I would likewise compare people's naive reliance on things like official political party lines in the same light. Those are secular religions, in my opinion, because I do not think that being "religious" necessarily requires belief in a "god" or some sort of omnipotent, unseen deity or spiritual being. It merely requires belief in a powerful idea, that's all.

The Nazis were religious, for example. Their religion was a weird pastiche of Christianity, racial theories of a master race, idolatry of a messianic individual (Hitler), nationalism, militarism, anti-communism, and arch-morality (in their terms). That was a powerful religion if ever I've seen one!

The present-day USA is mired in its own weird religion, which is a pastiche of bizarre political mythology, notions of a messianic mission to "save the World" (meaning to convert others by persuasion or force and make them be like "us"), notions of cultural superiority, extreme materialism and devotion to monetary gain, militarism gone wild, idolatry of political leaders, arch-morality (yet again!) espoused most loudly through the fundamentalist Christian outlook, an anti-Islamic crusade, the worshipping of youth, beauty, and fame...and on and on....

I call that a cult. An extreme cult. It's a cult that sometimes claims to serve God, but it actually serves money and naked power (as did the medieval Church of Rome).

Now, anyone who willingly serves that $y$tem and supports its propaganda and aggression is indicating to me that he believes in something greater (meaning larger and more important) than himself. He can be a 100% atheist (by the usual definition) and still do that.

I'm not insulting anyone, Wolfgang, because we all actually agree on this matter...we are just arguing over semantics, because what I said has not been understood. I said that someone would have to be insane (or unconscious) not to believe in something larger than themselves, and that is the case. I did NOT say they would have to be insane not to believe in God. I know lots of sane people who don't believe in God. But first, you must determine what the heck it is they are talking about when they SAY the word "God"!

It could be any one of a great many different things, after all. There are as many versions of God out there as there are blades of grass.

If you didn't believe in something larger than yourself, Wolfgang, you would never have been drawn toward a career in science in my opinion. Science immediately posits a view of life that is considerably larger than the little self.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 07:30 AM

Wolfgang , people can't be certain about these things - that's why we commit our thoughts to paper and thereby we continue the search . We're allowed to dismiss or reject other peoples opinions just as we can accept that they possibly have merit. We share and explore the arguments and the notions, but the Subject doesn't lend itself to accepting or rejecting FACTS - because with religion, the facts which puportedly exist are more times than enough - rejected by other religions or members of a similar religion.
For example is the Eucharist THE body of Christ or just a symbolic gesture. How many people / Organised Reigions does this foundation stone - divide ???
Read it all - you don't have to accept one single word - and what you read may even strengthen your religious convictions.
Little Hawk tells us you are a Scientist , I'm an Engineer and maybe the two of us suffer from the same problem in that we see every situation is governed by Engineering Rules and Scientific Principles which are enough for us determine definite answers.
Unfortunately this Subject can never povide us with a modicum of certainty (based on facts), however one's Credo and Faith have been challenged but hopefully they still remain intact to the comfort of the holder.
That they get tested from time to time (by whatever means) is no bad thing for a healthy mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 08:51 AM

I went to a Church of England school. Now if I had been taught about some of the common symptoms of metal illness and the same time as I was being told about Old Testament people like Noah hearing God and folk like Moses talking to burning bushes - I suspect I would have had even less faith in what I was supposed to accept as the basis for this particular religion.

However, I probably would have been more likely to grow up and be employed dealing with mental illness than I would have grown up to be a vicar. And if I started hearing god's voice in my head, telling me to build big wooden ships, I would have be less likely to start to order the wood than to consult a doctor.

All organised religion to me, could be considered as a collective mental illness and imposing this on our young is unforgivable. For where I may be prepared to accept personally that there may be more that I can see or be able to prove - expecting to have this faith, in what someone else tells me and asks me to have faith in their - is not an option for me. Nor is expecting anyone else to accept my faith.

We seem to have less of a problem with this religeous imposition upon our young than we do when it is political ideology that is imposed. This is a litle strange, for even if you may not agree with the political ideology in question, it is at least (usually) a rational one that can be argued.

The ones that combine political ideolgy with religious certainty - are usually the ones to be feared most...................

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 09:14 AM

To Shambles , and as you said
"The ones that combine political ideolgy with religious certainty - are usually the ones to be feared most....."
There's still a few around and their ilk are likely to always be so .......

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 11:37 AM

I will begin this entry with the observation that at one point in time, people thought that witches turned milk sour. Not understanding the science of bacteria in milk, they assumed human or not-so-benign intervention. That mystery has been solved, and those beliefs have been set aside. But there are others to which humans still are not convinced of the hypothetical answers, or there aren't even theories, so choose to assign those matters to a higher being. Belief systems (spiritual beliefs, sometimes organized as religions) come with creation stories as part of the package. A few of those organized religions want to trump science and force their creation story on the public at large, as is happening with the manipulation of science text books and the sticker mentioned above and in the news this week. Now more specifically to the discussion at this end of the thread:

Little Hawk wrote in a couple of posts:

Fibula - You mean to tell me that you think you are the largest, most significant, and most important matter in this overall existence here that we refer to as "life"? In a general sense, I mean? Do you think the World...even the Universe...revolves around you and your concerns?

and later

I said that someone would have to be insane (or unconscious) not to believe in something larger than themselves, and that is the case. I did NOT say they would have to be insane not to believe in God.

It could be any one of a great many different things, after all. There are as many versions of God out there as there are blades of grass.

If you didn't believe in something larger than yourself, Wolfgang, you would never have been drawn toward a career in science in my opinion. Science immediately posits a view of life that is considerably larger than the little self.

Little Hawk is (at the very least, for the sake of argument) creating a rhetorical cul-de-sac in which he is introducing a binary opposition and appropriating others' bodies and personal choices to illustrate his flawed point. He suggests they have to choose between the two options he (and the overarching christian community) perceives as the only choices. This is appropriation by placing the non-believer into the believer's context, and is a long-standing practice in Western cultures (probably also elsewhere, but I can't speak for elsewhere, but if I read more on Orientalism I might have something to say). It is an attempt, by setting the rules of the game, to win simply by having the opponent accept your rules, even if they don't accept your (apparently) larger argument. You might want to look into how the pope dealt with the gnostics of the twelfth century--Jessie Weston discusses them lucidly in her book From Ritual to Romance. They actually accepted the larger picture, but wouldn't play the church's hierarchical pyramid scheme by letting men dictate how other men believed in a god and who got the cash for leading the followers.

Little Hawk provided some valuable insight into what seems to drive much of the western world today, and compares it with recent German history:

The Nazis were religious, for example. Their religion was a weird pastiche of Christianity, racial theories of a master race, idolatry of a messianic individual (Hitler), nationalism, militarism, anti-communism, and arch-morality (in their terms). That was a powerful religion if ever I've seen one!

The present-day USA is mired in its own weird religion, which is a pastiche of bizarre political mythology, notions of a messianic mission to "save the World" (meaning to convert others by persuasion or force and make them be like "us"), notions of cultural superiority, extreme materialism and devotion to monetary gain, militarism gone wild, idolatry of political leaders, arch-morality (yet again!) espoused most loudly through the fundamentalist Christian outlook, an anti-Islamic crusade, the worshipping of youth, beauty, and fame...and on and on....

This is actually a very very short loop in the history of the world. I would suggest that when the U.S. fights it's battle over "terror" (the outcome of powerful opposional world views clashing--and where WE are terrorists just like they are, depending on whose view you subscribe to) and/or oil in the Middle East, we not only are ignoring human behavior in recent history, we're ignoring what has become iconic cultural history as well.

Bear with me for a moment longer. I would suggest that we have had these global battles over the same kinds of religion-plus-real-estate questions with the same combatants before--during the Crusades. And it has had a major impact on the stories we tell ourselves about our heroes. I have always questioned the binary that was set up regarding King Arthur and King John. It's like what happened later to Shakespeare's King Richard. The one who lost becomes the bad guy in the stories (which are always told by the victors). Richard was off fighting the Crusades, and John was interested in the home population. Personally, I'd have written off Richard also. As the story is told now, with Robin Hood in the mix, John is the completely bad guy, with no shades of gray to show us what he might really have had in mind. We've discussed Robin Hood and that period at great length here at Mudcat. (Bits of this represent scholarly wrangling and disarray, but I hope if you read through you'll pick up the high points of the conversation).

Holding a view of the world with or without a higher being, and who/what that higher being might be if you believe in one, and considering what was borrowed or appropriated from belief systems that held a more terrestrial and localized focus is a discussion that is goes better if those participating in the discussion step back from their own language and look at the loaded terms and automatic assumptions that are invisibly in play.

Betsy said

Unfortunately this Subject can never povide us with a modicum of certainty (based on facts), however one's Credo and Faith have been challenged but hopefully they still remain intact to the comfort of the holder.

This must be the case, and because of this, it is best to not have those "believers" who participate in the discussion give those with an opposing view (i.e., Wolfgang, or Freda, or myself) a patronizing pat on the head and the suggestion that s/he doesn't really understand what he believes.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 11:45 AM

Well, Shambles, if imposing organized religion on children is, as you say, "unforgivable"...then I say that imposing our other bizarre belief systems...the present educational, medical, marketing, and political $y$tems on them is equally unforgivable

....Depending....

There are good and bad ways of dealing with all of the above belief systems. If religion stirs greater reverence and love for life and humanity in a person, that is good. If it stirs guilt, fear, and prejudice in a person that is not good. I've seen plenty of examples of either range of possibility.

And the same goes for education, politics, marketing, and medicine. All these things can be applied very well or very badly.

Blanket statements condemning any one of them in toto are therefore foolish, in my opinion, and merely serve to indicate that the one making the statement has an emotional issue they haven't dealt with yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 11:49 AM

Hard-wired into human nature? I am sure not. It may be human nature to look for broader perspectives, at least absent certain traumatizing factors, I guess. But to move from that to the generation of religion requires significant components of either fear, a hunger for power not otherwise accessible, a desire for real estate (cf SRS above) OR a degree of spiritual sensibility which is capable of at least a little transcendant perception beyond the range of normal meat-body mechanisms.

There are plenty of purely nacherl humans who have none of the above and don't much mind about religion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 11:59 AM

Stilly, you are an intellectual's intellectual. :-) I bet Doug R gets the shivers when he reads your stuff. (He seems to be suspicious of "intellectuals".)

I believe that all people are religious in nature, whether or not they believe in a God or a "supreme being" or any organized religion at all. Some of the most deeply religious people I've ever known in my life were atheists, engineers, very heady people. They just don't realize they are religious, because the word "religious" causes an artificial symbol to rise in their mind that leads them astray, and they miss the meaning.

I do not represent the "overarching Christian community". I don't represent anything smaller than Life itself. All the churches and offical religions in the World could vanish and it wouldn't bother me too much. Life would go on.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 12:52 PM

LH, I agree then that under your definition of the word religious, I must be.

But within my own definition of the word, I am not. Well if you discount the Druidic leanings.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 01:31 PM

Well, Shambles, if imposing organized religion on children is, as you say, "unforgivable"...then I say that imposing our other bizarre belief systems...the present educational, medical, marketing, and political $y$tems on them is equally unforgivable

Probably it is but these things are the everyday reality which faces them. Organised religion on the other hand, is simply someone elses belief or faith. Fine for them to hold and express but not, I would suggest to impose upon their children.

Are you saying here that imposing organised religion upon children is forgivable? Should this not be a matter for them to decide for themselves, preferably without any pressure being placed upon them by their parents or society?

