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

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?

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 - 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 - 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 10:22 PM

...which breeds 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 - 09:12 PM

There is only one cause of hatred, period: fear.

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 - 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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.