Some folk, would certainly consider that certain sexual activities of others are an expression of their mental illness, whether you agree with this or not - I think you may agree that to indocrinate children into these sort of sexual activities would be unforgivable? In most places, it would certainly be, rightly in my opinion, illegal for them to do this.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Cruiser
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 02:27 PM

No, however a person with a mental illness espousing any form of Religion is especially dangerous.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 02:50 PM

Oops--there are two Richards, not an Arthur in there. Richard the Lion Hearted (Coeur d'Lion) and his brother John. Not to be confused with Richard II, who I also mentioned because I think he was also unfairly vilified, but it was a bit of a side trip.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 04:42 PM

Right, milk monitor, within your own definition of the word "religious" you are not, but within my definition of it you are. Now we understand each other.

Shambles - You asked, "Are you saying here that imposing organised religion upon children is forgivable?"

Good question! It raises a valuable point. Here is my answer.

Imposing any belief system on children is wrongful and potentially harmful. Offering them a large variety of possible belief systems, and encouraging them to expand on those in their own unique fashion, and then allowing them the freedom to make up their own minds about it all is the way to go. If I were raising a child I would encourage that child to freely investigate and question all existing belief systems with an open mind, including both conventional religions and atheism. Children are not the property of their parents, no more than citizens are the property of their society. We are all intended to live and think as free beings.

It is therefore wrongful to impose any belief system on anyone.

Whether it's unforgivable or not, well, that's another matter altogether. It depends on whether you think you can achieve more by holding grudges or by forgiving... I've noticed that the most spiritually advanced people seem to be able to forgive absolutely anything, while the least spiritually advanced are not inclined to forgive even a cross look or an idle remark if they take it the wrong way. :-) I highly recommend forgiveness. Not surrender, not acceptance of wrongful behaviour, but forgiveness.

Extreme lack of forgiveness leads back to the initial subject of this thread, mental illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 10:19 PM

My children certainly know my thoughts when it comes to organized religion, christianity in particular. We've talked about many of the issues regarding how religions operate (in contrast to spiritual beliefs). But they know I think about a lot of these things, and while I want them to have their eyes open, if they decide to adopt a religious practice when they're older I know they'll have the advantage of deciding without having been coerced. I won't disown them. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 05:20 AM

Extreme lack of forgiveness leads back to the initial subject of this thread, mental illness.

I used the word unforgivable simply as meaning that it was possibly not a good idea. Double binds - in the religion imposed upon me by the state - like the concept of both a forgiving God and a vengeful one in the same package - are also a potential cause of mental illnes. If you are looking for answers and guidance, in this confusing religion, you can find support and comfort for just about every opposite action.

Vengence is mine , said the Lord.

It is interesting how some extreme forms of mental illness, here in the West anyway, do involve folk seeing figures from religion, hearing their voices telling them to do things, both good and not so good. They also hear voices from the radio, from aliens and figures in history, but there is usually some aspect of an organised religion involved somewhere along the line. In other parts of the world, these kind of folk tend to become monks, holy men, gurus and the devine head of their religion.

Perhaps these are planted and partially caused by our undeveloped childish minds being taught vast concepts at a time in our develpment that we are not yet ready to comprehend? Which brings me back to sex.

The teaching of this natural part of our lives, causes all sorts of problems to religions and societies. Some of these set the age that this should be taught as high as they can and some - who teach their religion to these children as early as they can - consider formal sex education should not be given at all!

The concepts of hell and purgatory are less than comforting to a young mind. And the idea of an all-seeing, all-knowing God who follows you even to the toilet and judges your every thought and action - is enough to make any child totally paranoid. In some religions, in combination with their strange ideas of sex, it sometimes appears as if this effect - or at least causing guilt - is intentional.......

Forgivable?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 05:39 AM

Such Is The God


You will find, in the finest of gardens

Some small place, where the wild flowers grow

And you can't train children, like a gardener trains roses

You can't thin out, you just reap what you sow


Inquisitions and witch-hunts and final solutions

Moral pollution, that defeats it's own ends

The obvious answer, is it always the best one?

It's wise to question, both your foe and your friend


The rose and the thorn, fine fruit and the poison

The soldier's warning? Just a young man, afraid

Through the eyes of the uncertain and the cries of believers

Such is the god in whose image we're made

The body of man, the heart of a woman

Songs of bright morning and the cool evening shade

Through the eyes of the poets and lies of deceivers

Such is the God, in whose image we're made


Do you join in the song, that everyone's singing?

Do you follow the path, just because it's well-trod?

Is faith just a way, to avoid hard decisions?

For religions are man-made, not made by God


The rose and the thorn, fine fruit and the poison

The soldier's warning? Just a young man, afraid

Through the eyes of the uncertain and the cries of believers

Such is the god in whose image we're made

The body of man, the heart of a woman

Songs of bright morning and the cool evening shade

Through the eyes of the poets and lies of deceivers

Such is the God, in whose image we're made


Roger Gall 1996

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 09:09 AM

Religion - The Awe in which we hold our ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 09:27 AM

Yes, Shambles, well said. People can and do find justification in their organized religions for all sorts of contradictory habits and behaviours. It's most unfortunate. And it is harmful to indoctrinate children in those contradictory sets of beliefs.

My own opinion about it at this point is that "God" (meaning what I mean when I say "God", but maybe not what somebody else means....) is not vengeful or jealous. It's people (and animals) who are inclined to be vengeful or jealous.

I regard any religious teaching that refers to God as being vengeful or jealous to be a false teaching. I also regard any religious teaching that depicts God as casting people into hell, purgatory, etc, to be a false teaching. All those teachings are a demonstration of people casting "God" in their own image...but making him/her/it bigger and more powerful than they are, that's all!

I don't see God in that fashion at all. I arrived at my own understanding of the matter by studying a great variety of religious ideas and separating out the "wheat from the chaff", so to speak.

I see plenty of evidence to suggest that man is vengeful, none to suggest that God is.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 11:30 AM

Let me say I am astounded at the level of information , views and intelligent debate.
I was born and educated a Roman Catholic but rarely go to church now.
25 years ago we didn't christen / baptise our 2 kids mostly because of my views about Organised Religions
I have a firm belief in a supreme being - most would say God .
In addition to handing out loads of duff times , my God has been generally good to me.
He's good to ask why you are getting a duff time - although I've never has an answer !!.
He's also good to have around to thank for the good times.
It's just that I don't feel the need to be in a church to say thanks or whatever.
The idea that you need you need to be in an organised church to say thanks is the bit that defeats me - however, I understand you need somewhere to perform all the rituals , some of which are most strange to say the least.
Now I suppose someone is going to ask " Is belief in God / Allah a form of mental illness ? " - I hope not .
My unorganised religion is quite a good mental crutch as I stumble through this life of ours.
Btw - the kids turned out quite normal souls - both at Uni and never brought an ounce of trouble
to our doorstep and my wife and I have never tried to persuade them to be any particular religion.
Let them sort THAT one out for themselves - as most of us appeared to have (almost) done - though to varying degrees .

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 12:17 PM

I was going to suggest in this post that Betsy appears to have a rather (small "g") gnostic approach to spirituality, but if anyone were to do a search on the adjective, they would run across the proper noun (big "G") Gnostic. And I don't have the time or the interest to delve so deeply into the subject to describe why "gnostic" is a generally self-generated benign approach to knowing oneself and one's god through that self-knowledge, but "Gnostic" is a pretty rocky outcrop to find oneself upon in a religious sense. This page has a relatively brief examination of the differences that I perceive but am not going to try to describe myself.

As you can guess, I've been doing some poking around in definitions, looking for a snap shot of various religions. I started with "gnostic" and found a goldmine of interesting and scholarly information at Metareligion (this link takes you to the "about us" page). This is the Gnosticism page.

Interesting, by the way, how some of these religiously-tinged words have such different meanings. Catholic/cathoic, Gnostic/gnostic. It is easier to look these up in a dictionary than it is on the web, because the fluidity of the links takes you to sites where you have to spend a lot of time determining the spin of the web master before you accept their definitions. In some things, Webster on paper is a real good starting place.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 05:18 AM

It's people (and animals) who are inclined to be vengeful or jealous.

Not too sure about animals showing these traits. Sure that may be our interpretation of their actions but this probably says more about us than it does about animals.

Is not the concept of illness (especially mental illness) and steps to deal with it, linked forever with religion? Is not 'ill' just another word for 'evil'? Is not disease thought by some to be the body pocessed by 'evil' spirits?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 09:05 AM

Dogs are exceedingly vengeful! (but only to non-family members) Commit an offence against a neighborhood dog, Shambles, and see if it soon forgets about it. :-) I have known dogs to wait years to get a chance to bite someone who made fun of them while they were chained up or trapped behind a fence and unable to defend their honor. This goes for other intelligent animals too. They can have surprisingly long memories. As for jealous...man, I have never seen anything more jealous than pet dogs and/or cats who are faced with competition of some kind for food/affection/attention/etc!

Now illness and disease...well, "disease" means "lack of ease" in the body. That's an elegant way to describe illness, I think, and very apt. If one wants to clothe it in spiritual metaphors, what's the problem with that? You can look at it in a materialistic way or you can look at it in an energetic way. Both are valid, and one is the reflection of the other. These things are linked with religion if you think they are...and they're not if you don't. Like everything else. :-) It's up to you. Why fret over the fact that other people find meaning in something which you don't find meaning in?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 06:13 PM

Sure that may be our interpretation of their actions but this probably says more about us than it does about animals.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 12:01 PM

Hi Little Hawk.

"Cults are not necessarily about hatred, Frank. They may well be about a number of other things, such as: control, political power, popularity, money, etc..."

Have to disagree.

My experience is that if you attempt to disagree or disavow on any rational basis the agenda of a cult, you will see hate coming at you big time.

Cults are about blind obedience to central figures(s), unquestioning loyatly to them, and the higher up the chain of command, the more hatred and venom are expressed. The cult people will fight to preserve their belief in the way an addict will act to gain his/her drug.

How do I know? I was involved with a number of cults in my life.

Another thing, if you attempt to name them as "cults" you might be taking your life in your hands.

True religion, OTOH opens the door to inquiry and has the element of doubt which leads to enlightenment. It is not rigid and hate is not a byproduct. Therefore, it is not crazy but useful in a civilized society.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 01:39 PM

Frank, it sounds like you encountered a particular modern-day type of zealous groups that would be called "cults" by outsiders for various reasons. With the negative connotation because of the hate involved. But the "Cult of Diana," was simply a religious practice and belief that was older-than and ultimately sidelined-by christianity and marked as "Other" to chase followers from the Nemi's golden bough and into christianity. It is a practice as old as christianity itself. Attis and Cybell is another one, big in it's day in Asia Minor (Phrygia), and sidelined by xtians, but not before they stole the bit about Attis being impaled on the tree (though in the Attis "cult" it was an annual fertility ritual and involved sacrifice of pigs and other animals).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 03:55 PM

Any religion can engender hatred when it is espoused by fanatical people, Frank. That's not the same as to say that a religion is necessarily about hatred. You could say the same thing regarding patriotism or partisan loyalties in politics.

As for cults, every religion is seen as a cult by intolerant people of various differing religious viewpoints.

The term "cult" is used by people to point the finger at a religion or group they don't like for some reason or are afraid of. Their fear of a given cult, of course, may be quite legitimate in some cases....and I don't deny that. There are plenty of religious groups out there that I would be inclined to avoid, and some that are extremely dangerous in one respect or another.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,CK
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 06:51 PM

People believe in the easter bunny and Santa Claus, as children, then grow out of it. But they still hang on to beliefs in virgin births, parting seas, guys coming back from the dead, angels, sky gods, heaven and hell, the power of prayer. And they're willing to kill and die for this stuff too! Wild! Imagine if an atheist tried to run for a national office...could you imagine the attacks s/he would face, the threats, the rantings and ravings all day on talk radio? It's sad...we've got such a long way to go before religion is placed in the category of pleasant little tales like the tooth fairy.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 09:12 PM

Little Hawk said: If religion stirs greater reverence and love for life and humanity in a person, that is good. On this basis any fallacy is A Good Thing, provided only that it makes someone, somewhere, a better person.

It's a seductive argument, not least because it saves us having to concern ourselves with what the truth might be. But it's a specious argument too, because any religion is likely to affect different people in different ways. Ranking religions according to the ratios of people they influence for the greater good would plainly be farcical, so in the end it can't be ducked - we should be seeking the truth, not placebos. And if the truth turned out to be uncomfortable, that would be no basis for replacing it with lies.

To thine own self be true.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Rick Fanning
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:33 AM

For the most part, any religious belief is more of a result of brainwashing, either self induced or done by others. If one seriously sits down and thinks logically about the matter of their own existence, etc., they are not likely to come up with the fairy tale type beliefs and doctrines we see in most religions today. These were pretty well formulated from "visions" that men supposedly had long ago, but were not necessarily meant for all people. Black Elk had many visions that related to himself and his people, but no one has written them down in a "sacred" book that is supposedly the word of Goddess/God.

Blessings,

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Athiest
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 01:47 PM

Religion is irrational, but you do not have to be mentally ill to be irrational, although it helps.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:52 AM

Little Hawk,

you are playing word games as you often like to do. If you only meant the trivial meaning of 'greater than us' there weas no need to introduced that meaning into a thread about religion. Of course it is trivially true that e.g. a team is stronger than an individual player etc. Those who have objected to Ebbie first using 'greater' in a post have obviously meant that they (including me) do not think that there is some greater being in the sense of a god and that there is nothing supernatural around us.

SRS has quoted a definition: religious belief: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny which makes a lot of sense in this thread. Of course you can insist that you use any word in a completely different sense than dictionaries do. But by using the same word for different things the differences do not go away they only get blurred. Using only the word 'apples' for e.g. apples and oranges will not make differences disappear.

As Spock said in many Star Trek episodes: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." That is the recognition of something greater than oneself. That is the recognition that moved Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Einstein, and every other great benefactor of the human race that has ever lived.
"You are nothing, your country is everything" was how that thought was expressed in Germany 60odd years ago (just to widen the range of benefactors of mankind a bit).

Betsy, I'm on the (never ending) search for certainty on the level of facts, I'm not on the level of evaluation, ethics, moral decisions etc. On these levels I can live with a lot of uncertainty.

My wife and I are both not religious but we send our daughter to the religious instruction in school. She will be able to decide for herself later. But when she asked me last year whether there is a god I told her the truth.

you do not have to be mentally ill to be irrational (Athiest; is that the superlative to 'atheist'? (grin))
Never forget that you also can be rational and mentally ill. To overstate it drastically (but not without a true core): Psychosis is the illness of the religious, depression that of the unreligious.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 12:03 PM

Psychosis is the illness of the religious, depression that of the unreligious.

You mean - we are all 'bonkers'?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 03:37 PM

I've every bit as concerned about truth as you are, Peter K., and I do not belong to ANY official religion. Neither do I get emotional satisfaction out of attacking them all on principle, as I gather you do. And how do you know religious faith is based on a "fallacy". You don't. You just think so. That's your privilege.

Wolfgang - "when she (my daughter) asked me last year whether there is a god I told her the truth"

Ah. Really. And what is "the truth", Wolfgang? Pilate asked Jesus that momentous question, and Jesus responded with silence. (Pilate was not asking the question in good faith, and I doubt he was capable of understanding any answer that could have been given in words.)

You don't know what the truth is in the ultimate sense of the word "truth", Wolfgang, but you have an opinion about it, so I hope you said to your daughter, "It is my opinion that there is no God." If you said that, I have no objection. If you said categorically that "there IS no God" you stated something which is beyond your capability of knowing in the first place.

Non-religious people, I've noticed, always couch their arguments in this form...they automatically assume that religious (or spiritually-minded) people MUST, by definition, believe things they consider ridiculous...like "virgin birth", "parting seas, guys coming back from the dead, angels, sky gods, heaven and hell"...and so on...

Well PISS OFF! You self-important, self-satisfied, self-congratulatory pricks! Have you never heard of metaphor? A person can very easily be religiously or spiritually-minded and not believe literally in ANY of those unusual or bizarre things you like to smear every non-atheist with. Everyone who thinks differently from you is not by definition some kind of superstitious idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 03:47 PM

Non-religious people, I've noticed, always couch their arguments in this form...they automatically assume that religious (or spiritually-minded) people MUST, by definition, believe things they consider ridiculous...like "virgin birth", "parting seas, guys coming back from the dead, angels, sky gods, heaven and hell"...and so on...

Well PISS OFF! You self-important, self-satisfied, self-congratulatory pricks!

cheers for that LH, and there was I thinking 'we understood' each other. Nevermind.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:13 PM

And what is "the truth", Wolfgang? (Little Hawk)

That was a bait for you and only you, Little Hawk. I knew you couldn't resist.

If you would know me from my many posts on that theme you wouldn't need asking. I hate it if people use words like 'truth' for what is only their perception or their interpretation of something they have experienced or a theory or how they make sense of one bit of the world.

I use the word 'truth' only for facts and never for interpretations of facts.

Of course I have told my daughter when she was asking me what I know to be true without doubt: There are people who believe in god and others who don't. And I have told her I don't but she can decide for herself.

'Truth' I have here always used only for the basic facts that need no interpretation. 'Higher truth' or 'ultimate truth' for me is only a misleading label given by people for interpretations or belief systems they do not want to doubt any longer. That is for people I consider closed minded.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:35 PM

Rick,

In a New-Age approach to spirituality, a lot of people have picked up Black Elk Speaks and tried to take the words, translated by Black Elk's son and others, mediated by John Niehardt, and take meaning for their own lives. It can be seen generally as a rather pretentious approach, to appropriate someone else's spirituality. I see people trying to take shortcuts to what they see as an admirable world view and a what they naively see as a innocent or unburdoned (back to Eden?) approach to the world. In fact, many religions have what can be viewed as an "environmetnal component" and it might serve better if they look within their own culture and religion to find those things.

You will find that American Indians hold a wide range of opinions regarding Black Elk and his visions, and Neihardt's book is not the only source of those kinds of visions. It isn't a dead end, though for many EuroAmericans it is seen in a "historic" chapter in America's story. Different cultures and portions of society view dreams differently in level of importance. Waking or sleeping dreams or visions, as described in stories and ethnographic and anthropological texts can be taken in any number of ways, depending on who does the dreaming. I take power naps when I'm working on difficult papers because after what amounts to a brief period of deep relaxation and meditation, my thoughts sort themselves out and my task becomes clearer. I consider those times vital to how I think and work. Dreams that occur during long periods of sleep (REM) are what keep humans healthy and sane. Dismissing dreams and visions as a source of inspiration in any age is short-sighted.

What makes ideas formed during "conscious" time any more important than those that come from the unconscious? Some might say that the dreams are more honest, if reported honestly, than the things that men dream up in their waking hours. I can not represent the entire field of psychoanalysis and psychiatry in this thread, and the history of the interpretations of dreams, but there is much more to this than Freud and his take on dreams in the power structure of the Victorian-era.

In long (since "in short" rarely applies to my posts!) I'm not willing to toss religions because of anything to do with the origins of the content. Whether the content comes from human dreams, from spider prints on the sand, or from stories told by speaking rocks and animals, those origin stories of a people's spirituality are all important. I think the Bible is one of the most heavily mediated and altered (for purely political reasons) texts on the face of the planet so must point out the obvious--anyone using THAT as the "standard" of how a religion should operate is already starting with a crumbling foundation to their argument.

Wolfgang was responding to Little Hawk when he said Of course you can insist that you use any word in a completely different sense than dictionaries do. But by using the same word for different things the differences do not go away they only get blurred. Using only the word 'apples' for e.g. apples and oranges will not make differences disappear.

There isn't enough time this afternoon to give that marvelous observation the attention it diserves. This is getting to the core of so much human understanding and at the same time lack of understanding. It's the comprehension of the baggage that our languages contain, and the wonderful world of nuance. I will simply remark here that this field of Semiotics, of understanding the sign and the signifier and the signified (see about de Saussure here and here), has puzzled and intrigued scholars for decades, and has helped with a great deal of understanding of cultures "Other" than the one of reference (by whomever is casting their gaze at Others). Ruth Underhill, the famous ethnologist who wrote, among other things, Papago Woman, has a marvelous story that works here. Her "informant" was Maria Chona, a woman of what is now called the Tohono O'odham, who tired of so many questions from Underhill. At one point she told Underhill "the song is very short because we understand so much." In other words, the few words of the song contain all of the vital meaning necessary to convey everything needed, since all of the people who speak the language understand the concepts behind the few words. We can't do that in the global culture in which we live today. Just because so many of us speak English doesn't mean that the same pictures pop into all of our heads with the speaking or writing of certain words.

What "image" pops into your head with these words?

Tree-- what do you "see?"

Automobile-- what kind of vehicle pops into your head?

House--   what constitutes a house?

River-- how much water, or does water even flow in it year round?

Green-- what shade of green?

Spicy-- I think you get my drift--what constitutes "spicy" for you may not be the same for anyone else on this list.

Religion-- what practices constitute being called a religion?

god-- now there's a tough one.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 08:34 PM

A "cult" is just an organized religion with too few adherents to be in the mainstream. The functional definitions apply as well to the Boy Scouts and the Republican Party as they do to the Mormons or the Moonies. The Friends and the Presbyterians are in the same framework as the Sons of Mohammed. They all require huge gobs of conclusions be taken on faith rather than on reason. Usually they require the recognition of smallness of self compared to the Greatness of their figurehead, whatever it is. Usually, they advise you that any bad in your life comes from within and any blesisngs you experience come from them or their figurehead(s).

Go figger.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 09:40 PM

if it wasn't craft season, where I have to work instead of striving to compose my thoughts, I would have had a few choice comments about vague phrases like "... believe in something larger than yourself.", but Wolfgang has said it all pretty well....

Enough words sure can make it sound like you are saying something...but it's often like eating cotton candy..just-no-substance.

Carry on...perhaps I'll join you in 3 weeks or so, if this is still going on.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Pogo
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 09:18 PM

Is religion a form of mental illness?

Hell yeah. Christians are all crazy as bed bugs. The wheel's turnin' but the hamster's dead, ya dig?

mmmrrf... *scowls*

Religion ain't the problem, folks. People who wear their personal beliefs on their sleeve are...those who listen to the letter of the law rather than the spirit. And that goes for ALL beliefs, mind.


So if you don't mind...I'm gonna go convert some possums. Poor little heathens. I'll save their souls yet...

;O)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:16 PM

Wolfgang:

Do you think it is true that others know things? I mean in much the same way you do? Why do you think it is true?

It seems to me that in addressing this question, you have to step outside the traditional realm of facts and into the realm of the kind of truth which makes facts possible -- namely the ways of knowing and the transactions between viewpoints and thier agreements.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:43 PM

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I want to offer a thought for what it is owrth.

It seems to me that in any population or congregation of people you will find a small number in the far reaches of madness, and a gradually increasing number in the zones of more and more sane. The largest number will be middling sane, perhaps occasioanlly mad but keeping to an average temperament. They will not be totally reactive but will have creatiesparks form time to time. They will tend to filter things for the better, trying to be kind and as wise as they can given their culture. A smaller number will be wiser and more sane still, seeking insight and integrating information at an above average clip. A small number will be highly aware, insightful, creative, balanced and whole under all conditions.

In other words, sanity is probably distributed in a bell-curve.

I suggest that the degree of other-determination versus self-determination follows the same curve. The lowest on the sanity scale are probably the most plagued with externally defined world views which they are not permitted or able to weigh against their own observations. The large clump in the middle have a mix of prescribed data and personally observed data and occasionally even create their own data. They are sort of balanced between inherited and other-determined or authoritarian systems of viewing things, and their own free perspectives.

On the right end, a smaller population are highly certain of what they have seen, compare received viewpoints against their own certainty and reject what makes no sense, seek new viewpoints and entertain new ways of seeing things but are not afraid to let go of any data that doesn't add up, and create new data if they find they are having new experiences beyond the usual vocabulary.

At any point on these parallel curves of distribution you can get al kinds of noise of people asserting rightness, demanding compliance, presenting screeds of researched blather about all the significance, and so on. But that is just as true of the most insane views as it is of the most sane. So large amounts of assertive literature doesn't really say much about one or another.

But I do thing that the truest and most transcendent religious perceptions come from the rare individuals who are furthest along that bell curve to the right.

Almost everything to the left of that zone is largely sound and fury, and while it may result in mayhem (because it is being dramatized and acted out) it will not, in fact result in Truth in the Platonic or transcendental sense. This implies that (a) a small number of highly sane people may be capable of religious insight which is genuinely helpful, truthful, transcendental and genuine and (b) a large number of variously less sane people will have a much larger number of altered, twisted, authoritarian, oppressive or even destructive religious-sounding perspectives which do not contribute to human well-being or understanding no matter how loudly they are asserted.

I do hope this makes some degree of sense.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 05:13 AM

Do you think it is true that others know things? I mean in much the same way you do? Why do you think it is true? (Amos)

Yes, to the first two questions. Huh, to the third. And to all three, why do you ask that, what are you getting at?

step outside the traditional realm of facts and into the realm of the kind of truth... (Amos)

That's what I mean when I talk about 'higher truths' as a mislabeling for 'belief system'.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:14 AM

You're going away from the Original question - it was ORGANISED Religion .
Peoples own personal beliefs which are hopefully harmless personal crutches to help reconcile their own place in this world , God , Spirituality and behaviour in this life ,were not being questioned although - it's your right to seek to expand the discussion !.
It's the thought of how Millions of people can be controlled by these Organised Religions and sometimes to commit atrocities / start Wars etc etc. in the name of the highest Diety in which they believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:16 AM

Religion is Myth-Information. Atheism is Myth-Understood.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: *daylia*
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:23 AM

Is Religion a form of Mental Illness?   

Organized religions are more like deadly flu bugs, specifically designed by any given cultures' "spiritual authorities" to distract, delude and devour the unwashed masses.   Sometimes these "spiritual viruses" do contribute to full-blown cases of psychosis / neurosis in vulnerable individuals. More often, though, they manifest as sporadic but predictable - and usually quite calculated - epidemics of institutionalized, sanctified social illness - such as fundamentalism, intolerance, Inquisitions, tribal (rather than global) mentality propogating hatred and "holy wars" etc.

That being said, what I'd REALLY like to discuss is ...

Is Illness a form of Mental Religion?

Maybe I'll start a new thread, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:03 AM

Maybe that would be a good idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 12:07 PM

*Daylia* - You've got a way with words !!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ooh-Aah2
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:24 PM

Spot on Daylia. What I am indignant about is that innocent people with mental disablities should be lumped in with morons who have perfectly good mental equipment who nevertheless believe in what in the end are fairytales.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:04 PM

Ooh-Aah2, how does it feel to be god in your own little world? To decide whose beliefs are valid and whose aren't? This thread is perhaps now entering the lunatic-fringe part of the discussion, with the inmates running the asylum. If you believe that someone else's religion is a fairytale then you're perfectly rational, right? Declaring yourself agnostic or atheist doesn't put you above the conversation looking in, as much as you might want to position yourself thus. Anyone who participates is positioned somewhere within the context of the discussion and must take that into account.

I will point out right here that it is not my position to accept or reject your religion (or lack of it) but to state that your approach is non-scholarly when compared to the discourse that has gone before on this thread. It's not the beliefs that are expressed that are the problem, but the lack of critical thinking that goes into gushing out such overarching generalizations. Frankly, daylia and I have clashed on many occasions, usually to do with her use of totally undifferentiated source material.

This is written in a dispassionate tone, and with resignation that the timbre and nature of the conversation may well change from this point out. Too bad. It has been an enjoyable thread.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: annamill
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:12 PM

Respect of another persons beliefs is something I hold dear. The old saying "I may not agree with what you're saying, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it." is, to me, a basic human ideal.

I expect the same from others. To respect MY beliefs, I mean. I'm not a believer in a higher diety. I think too much of our pain and happiness has been attributed to this higher power. I'm not here to argue the existence of this power, but to discuss it as a mental illness.

I recently mentioned the book "Art of Loving" by Erick Fromm. His point of view closely coinsides with my viewpoint. There are those who need God. Who need to have a purpose in life. A reason to exist. We can't just be grass fertilizer. I mean a basic NEED. Which has to be filled. I would not think of taking away "God" from those who need a god, then I would think of taking food away from someone.

I know people who strongly believe in a god but deny this god through anger, pain, depression. God is blamed for everything bad in their lives. So they do nothing to improve their lot. Just go downhill.

This can cause a very strong mental illness, I feel.

I don't depend on "God" to make my life better, or give "God" gratitude when something good happens in my life. I depend on me and have a strong faith in the goodness of other human beings.

I'm not stupid, I know not everyone can be trusted. Some are in too much pain to be trusted. I'm talking basically.

I walk through life with a very optimistic view of life based on this faith. Maybe I'm too simple minded. So far, so good though.

If someones life is controlled by a belief, or someone needs to impose their beliefs on others, that's when it becomes a serious problem and
possibly (I'm not pretending to be a expert) might be considered mental illness.

I think for every person, there is a different idea of what our existence is all about, a different concept of existence. I told you mine. I'm the brother of a blade of grass. No more, no less.

You have to remember that I'm a child of the sixties, love, flower power 'n all that. ;-)

That's why I always add
Love, Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:50 AM

Respect of another persons beliefs is something I hold dear. The old saying "I may not agree with what you're saying, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it." is, to me, a basic human ideal.

Amen to that.

Sadly some (even on this open discussion forum) would think this is dangerous left-wing claptrap.

The idea that folk can believe and have every right express what they wish sounds fine - but this freedom religious or otherwise - is a difficult concept in practice. In my view it is rather vital that we work hard on getting this generally accepted - before it is too late.

Don't want to go too far down this road in this thread but most folk would acept that what they read or see is a matter for them to choose and would not wish someone else to censor to protect them. But then the argument of whether children should also be exposed to this, is brought in. Probably understandably, we then agree that some limits should be placed to protect our children from input that they may not fully understand and concepts that they may not be ready for.

At the same time we appear to have little concern about organised religous faiths being taught to our children as fact. Firm facts are very important to you when you are young - as much else is uncertain, so it is little surprise that our young are receptive to being told comforting (if non-factual) beliefs, from people and communities they trust.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ooh-Aah2
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 04:20 AM

Presumably I have the right to believe that other's beliefs are fairy tales! Oh good.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 11:09 AM

The Old Saying referred to above - was it Voltaire ? Whenever I see it I believe it to be - but sadly can't remember for certain.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: annamill
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:19 PM

Yes, it's Voltaire. BTW, off the subject but very topical he also said
"It is dangerous to be right in matters in which the established authorities are wrong."

Funny huh?

Love, Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 06:57 PM

There is a truly decent and balanced article I just read in a recent Time Magazine. THE GOD GENE----about a reasearcher who has found the gene that produces those fellings in folks that have it. Seems to cause chemicals to impinge on areas of the brain. So, after all, it may really be in our heads.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 01:46 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 02:27 AM

oops - clicked above by mistake.

Wolfgang - You say you send your child to school for religious instruction but that later on she can decide for herself - HUH?

Religious instruction (don't you mean indoctrination?) when taught to young children becomes part of their vision of the world. If your child decides not to conform, there will be lots of doubt and guilt. Why do you send you child for this type of instruction if you are not a believer? Wouldn't it be easier to let her find God on her own? Or not find God (whichever the case may be)?

I wasn't baptised or indoctrinated by any specific church. I do, however, believe. I remember, "Seek and you shall find." If you don't seek, you don't find. If you do seek, you will find. Seems simple to me.

Of course, each of us will find something different. So much for one God. The essence is within all of us. We can choose goodness and light or dwell in darkness and despair.

Religion might be another name for obsessive compulsive disorder and taken to extremes may manifest itself as omnipotence.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:16 AM

Wolfgang - You say you send your child to school for religious instruction but that later on she can decide for herself - HUH?

Religious instruction (don't you mean indoctrination?) when taught to young children becomes part of their vision of the world. If your child decides not to conform, there will be lots of doubt and guilt. Why do you send you child for this type of instruction if you are not a believer? Wouldn't it be easier to let her find God on her own? Or not find God (whichever the case may be)?

Wolfgang said.

My wife and I are both not religious but we send our daughter to the religious instruction in school. She will be able to decide for herself later. But when she asked me last year whether there is a god I told her the truth.

AND LATER

Of course I have told my daughter when she was asking me what I know to be true without doubt: There are people who believe in god and others who don't. And I have told her I don't but she can decide for herself.

This seems to be fair enough. The religous instruction (in one faith) that used to be the case in schools in the UK has given over to what is now called Religeous Education. This is broader and covers the whole question of religion including all faiths' If this is the type of instruction that Wolfgang's daughter is receiving, and I suspect that it is, it would seem that Wolfgang's position is a fair and sensible one. If it were mor on the lines of indoctrination - then it is also clear that Wolfgang - with his views - is ready and on hand to provide a balance to this

1] There are dangers but schools do face a problem, do they teach religion just as part of and with regard to its important effect on other subjects like history?

2] Do they teach the subject in isolation?

3] Or do they not touch it with a bargepole and leave pupils in ignorance of what is at least part of the most fundmental questions of existence?

For it is not as if children are not interested in finding explanations for 'life the universe and everything'.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:18 AM

Like I said before, yes it is...

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:07 AM

My children attend public schools here in Texas. These are schools where the local dominant Southern Baptist population has managed to exclude Halloween from even being mentioned because it is the antithesis of their christian belief. They pray at school board meetings, they (religiously) insist on the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of every day, probably so they can get that "under god" bit in. They will insert (their) religion wherever they can, and exclude anything they see as counter to their message. So don't imagine that just because you DON'T go to a "religious" school that you're free of it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 03:03 AM

Seems to me with so many religions floating about, that religious instruction should be left to the parents or the church. Unless of course you want your child to be instructed in a faith which may not be your own.

Seems odd to me. Here we celebrate the 'traditional' Canadian holidays but also Dwali, Chinese New Year, The Moon Festival and
Hannakah. Just what type of religious instruction would you give when your students represent thirteen different language groups? Religous instruction in public schools? Unbelievable. Best we can do is compare and contrast. Then we celebrate our similarities.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 03:08 AM

There is a downside to this new approach of letting the children decide for themselves, whilst they are living in a community that never had this choice as children.

My daughter who was not exposed to a daily school assembly and the saying of the Lord's Prayer, complains to us that see does not know these things and feels 'out of it' when such things are said at funerals, weddings etc. She also thinks (wrongly) that she is the only one who does not know the words to the hymns.

It could be worse. She could have had (at a certain age) physical mutilations imposed upon her by the collective faith of her community. But physical scars are not the only ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 05:56 AM

But doesn't Organised Religion and it's brainwashing cause this sort of Outburst - "TV network CBS was fined $550,000 (£300,000) by watchdogs after more than 542,000 complaints were made about Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".
Organisers have promised there will be no repeat of her nipple-baring incident that sparked thousands of complaints on US TV's most-watched broadcast."
For goodness sake - a womans nipple ?? and this from a country which pours out massive amounts of pornographic films and material.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 10:29 AM

Yeah, that's pretty silly, isn't it?

There was a news story on NPR over the weekend about the complaints that came it to the FCC about a program on CBS that had such low ratings it had been cancelled. The reporter was curious about the complaints, and through the freedom of information act found that there were only a couple of hundred complaints (all filed on religious grounds), and when the text of these complaints were viewed, two were completely original and all of the rest were the cut and paste of the text written by one other writer. So there were actually only three original complaints against this cancelled program and over which the FCC leveled something like a $10,000 fine. It's completely looney that the FCC seems to have no built in common sense. I suppose we could all start writing to the FCC to tell them what programs we DO like, to balance out the number of complaints?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Snuffy
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 12:29 PM

Mental - maybe not.
Physical - almost certainly!

Holy smoke not so hot

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 08:25 PM

Just caught the last in a BBC 4 series of Jonathan Miller talking to equally articulate people on the subjest of atheism.

On the subject of relgion being a physical illness - the line I rememered from tonight's show was that - Religion was a kind of moral Viagra................

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 09:25 PM

The Shambles -

I was one of those kids that was allowed to decide for myself.

When I started having questions and doubts, my parents encouraged me to go to Sunday school at the church around the corner. My mom took great pains to make sure I had the right clothes and that I would 'fit in'. I liked it. I also attended other churches nearby. I loved the Sunday morning ritual.

As I grew older I started questioning the ministers. When they couldn't adequately answer my questions, I decided not to go through with my first communion.

Now that I am an older, I realize that I just wanted to be like everyone else. I'm grateful that my parents allowed me to explore and, in fact, encouraged it. I am especially happy to have found that I have a personal relation with God/Goddess that nobody could have given to me. Church is good for community but it doesn't meet everyone's needs.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 01:19 AM

Sorry to be late responding to Little Hawk, but I would ask him to look again, very carefully, at the context in which I used the word "fallacy." I did not use it in the way he has read it. In fact as a general rule I try to use words fairly accurately, which is a much sounder basis for communication than his own method, which he seems to have borrowed from Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland: "When I use a word, it means exactly what I say it means, neither more nor less."

(As an aside, I did myself notice, as I expect others did, that where Wolfgang said he had told his daughter the truth, he did not enlarge. I was not sure that this had been laid as a trap, but I did then skip down the posts to see if Little Hawk had picked up on it, which of course he had....)

What Shambles said about religious education needs just a small qualification. Certainly in the UK's state schools, RE covers the ground of the main religions without requiring or expecting a commitment to any. That's fine. But many schools in the UK are part funded by organised churches - overwhelmingly the Anglican and Catholic churches. Again there is an introduction to the beliefs of the main religions, but on the basis (not quite in so many words) that one is right and the rest are wrong. Thus the first stated aim of the school my daughter attends is to turn out good Catholics.

It was my daughter's choice that she goes to that school, and I'm entirely relaxed about it. She will work out for herself what she wants to believe. I was similarly relaxed about her being an altar girl at her local church for some years. I happened to know she would always rather be on stage than in the audience, and that the novelty would eventually wear off.

It is of some concern to me that this present so-called Labour government is now actively encouraging more faith-based schools as a way of getting more education funded from outside the state's coffers.
Indeed some schools - known as academies - are now being built, owned and managed entirely by private funders who appoint their own governing bodies and determine the ethos of their schools. This is an irresistible opportunity for, for wealthy religious fundamentalists who would not normally have a platform in the UK.

One such academy in north-east England, with Tony Blair's blessing, has abandoned the teaching of evolution and replaced it with the Old Testament creation story, taught as fact. The owner of that school promised millions of pounds for a similar state-of-the-art academy in Doncaster. But parents in the community, to their credit, protested and the local authority told the religious nut to take a jump with his millions. The town would rather make do with its existing, inadequate facilities than have folklore pumped into impressionable minds as fact.

I realise that all this would be small beer in the US, where several education authorities are already in the hands of the creationists. But as with everything else, where America is today, the UK will be tomorrow. This is more true than ever for as long as the unedifying Bush-Blair love-in continues.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 08:24 AM

Dianavan,

thanks for asking, for that made me think about the reasons I have. Shambles has given a good part of my possible response.

Religious instruction in schools is (mostly) fairly undogmatic. It teaches ethical questions, the stories of the bible, and faiths in general. Specific dogmas of one particular religion are only a minor part. When I went to school for one long year for instance we learned about and discussed the better known religions of the world (including communism, by the way). I loved that year most of all.

I don't believe in anything supernatural, but the general ethical teachings (nearly all) of Christianity ("love thy neighbour...") are dear to me. I see nothing wrong in them and nothing an atheist should not follow. And the Bible stories? They are a part of our cultural heritage like our Grimm stories and fairy tales and our songs. Our language has so many expressions from the Bible or the folk tales that I think my daughter will be richer if she knows the background. When I read to her (or tell her) the folk tales I do not give a single thought whether the content is factually true. The best I personally hope for is that she considers these stories another type of fairy tales but looks for the good lessons of morale often found in the bible stories (of the NT).

I'd prefer a non-denominational general ethics/philosophy/beliefs course in school like some other Germsn lands have. But I have to take what I can get and whenever we get the impression that the teacher of religion is too dogmatic or or turning indoctrinational we'll take her out.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:15 AM

I agree completely with Wolfgang's reasons for the choices he made regarding his children's schooling. This idiomatic cultural baggage is the lingua franca we must deal with. The mythological and linguistic elements must be taken into account to raise a child with adequate cultural literacy. It's something that English-as-second-language speakers also have to sort out, even if they don't practice the dominant religion among English speakers.

I would not go so far as to send my children to a religious school, but make a point of discussing the occasions when they or I myself recognize some new (to them) use of biblical or liturgical references in everyday usage. I don't know a great deal about a lot of religions, but we also have discussed (at least in passing) what we know about other religions or spiritual practices going on around us. We try to be open minded and look to good sources when the need arises. I have a few reference books on the subject of World Religions in the shelves next to where the kids do their homework.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 02:56 PM

Wolfgang,
Teaching religion in school- it may well have changed I don't see that on the TV when I see kids busily reciting the Koran, or, thinking back to my own days - needing recite the Catechism by heart. Why do organised Religions need to exercise this level of control, supported by all the willing people who range from very decent humanist people to the nutcase zealots.
Also Wolfgang , it may also worth be remembering in historical terms when you cite the German lands , what an easy passage Mr. H had with the R.Catholics in Bavaria when he was starting on his road to infamy.
Were they already a captive audience because of their religious indoctrination ?.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 02:47 AM

Thus the first stated aim of the school my daughter attends is to turn out good Catholics.

This is not an attack on this particular faith but is there such a thing? From the experience of knowing a number of my friends who did attend - these schools do seem to produce guilt-ridden ones. Is that not more their main aim?

Two of these friends I remember well, were most concerned when a new priest came to their area and was making a point of contacting and visiting all the (lapsed) possible members of his congregation. As neither of them were activly religeous or attended church for many years - I could not really understand why these men, now in their 30s, were as concerned as they both obviously were about a possible visit from this priest and how to deal with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 05:42 AM

Apologies Wolfgang - I didn't mean to be Anonymous 24 Nov 04 - 02:56 PM - sometimes my name doesn't enter automatically. Incidentally I hope you will realise that from previous messages I have owned-up ,that, I was educated / indoctrinated a Roman Catholic, albeit, as they refer to them these days, as, a "lapsed " one.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 10:39 AM

Local election results at the end of the Weimar Republic

24 Nov 04 - 02:56 PM, if you look at the actual results from different lands in Germany in the same year (1932) you see easily the pattern: the higher the percentage of Roman Catholics the lower the percentage of votes for the NSDAP.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 12:35 PM

Wolfgang, the frightening thing for me is that you sound as if you actually believe those figures & statistics , and you had them too quickly to hand.
In times of upheaval, figures & statistics can be massaged no matter which country one lives - just ask a Ukrainian.
My view was formed by conversations with German people ( who were very open about the subject ) especially in around the Hofbrauhaus in Munich in the early 70's.
Nothing sinister, I was curious how Herr H. was able to get the attention and support of such a large amount of people, and basically ( getting back to the thread ) part of the attraction was , he was setting one organised religion against another.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 11:35 AM

GUEST, it is disingenuous to suggest that a link to election results is suspicious when everything in the world is at the fingertips of anyone who can conduct a lucid search. Your "frightening thing" is a little fear mongering on your own, non?

I also consider the information offered by a native and a scholar a bit more credible than the remembrances of a GUEST who lived there for a while and hung out in the bars 30 years ago.

Pardon me for being a skeptic. And while I'm at it, I'll sign my moniker (why don't you do the same?)


SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: dianavan
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 04:32 PM

I agree that 'This idiomatic cultural baggage is the lingua franca we must deal with. The mythological and linguistic elements must be taken into account to raise a child with adequate cultural literacy.'

In our school, the children gather in the halls at Christmas to sing carols. It became apparent to me that my ESL students were learning the words but that the songs had no meaning for them. I brought a little wooden nativity scene to school and let them play with it. Soon we had questions that I could answer or that the other children could answer. I gave them the basic story so that they could begin to understand our songs and traditions. I was 'looking over my shoulder' the whole time waiting for someone to call me on the political correctness of this situation but it never happened.

Yes, it is important to have some background when learning a new language.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Wolfgang
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 11:43 AM

Wolfgang, the frightening thing for me is that you sound as if you actually believe those figures & statistics , and you had them too quickly to hand. (26 Nov 04 - 12:35 PM)

Too quickly??? Now you're getting silly, 26 Nov 04 - 12:35 PM.

I tell you two closely guarded secrets:
(1) There are search machines around the web with the help of which you can search for documents with certain strings of characters in them
(2) I'm a native speaker of German and therefore I know which words to expect in such a document.

The rest is two minutes of my time.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 02:35 PM

I wish I had more time for this lovely thread, but I'm too darned busy today! Evidently, I HAVE a life after all... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 04:45 PM

"Is religion a form of mental illness?" If you're referrin' to the Jehovah's Witnesses...Yes! If you're referrin' to gorillas dancing the Dum-Dum so as to improve their possibilities of wreakin' mayhem and havoc and crushing their enemies...No!

You gotta hedge your bets when it comes to this sort of thing. Some religions work better than others.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 04:00 AM

It seems that in a great number of these posts, religious belief and organized religion is understood to be some sort of mindless abandonment of self to strict obedience to some sort of fundamentalist doctrine. In other words, religion is defined as fundamentalism; and since fundamentalism is bad, religion must be bad.

I suppose that it follows that if religions have doctrines, then religious education must be indoctrination.

I dunno. That's just not my experience. I had 16 years of Catholic education; and half of that was in a seminary, studying to become a priest. I suppose that some of my teachers were more interested in indoctrination than in education, but that wasn't the case with most of them. I learned to view Catholic teachings, practices, and organization with a respectful but critical eye - like a concerned citizen might view his country when the "other party" is in power. I ended up part of the "loyal opposition" in the Catholic Church, although I've always been proud to be a Catholic.

In my town, the Christian religions fall generally into two groups - the born-agains, and the "mainstream" Christians and Catholics. The born-agains have their joint activities; and we mainstreamers have ours. The "mainstream" denominations all have some ivory-tower fundamentalists; but most of the people in these denominations seem to be quite open to a wide spectrum of thought, while feeling most comfortable in their own tradition and form of religious expression. they also seem to have a concern for those in the community who are in need.

Anyway, my point is that religion and fundamentalism are not necessarily synonymous, and that we non-fundamentalist religious people can actually be reasonably stable and productive citizens (...given proper supervision and medication...).

A beer now and then is all I need.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 12:57 PM

Joe ,
I like what you say .What worries me is that many people in Organised Religions - are in doctrinated into believeing other religions are truly bad or not the true way. I as a young Catholic was forbidden to enter any other church or Sunday School .
I was checked every Monday morning by Nuns as to whether I had attended a combination of Confession ,Mass and Holy Communion and firmly beaten if I hadn't been to any , and especially if I said I had - but had'nt attended . They used to check attendance by asking supplementary / "catch " questions - who was the Priest or what colours were the vestments.
The Nuns and Priests who oversaw this behaviour were evil nut cases .
I watched the other day as some Catholics or Church of England ??returned to the Turkish Orthodox Church some 800 Year-old relics of a 2 Saints . Apparently they had been stolen during the Crusades
The pomp, costumes and ceremony, must have cost a fortune.
Do they actually believe 800 year-old bones are really the same bones and that they are magic or somesuch ?
I reckon you must be "miles-round-the-bend" to accept all THAT and besides the whole thing is offensive when these Rich Organised Religions cannot look after their flock's corporal needs, by instilling into people that it's OK to keep having loads of children especially to those who can ill-afford them - and, who in his right mind would go get advice from a Celebate male ( a Priest ) for marital problems ?.
Frightening .

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 04:45 AM

I can't deny that all the bad stuff happens. Sometimes, it does seem to be the rule, rather than the exception. But having worked in the Catholic Church all my life, I think I have had a wide variety of experience - and most of my experiences have been quite good.

My best Catholic experience is my Friday volunteer job at a women's hospitality center in the poor part of town. It's run by four nuns (ages 55-75), and they coordinate a volunteer team of some 100 people. Our motto is "hospitality with dignity," and that's what we offer. "My" nuns are what nuns should be - and most of the nuns I know are like them. They do their very best to serve people, and they don't tolerate church leaders who do less.

Now, I have to say that in my experience, most nuns are extraordinary, and most priests I encounter are mediocre (but still they're pretty good people). Most of the priests in Sacramento are foreign-born, and that's part of the problem. I've often said that that as an ex-seminarian, it's my duty to "keep the priests honest." I've been hard on a number of priests, pushing them to give better service to the people. Most of them respond quite favorably to my pushing. These foreign-born priests can be awfully lonely, and I think a lot of Catholics keep priests on a pedestal and don't treat them as human beings.

There are some priests I would talk with about marital problems, but very few of them. I'd be more likely to talk with "my" nuns. When I was going through a divorce, I did talk with a priest - but he had a PhD in psychology. I think that for most of us, we seek counseling because we need somebody to listen, not to give advice. I know many celibate priests and nuns who are very good, impartial listeners.

But in short, I guess I'd say that churches do have shortcomings, and they do have employees/priests/nuns/ministers/whatever who are inadequate - but all institutions and businesses have shortcomings, so why should we expect churches to be any different?

I worked in a five-person government office during my last years of employment. In that office, there were two employees who were excellent, two who were mediocre, and one who was a fraud. I think that's about standard for a workplace. The women's center where I volunteer had six full-time staff members (four nuns and two lay women), and all of them are excellent. I can't say the same for all church organizations, but I do think that there are a number of extraordinary people doing church work.

As for the 800-yr-old bones, I have mixed feelings. I don't think relics have any powers, but I do think it's fascinating that we have bones that have been held sacred for 800 years. There's probably a lot of history and experience connected to those old bones, and I do think there is value in preserving and respecting them. All the ceremony and pageantry is cool, too. It's a celebration of heritage, and I think it ought to be done up right. Hollywood is certainly more extravagant in its pageantry. Is it really necessary for churches to be austere and sterile, to leave the pageantry to the media?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 07:01 AM

There is no doubt that those following organised religion do very good work. The fairly obvious point is that following these or holding a strong personal faith - is not a prerequisite for doing good work.

Equally good works are undertaken by many non religeous bodies and individuals. Perhaps these folk are able to concentrate fully on these tasks and not be compromised by the demands of their organised calling? Or possibly sometimes be distracted when the the voices in their heads and the visions in their eyes - conflict with the feelings in their hearts?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 09:49 AM

Joe and Shambles I'm sure you're both right to highlight the merits of the individuals - but my frustration comes from ( say ) watching last nights news from Iraq where Sunnis killed Shi'ites outside the Mosque.
What drives people to horribly kill people of a similar Organised Religion ( as has happened in many disturbed parts of the world ) - purely because they think the other( branch of the )religion and it's members do not have the right to exist.
You don't need me to catalogue all the recent Religious occurrences in various parts of the world of this kind , and therefore what I was asking is "Are these people mentally ill ?, and, if so has Organised Religion made them this way?.
What else would drive anyone to contemplate and prepare to wilfully take peoples lives - just because you think your method of practising a religion is correct, and others is not?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ooh-Aah2
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 04:04 PM

Re. relics, I share the views of the last Pagan Roman Emperor, Julian, who referred to Christian churches as 'charnel houses'. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 05:47 PM

Habitually posting to Mudcat Cafe more than 25 times daily is a form of mental illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:56 PM

"Are these people mentally ill ?, and, if so has Organised Religion made them this way?.

This question is a bit like the chicken or the egg.

It is human beings that first make the organised religions. If they are mentally ill - the religion is unlikely to be rational.

If the founders are not mentally ill - there is nothing stopping the mentally ill from joining later.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: akenaton
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 07:18 PM

The quest for "Everlasting life",which is the basis of all religions, is the product of what I like to call "gods little joke"...the human brain.

This massive brain has the ability to steer us to true happiness or absolute degradation and disaster. So salvation or damnation is in our own hands or heads

Whether this could be construed as a form of mental illness,I just dont know.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 07:27 PM

Oh, Lord, forgive my little jokes on Thee;
And I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

Robert Frost, IIRC

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 06:14 AM

The American obsession with female breasts is a form of mental illness. :-) (probably due to the Orwellian imposition of bottle-feeding on the last few suffering generations of North American infants).

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 06:14 AM

Gigantic breasts, that is...

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 12:21 PM

Ya wanna watch that stuff, bottle-feeder trash-talker! You're messing with my religion!!

Fr. Tacitus Aureolus, neophyte aspirant
Temple of the Golden Curve

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 07:02 PM

Wouldnt it be terrible if there were more mentally ill people to tidy up our streets at their own cost, try to be exemplary neighbours and bring their kids with them to meetings? Your not making much of an argument.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah2
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 05:57 PM

I can't stand people who bring kids to meetings - the damn things scream and wail all the way through.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:10 AM

That depends on the kid.

Republicanism is a form of mental illness. So is Democratism (is there such a word?). American elections are an enormous convulsion of mental illness on a national scale, and the American electorate needs emergency therapy NOW!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:19 AM

Maybe it's the ideologues who are mentally ill - those who mindlessly tie themselves to an ideology or guru, whoever or whatever it is. They have somehow lost the ability to question themselves - and that's when they're dangerous.

We do look to various philosophies and theologies to answer the unanswerable questions of life - that's a natural consequence of being human. When we see absolute truth only in our own ideology, we become dangerous.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,daylia
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 07:12 AM

We do look to various philosophies and theologies to answer the unanswerable questions of life - that's a natural consequence of being human.

There's the rub. The "answers" lie beyond theology and philosophy. Applying mental gymnastics to spiritual questions just creates confusion and argument, while generating even more questions. These approaches have failed, quite demonstrably, for millennia.

When we gonna wake up?

When we see absolute truth only in our own ideology, we become dangerous.

This is a possibility, depending on the ideology. An ideology of say, love, noninterference and nonviolence, is pretty benign.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 11:00 AM

Then too, unduly worrying about Britney Spears' latest marriage or what Ben Affleck is up to is probably a form of mental illness too...but on a pretty trivial level. I'm thinking about the magazines at the grocery checkout, and the people who actually buy them! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,God
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 02:05 AM

Tut tut

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 06:57 AM

Tut, tut, indeed. Joe Offer misspoke when he said:

We do look to various philosophies and theologies to answer the unanswerable questions of life

That should be:

We do look to various philosophies and theologies to ponder the unanswerable questions of life.

That was what I meant to say, but I was having a lapse in my usual profound verbiage...
They may not have answers, but they can come up with some interesting hypotheses to consider. And yeah, I suppose that's somewhat of an answer.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:57 AM

...to ponder the imponderable... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:27 PM

Ayup, Little Hawk. Exactly so.

I ain't done yet. What various philosophies and theologies are supposed to do, is help people to see things from a variety of perspectives, to look more deeply into the lives we live and find meaning in them. "Ideology" is a different thing - that involves swearing loyalty to a code of answers and submitting to the authority of whoever is in power. Ideologues hate philosophers and theologians - but too often, the ideologues take over the power structures of churches and political parties.

Philosophers and theologians are busy contemplating daisies, and they have little use for positions of power - so we get stuck with ideologues at the top of many of our churches and political parties. Philosophers and theologians don't make very good administrators, so maybe it's good that they're not at the top. Perhaps its our mistake in looking at structures from the top, instead of from the grass roots.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:56 PM

Philosophers and theologians are busy contemplating daisies, and they have little use for positions of power - so we get stuck with ideologues at the top of many of our churches and political parties. Philosophers and theologians don't make very good administrators, so maybe it's good that they're not at the top. Perhaps its our mistake in looking at structures from the top, instead of from the grass roots.


Joe I can't really believe you (of all people) are writing this stuff.............

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:35 PM

Some philosophers do make good administrators, Joe, but you are right that power structures are usually taken over by idealogues (and pragmatists), and that leads to trouble.

Shambles, perhaps you have never taken the time to contemplate a daisy with proper attention. :-) With a sufficiently quieted mind (unknown to most people) you could see a number of the grander archetypes of the Universe revealed in a daisy. This is obvious to the enlightened, but meaningless to the unenlightened...or the "clever", as they are sometimes called.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 06:11 PM

"To a mountain daisy"....On turning one down with the plough...April 1786.

Wee modest crimson tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure,
          Thy slender stem;
To spare thee noo is past ma pow'r
          Thou bonnie gem.

Alas! its no thy neebour sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet
Bending thee'mang the dewy weet
             W'i' speckled breast,
When upward springing, blythe to greet
             The purpling east.

Cauld blewthe bitter biting North
Upon thy early humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
                Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
                Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield
High sheltring woods and wa's maun shield,
But thou,beneath the randombield
                O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble field,
                Unseen, alane.

There in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snowy bosom sun-ward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
                In humble guise,
But now the share uptears thy bed,
               And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet flowr't o' the rural shade,
By loves simplicity betrayed,
               And guileless trust,
Till she like thee, all soiled is laid
               Low in the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard
On lifes rough ocean luckless starr'd
Unskilful he to note the card
             Of prudent lore
Till billows rage, and galesblow hard
               And whelm him o'er.

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n
                To mis'ry's brink,
Till wrench'd of every stay but heav'n
                He, ruin'd, sink!

Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine -- no distant date,
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate
                Full on thy bloom,
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
                Shall be thy doom!


Robert Burns ......Best wishes to Joe and Hawk.....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 07:28 PM

Well, I didn't say that  I  was a philosopher/theologian, Shambles. It has already been determined that I am a ruthless machiavellian despot. I do admire the philosophers and theologians, though - and then I send them off in chains to be burned at the stake, and I crush their monutain daisies beneath my heel...

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:08 PM

Some philosophers do make good administrators, Joe, but you are right that power structures are usually taken over by idealogues (and pragmatists), and that leads to trouble.

As for pragmatists - this is is a word that is now used to mean pratictical people - and not people like me who spend quite a lot of time thinking about the place of daisies in the world.

The word is used now to describe a practical approach - but the roots of it really means and describes those who like to mind other people's business. Where these people get to administrate - whatever they are trying to administer tends to get lost to the process of administration. The Spainish Inquistion is good example.   

Which no one expects...............

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:11 PM

Yes, Joe, again and yet again! The finest and truest of heart are cynically used and then cast aside by the little minds to whom they lighted the way...and condemned by men not fit to walk in the dust of their shoes. As happened at Rouen in 1431. As happened to Jesus and many others.

Akenaton, thanks! Great poem.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 01:47 AM

Well, I didn't say that I was a philosopher/theologian, Shambles. It has already been determined that I am a ruthless machiavellian despot.

-Joe Offer-

Not too sure if the former or the latter has even been claimed let alone been determined. However, what probably worries me just as much, is your apparent certainty that you are not ruthless machiavellian despot or could never turn into one.

In the same way that other's certainty before - has allowed them to think that their ruthless oppressions, (based only on their beliefs) were perfectly justified and just jolly good fun, when they were lighting the fires and tightening the screws on the rack.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 03:46 AM

Or when forcing someone to sit in the 'comfy' chair.

We may possibly have been able to reach heaven - or at least the stars - long ago if ruthless machiavellian despot Popes, had not been allowed to declare that stating the fact that the earth went around the sun - was heresy.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 07:16 PM

RELIGION

Religion is a defense against having a religious experience.

             Joseph Campbell quoting Carl Jung
                        The Power of Myth

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 08:11 PM

still not profound after being posted in two threads...but still sorta cute.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: *daylia*
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 08:46 PM

I still want to know if Illness is a form of Mental Religion.

I suspect so.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 11:00 PM

Bill D:

I disagree. It is deeply profound, IMHO! DO you think of it as mere word-play?

Perhaps a religious experience is not consistent with your disciplined and logical world-view?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Curator
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 09:54 AM

Having spent 26 years working in psychiatry there is no doubt about the connect between mental illness and religion. Saw it and tried to treat it.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 09:58 AM

(tried to post this at 12PM EDT, but Mudcat quit as I was typing)


"deeply profound"? *shrug* We can simply differ, but I will say that no, I don't think it is 'merely' wordplay. It obviously makes a statement about the Human psyche which may, in some cases, explain an attitude, but it seems to me it also depends on one's having a prior particular notion of what religion and 'religious experience' are...or should be.

It is not whether *I* have had, or can have a religious experience, but whether the aphorism can be defended in its sorta absolutist form.
"Religion is.." doesn't allow for much latitude. Can't religion be a LOT more than that? And can't many people espouse religion who do NOT use it in a defensive mode?...etc...etc...

I do see the point of the aphorism, and I even agree that it has a 'ring' of relevance to it: I just don't see the succinct, narrow construction of the phrasing as having much universal force. Perhaps 'cute' was a bit too dismissive, but I have seen lines about religion and its experience that I thought had much greater .....for want of a better word...'depth'.

Sorry...just one old disciplined, logical curmudgeon's view.

(and you know...I haven't really decided yet whether the concept of 'religious experience' IS consistent with my world view. I tend not to admit them, but I have to deal with the fact that others report them and refer to them. Perhaps it IS largely a linguistic thing...or at least a conceptual thing that in hung up in linguistics)

durn...now you've got me pondering again, and you know how distracting that is!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 11:25 AM

Curator:

I find your summation to be so summary as to be devoid of real information.

Is what you associate with mental illness, from your clinical experience, primarily religious thought per se? Or organized religious doctrine? Or badly misconstrued popular misconceptions of the religious dogma which once was based on religious doctrine which in turn was once based on religious thought which MAY have been based on an actual religious experience?

IS your perspective of "mental illness" defined? Defineable? Does it emphasize adaptation to the environment as the highest earmark of mental health? Is it predicated on the animal like nature of mankind? Does it include ANY metaphysics, or is all such outside the scope of your definition of mental health?

Enquiring minds want to know!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 02:14 PM

Be careful: Ya never know where another human being is going!

When my daughter was 12 years old, she began attending church. Had she requested it, I would have woken her but she set her alarm and got herself up and on her way. This despite having been brought up in a non-religious household. We had often talked about ethics and moral codes but the subjects were never confined within religious thought.

I admired her for forming her own path. And when she wanted to attend a summer church camp I paid for it.

As she grew older, I was candid in my own lack of organized religious belief but I bought her books that supported her burgeoning beliefs.

Together we voluneteered at various soup kitchens and we actively cultivated friends of other cultures and races. I thought she was as liberal as I.

Ha! She went off to college, met a man from a conservative, religous family who, it developed, are also politically conservative.

Today, at age 43, she is as conservative as they.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 05:08 PM

yep...it happens. She made her choice, evidently freely and according to her needs. My brother did much the same......I don't agree with him, but it suits him. He tried preaching a bit to me...briefly.. *grin*, before I made it clear I was a hopeless case. In his case, religion is sorta what saved him from drugs, alcohol and spending money like water. I don't know if what he had qualifies as a 'mental illness', but he sure was a mess for a few years.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 05:14 PM

The use of religious doctrines to "stave off chaos" is well known; theproblem I have with it, though, is that the chaos remains unfaced and unhandled, and the temporary seawall of a stable doctrine with which to ally oneself, and thus fend off confusion, is as bad as deciding to "become your mother" because "she always knew how to handle things" and you were too confused to figure it out. It works temporarily, but the tradeoff is you end up being your mother.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 07:37 PM

EVERYTHING is a mental illness...when carried to extremes.

And this thread has the stupidest title in the history of this forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 08:06 PM

Nowhere near, Little Hawk!

I would say that someone who persisted in their belief that little green men from Mars were responsible for natural phenomena would be considered mentally ill; I don't understand why if it's God, instead, that isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 05 - 08:10 PM

Well, I can't say I've met anyone yet with that particular "little green man" belief, Mrrzy, so I can't say... ;-)

But I've met plenty of insane people with very conventional beliefs and behaviour.

I see little point going on about little green men or about "religion" when we have much realer wolves at the gate on any given day of the week.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Tirghra
Date: 31 Aug 05 - 11:04 AM

Little green men from Mars aren't responsible for natural phenomena? Hell, now I'm going to have to rewrite my entire book...

Tirghra

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 31 Aug 05 - 03:24 PM

Little green men from Mars are responsible for UNnatural phenomena.

;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Aug 05 - 03:55 PM

Little green men from Mars are not responsible for the Christian healings that take place...the modern day miracles.....are they?
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Curator
Date: 31 Aug 05 - 03:58 PM

Amos if your post was worthy of an answer I would give it.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 31 Aug 05 - 04:07 PM

Some of you, please consider the Hurricane or the Tsunami and comment either on what "higher good" these events served, or else why you believe they did, despite the evidence of reason.

In other words, please share why you're ready to reject the evidence of your divinely given senses and intellect.

(If such disasters don't serve a higher good, but still were sent by God, the idea of divine goodness comes into question, to say the least.)

I really am curious about this.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Tirghra
Date: 31 Aug 05 - 04:19 PM

Are we considering it a natural phenomenon? Because, if so, I'm voting that is was the green men that did it. At least, that's what the voices told me...

Tirghra

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:41 AM

Curator:

How obscure, authoritarian and rude of you. My questions were genuine. Are you trying to be mysterious or just pompous?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 02:18 PM

He probably doesn't relate well to your particular style, Amos. Or can't be bothered to. I wouldn't worry about it.

I know psychiatrists with very strong spiritual...(or what another might call "religious") beliefs. Or they therefore to be considered insane?

Ha! Amusing, isn't it?

I've met insane religious people and sane religious people. I've met insane atheists and agnostics and sane ones. I've met insane football fans and sane ones.

The insane are those whose mindset leads them into irrational and unproductive and destructive dysfunctional behaviour...period.

The fact is, the sane and insane can be found among every large general category of people, regardless of whether or not they are religious.

Therefore, the title of this thread is patently ridiculous, in my opinion...indicating nothing more than an extreme level of personal prejudice, founded upon ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 02:25 PM

In fact, make that gross ignorance. ;-)

(this matter clearly pushes my buttons) (but someday I'll get to the point where I just ignore it)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Tirghra
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 02:28 PM

Very good point, Little Hawk. I wonder if religious people think unreligious people have a mental illness? Tis true though that mental illness can be found in all groups, but I wonder if a study has been done to see if there is a higher percentage of mental illness documented among those that would claim to be religious as compared to the who do not. And then, what religions those people are from. If they claim to be religious and when asked their religion answer, "Worshippers of the hamster god," I would find that interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: John Hardly
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 02:36 PM

Ebbie,

"Raise up a child in the way she should go, and when she is old, she will not depart from it."

I'm guessing that she'll never be far from the good you taught her. Maybe your influence will work to improve the "conservative" elbows she now rubs. And for your part, you'll always be more capable of thinking of those with whom you disagree as individuals. A win-win in my book.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 02:56 PM

One of the problems here is the many different meanings attributed to the word. Religious to a strait-laced church-goer means attending on Sunday, singing in the choir, titheing, and raising your sons to be altarboys.

Religion to a devout Muslim may not mean those things, but it does mean praying to Mecca three times a day and not eating during daylight in Ramadan. That's "being religious".

To others, religion means no convention, but constant attention to certain entities, such as those addressed in prayer; others may feel it is maintaining a mindset thatmotivates charitable works.

Still others may hold -- I certainly do -- that religion simply means keeping some attention on the spiritual side of things, being mindful that there are genuine mysteries and perhaps causative powers in the Universe beyond our normal comprehension, and appreciating the spiritual nature of any in whom it is visible. This includes some pets but not all humans, and seems to be (to me) independent of species.

I doubt anyone would argue that being aware of how much we do not yet know is mentally ill. Similarly insisting on knowing something in the absence of experience or evidence is hard to defend as a rational position; but every experience is different.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 03:09 PM

Well, yes, I have seen certain religious groups whose proportion of "insane" members might be a little higher than in the case of another religious group, let's say... ;-)

But I'm not naming any names.

One could make a case that Democrats and Republicans are insane, because they both keep making the same mistakes over and over again (voting for their party)...yet expecting a different result! ;-)

One could say this of the American government too, in regards to its foreign policy...which is "bomb people into democracy" as far as I can see. (Well, that's what it pretends to be, anyway. It's really "get control of the oil".)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 03:54 PM

That's just it - the hurricane and tsunami just happened, like we did. No reason, no purpose, no higher or lower good, or even a good on the same level.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 03:58 PM

Oil, a religion? Hmmmm... it does invoke certain imaginary entities in order to maintain power, and it does require donating a tenth of your income or more, and kowtowing to authorities who are entrusted to interpret its mysteries to the masses, and it does occupy a lot of the daily attention of many in its different forms, and it does impose many conventions and regulations and expectations, some of which may be rational and others of which may be completely aberrated and arbitrary; and it does cause folks to go out of their way to pay homage, and influence mortal lives to a large degree here on earth, and require one chant certain mindless incantations at the right times and places.

Maybe you're right, Hawk!

What a funny religion!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 07:05 PM

Mrr - If you think there is no purpose to your life, why do you bother getting out of bed? ;-) (After all, it doesn't matter, right?)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 11:22 AM

To worship at the Templis Sunocos??


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 11:44 AM

The worshippers are getting restless, Amos. The price of gas is now up 20%. ;-) (Interesting, because the actual cost of the crude to the suppliers has only gone up 8%, according to an article I read yesterday...) Someone is clearly doubling the take...and then some.

When "god" costs 20% more than usual, people start getting mad. These, however, are very minor troubles. We could be in downtown New Orleans.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:04 PM

Chronic habitual anger and hatred are forms of mental illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 12:17 PM

Wanting way more stuff than you need is a form of mental illness. (and I've been know to suffer from that one...when it comes to guitars and model kits)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 02 Sep 05 - 05:09 PM

There is no limit to the natural need that bonds a guitar player to additional guitars. SO that example doesn't apply. But other things, sure -- homes, food, stuff like that.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:01 AM

It is almost a year since this thread was opened - after reviewing all, and with Bush getting messages from God , the London bombings , suicide bombings all over the world, I am convinced that people who carry out acts of hateful and brutal violence against their fellow men , women and children in the name of Religion, could reasonably be considered to be mentally ill.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:37 AM

You can stick a label on them - but you still have to deal with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,David Hannam
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:53 AM

Religion is not a form of mental illness. People are people at the end of the day, and everyone is rightfully different. However i do think certain institutions, body's, organisations, etc, attract more on average their fair share of mentally ill people than others.

Example, (me, bnp member) beat ya to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 12:22 PM

Irrational and destructive behaviour in the name OF religion...or of anything ELSE...is indicative of mental illness, Betsy.

Loving and constructive behaviour in the name of religion or of anything else is indicative of a healthy mentality.

Sanity is loving. Insanity is not. It's that simple.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:21 PM

Wolfgang cites at 25 Nov 04 - 10:39 AM his post at 24 Nov 04 - 02:56 PM, with the additional:

" if you look at the actual results from different lands in Germany in the same year (1932) you see easily the pattern: the higher the percentage of Roman Catholics the lower the percentage of votes for the NSDAP."

In the 1932 election, in which the NSDAP (Nazi party) came into power, the principal more or less organized opposition to them in Germany was from "liberal" Catholics. Conservative Catholics, i.e. the Vatican, in what they apparently believed was a "save the faith" move, in 1933 became the first significant foreign power to officially recognize the new NSDAP government in Germany. In exchange for the effective declaration that the Roman Catholic Church was to be the official church of Germany, the Natzi party obtained international validation and recognition.

The establishment of the "Church of Rome" as the official national religion effectively neutralized liberal Catholic opposition to the NSDAP within Germany, and was of major significance in granting the NSDAP a free hand to implement additional policies that might otherwise have been more effectively resisted within Germany.

Additional information on the Vatican treaty with the new NSDAP government can be quite easily found with a Google for the treaty, the "Concordat of 1933." Versions favoring various interpretations can be found, but I believe the above is fully credible if both sides are examined.

The Weimar Constitution, under which the NSDAP came into office (but not immediately into real power) was and is considered a "model consititution," and contained all of the protections for individual rights and freedoms to be expected in any such document applied to a modern and enlightened nation.

A first "principle" of government is that no national government can survive without an enemy. The preceding government(s) had selected "socialists" as their "national enemy." The incoming NSDAP simply declared that the "socialists" were a terrible and immediate threat, and used that threat as the justification for declaring a national emergency. In accord with the "emergency clauses" of the Weimar Constitution, Hitler assumed "emergency powers" that permitted the suspension of (certain) civil liberties, and that gave him broad powers to declare new laws.

Having an enemy gives a nation a certain coherence, since all the people have something in common. Blind allegiance is quite often obtained by implementing the second principle of governement: "Give them permission to hate something."

The NSDAP started slowly, by effectively criminalizing unemployment. (Germany at the time had large numbers of unemployed persons, and the NSDAP apparently realized that those in prisons or in "work camps" weren't "unemployed." Problem solved.) A pretense of attempting to find employment for people was made, but once "refusing any job offered" was made sufficient justification for "rehabilitation" (attitude adjustment) in a work camp, the simple expedient of offering impossible or grossly inappropriate jobs to "undesirables" made it easy to begin getting rid of anyone the Party (or the individual employment office agent) simply didn't like. The "rehabilitation" terms were generally fairly short, and a few returned from work camps after being "rehabilitated." Conditions in the camps were such that a large percentage of those sent to them died there. Reliable figures for how many "ordinary German citizens" were sent, and how many died in the labor camps, are apparently not recorded (at least where I've found them). Guesses usually run in the low to middle hundred thousands dead.

The NSDAP was apparently having some difficulty getting the people to "really hate unemployed persons." After all, the economy was in pretty bad shape, so one of the next steps was to criminalize being a homosexual. (Performing an "abominable act" was not necessary for conviction. Often the accusation alone was enough.) A possibly reliable estimate asserts that "at least 60,000" accused of "being queer" died in labor camps. Only males were prosecuted, because to "Conservative Christians" (of nearly all kinds) females don't count, and "what they do doesn't matter."

The third major step in establishing the NSDAP as the "imperial power" in Germany was to apply the emergency powers assumed by the new government to restrict the jurisdiction of the courts, and to remove "unsympathetic judges" and replace them with those who would do as the party told them. (They were in a hurry and couldn't use normal attrition and replacement.)

The Vatican participation in all this was nominally "for the good of the faith." Numerous sites on the web will give the various explanations, accusations, and equivocations associated with the events. (It does appear, despite their denial of involvement, or of a close relationship with the party, that the Vatican was the only foreign power to send an official delegate to each of Adolphe's birthday parties beginning in 1933 and through, as I recall, about 1938 or '39.)

This was the prelude to the really nasty stuff that followed.

Note that all this is only one interpretation; but it is a composite from my examination of a number of diverse "histories" and for the present it appears credible to me.



But:

Does anyone see any parallels to any current government somewhere in the world?

Worried?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:36 PM

Having just come out of the Getaway experience I read that noun as "Micca".

"it does mean praying to Mecca three times a day " Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:45 PM

Interesting post, John! When you want to establish a dictatorship in a democracy, you do it a bit at a time, by degrees. People hardly notice...specially if you keep them obsessed with "enemies", either foreign or domestic. By the time they do notice, it's usually too late.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 08:32 PM

Ebbie:

Micca is impressive, to be sure, but I think praying to him might qwuaify as a form of derangement. :D Even once!

LOL.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 08:41 PM

Qwuaify? Ouch. Sounds uncomfortable. Disgusting even.

"His battered corpse had completely qwuaified, due to the hideous effects of the corroding green slime spray of the inchoate, formless monsters that had risen unexpectedly from the nethermost pits of Thoth and brought about his final, cluminating, and most dreadful end!"   (from the Necronomicon, Chapter 6,666, Verse 782) - Abdul Alhazred, the Mad Arab

Aside from that, what do you think, Amos, of someone who prays to a large graven image of King Kong twice a day?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 09:10 PM

Discussing the new anti terror laws in the UK, MP Mathew Parris said

"There is only one cause of religious hatred.....religion!!"

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 09:12 PM

There is only one cause of hatred, period: fear.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: bobad
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 09:57 PM

I would add to that - ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 10:22 PM

...which breeds fear.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 10:31 PM

Fear and ignorance are the in and out of the same glove, I would suggest; fear breeds ignorance, and is always born from ignorance, and the path out is to learn and to face.

But truth be told this thread is a Granfaloon; semantically there is no single thing called "religion", it being a container as large as the San Diego zoo and as full of different animals both in and out of the constructed environments. The notion as well that there is a single thing called "mental illness" is very over-stretched. I refer you to the remarkable books of Thomas Szasz, a professional in the field who had enough one day and decided to pull the little curtain back like Toto, to reveal the hollowness within.

Some find, in a variety of religious experience, an escape from ignorance by discovering they themselves are the empowered seat of all knowing, and they lose all fear because their own center is restored.. Others find in religion a safe answer to all ignorance fabricated as a wall against endless possibility, built of arbitrary conclusions and vicious certainties. For them, their fear is never lost, but it gets reformed and buried in a stiff collar. Shake their embraced certainties and the old storm of ignorance and fear breaks out like the locusts from Pandora's box.

The question is null, much as the question "Is thought crazy?" would be.

Sometimes 'tis, sometimes 'taint.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 10:41 PM

Man, you sure can talk, Amos! Pretty slick. If I had the wherewithal, I'd book an uptown theatre in Chicago for the highbrow people and get you in to do lectures on a regular basis, and take a 20% cut. It'd beat pounding pavement and facin' shootouts with low class grifters and scum. Hell, yeah.

Listen, buddy, I meet a Granfaloon comin' down a dark alley...and he is goin' down! I don't take no chances with freaks like that. Shoot first, talk later. You can guess why I am still here after all these years.

The main religion I seen around here all my life is the one that holds mass 5 days a week at the teller's wicket. Know what I'm sayin'? Show me where the mazooma is, and I'll show you some religion, baby! People around here will do anything if you offer 'em enough moola, and the apes and monkeys are just about as bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 03:58 AM

Fear is the main cause of hatred - and ignorance.

Fear and ignorance is the main caus -

Damn I'll come in again!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 05:32 AM

*I* don't know - Mr Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/paulfitz/spanish/t1.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 11:28 PM

Chongo, are you the one who makes abeisance to King Kong? For the first time, I feel I understand you.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 12:14 PM

"There is only one cause of hatred, period: fear."

Strive for simplicity, but learn to mis-trust it.
                           Alfred North Whitehead

I'm afraid, Little Hawk, that your short, pithy answer doesn't quite do justice to the complexity of the human condition: some of the hatred I have seen certainly seems to arise out of a wealth of other causes, some of which 'may' have some form of fear involved. It is just too simplistic to reduce ethnic centrisim, religious intolerance, righteous anger, perceived discrimination and a host of other emotions to 'fear'.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 08:39 PM

Good done in the name of religion could just as easily be done for secular reasons. Evil done in the name of religion requires religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Peace
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 08:40 PM

"Evil done in the name of religion requires religion."

Evil done in the name of anything requires evil.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:56 AM

What comes first - the concept of evil or of some form of religion to protect us from the concept of evil.

If you wish folk to place their faith in your (or your religion's) ability to to remove their fears and protect them from the concept of evil - it is perhaps as well to eggagerate the concept of evil a little?

I am reminded of a trip to Florence and a fantasic mosaic ceiling in the Bapitstry there, hugely and grapically depicting what evils awaited those who strayed from the true path in the place 'down below'.

It was impressive enough to my jundiced 22th century eye. I wondered what the effect in the past - this ceiling would have had on visiting peasants who may have been unused to such fine buildings, such art and such concepts?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 08:27 AM

Roger,

I dunno how you got into the next century ahead of everyone else, but congrats in any case.

Exagerrating evil -- and thus inducing fear and the need for allegiance and compliance -- is a standard routine for organized religions, and governments, and large institutions from time immemorial.

There is plenty of harm about, with or without exaggeration, but placing it in the category of evil is a different step -- it invites a whole host of ideas which follow from it. The very use of the term kind of institutionalizes resistance and invites you into a permanent state of abhorrence and avoidance. And then, since one man's saint is another's devil, the games of division and conflict begin.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 11:48 AM

Yes I could have made a typo and deserve to be burnt at the stake. I perfer to think that I am ahead of my time........

But what comes first - the concept of evil or the religion to save you from it? Or have they always come together as a package?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:48 PM

I think the concept of evil was generated by some guy who thought he could make an easy living if he made it sound dark enough, by inventing the appropriate remedies -- like any two-bit protection gangster.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Religion a form of Mental Illness ???
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:19 PM

Or perhaps life insurance companies who offer security but can only supply money. Which is not quite the same thing.

Religions are sold - if you like - as after-life insurance policies?