Religion as a mental disorder

[Aurelius]

Some circles have come to the conclusion that religious belief is a mental disorder that, with treatment, can be cured like any other. The reasoning: to believe in something with no empirical or logical proof of its existence is a delusion. To have a delusion is to be delusional, which is a condition of sickness of the brain: ie, mentally ill.
Proof or disprove this theory. Please show objectivity, without throwing stones or rioting in the halls.

[lisagurl]

a condition of sickness of the brain

Is deja vu a sickness? Of course not. Humans are not perfect machines. Some scientists have said genes are responsible for the spiritual experience. I myself never experienced a spiritual event. The facts are we even have a blind spot in the middle of our eye but the brain fills it in. People perceive differently hence we all have a personal reality.

I am in my library at my desk with a key board and screen with symbols in front of me. My experience is the temperature of the room the sun coming in the window etc. I need to look at the keys as I type because I can not visualize them nor can I visualize real people attached to the writing on my screen. You might believe I am real but I do not have the same feeling of this screen. The same thing with religion, people put ideas above their physical senses and live in that abstract world first.

I prefer to spend most of my attention and actions dealing with things of my physical senses not my imagination.

[RebeccaFog]

I don't feel that religion is a mental disorder

because people experience life differently. There is nothing wrong with believing in a concept that can't be proved. Columbus believed the world was round before it was fashionable or proved. There are concepts that you can know without proof. For instance, I know for a fact that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I have no proof of that.

   The part that is a mental disorder is when you believe that your way is the only way and that others must fit or bend to your ideal of what society and culture should be.
    The reason that I consider that attitude a mental disorder is that the people who think that way are denying the fact that there are other people with other valid viewpoints that may differ. It is purposely blinding one's self to the evidence that is all around us. If you don't believe that the world is full of evidence that each person has a unique and valid point of view, then you are very selfish and even cruel, in that you can hurt others by attempting to control their thoughts, feelings, and lives. That, to me, is a disorder.

[Lisbeth]

The reasoning: to believe in something with no empirical or logical proof of its existence is a delusion. To have a delusion is to be delusional, which is a condition of sickness of the brain: ie, mentally ill.

I don't think you want to go there. The same reasoning makes GID a delusion also.

[Aurelius]

a condition of sickness of the brain

Is deja vu a sickness? Of course not. Humans are not perfect machines. Some scientists have said genes are responsible for the spiritual experience. I myself never experienced a spiritual event. The facts are we even have a blind spot in the middle of our eye but the brain fills it in. People perceive differently hence we all have a personal reality.

I am in my library at my desk with a key board and screen with symbols in front of me. My experience is the temperature of the room the sun coming in the window etc. I need to look at the keys as I type because I can not visualize them nor can I visualize real people attached to the writing on my screen. You might believe I am real but I do not have the same feeling of this screen. The same thing with religion, people put ideas above their physical senses and live in that abstract world first.

I prefer to spend most of my attention and actions dealing with things of my physical senses not my imagination.

Nonetheless you are interacting and receiving stimuli on the computer screen from what can only be an intelligence not your own. The interaction is the sensory perception and is abstract but very real, not just a concept that cannot be proved. If you agree the man or woman you meet in the store is real, the interaction (intelligence) they have with you should provide empirical evidence that that type of interaction (intelligence) could only come from a like being. When you read history or the newspaper you see the words on the page and believe that they describe a real event, even though you cannot experience it, you have to imagine it...this requires abstract thinking.

Posted on: November 08, 2008, 05:29:34 pm

The reasoning: to believe in something with no empirical or logical proof of its existence is a delusion. To have a delusion is to be delusional, which is a condition of sickness of the brain: ie, mentally ill.

I don't think you want to go there. The same reasoning makes GID a delusion also.

For the record, being religious and GID, I myself am not going there. My point is to think about things we believe/disbelieve. Otherwise we remain mired in our own potential dogmas.

But very good point about GID as a delusion...that is the point of these discussions.

[lisagurl]

intelligence not your own

Artificial, I have spoken to machines.

could only come from a like being

Not true all franchise are alike there are not human behavior only trained monkeys.

When you read history or the newspaper you see the words on the page and believe that they describe a real event,

No they are a single perception and not the true event. I rarely find two historical accounts of an event the same. As newspapers slant the news to be entertaining or in favor of a business relation. I can only imagine what an event was like that I did not experience. Then my faulty mind has created it.

Posted on: November 08, 2008, 10:03:24 pm

I don't think you want to go there. The same reasoning makes GID a delusion also.

GID is a delusion. I changed my body because I did not like the factory model. I do not think there are gender identities only the ones we are taught. Some day everyone will be able to just be themselves without cultural demands.

[Aurelius]

Machines cannot think abstractly, you cannot share abstract ideas with machine. But you can with another person via machine. When does agreed v. perceptive reality begin? When you speak to a person on the phone, that is vibrations through fibre optic cable. When you see someone on the street, that is light reflecting to your eyes (and I might add it is the light you see, not the real object itself as it is, stars for instance). When you touch, that is your nerve sensors to your brain.

[Rhye]

Some circles have come to the conclusion that religious belief is a mental disorder that, with treatment, can be cured like any other. The reasoning: to believe in something with no empirical or logical proof of its existence is a delusion.

I didn't read the rest of this thread, but as much as I dislike religion sometimes, I can't really agree with that.

We have no proof to show to anyone that we're really male, or really female, when all the evidence is pointing the other way. Ignore my breasts, I'm a real man! Or, disregard the beard, I'm more female than you'd ever know.

That doesn't make our gender any less valid.

Religious people don't have any proof to show that their god is real. I pray to him, he listens to me! Sometimes he even talks back! Does it really matter that I can't bring him over to your house and hang out?

That doesn't make their feeling of faith any less valid.

As long as it's not going to hurt somebody, I don't think it's our place to judge it as a disorder.

[Janet_Girl]

Through out the history of human kind, a belief in a higher or supreme power has been well documented.  Imagine seeing your first tornado.  You know nothing of thunderheads or downdrafts or cyclonic winds.  What would you possibly be thinking.  It is a god.  Ah Ha, your first belief and the religion of the wind god is born.  Humans have used this kind of thinking to explain the unexplained.  That is what religion is; an explanation of something unexplained.

[Sephirah]

Faith is what separates humanity from the rest of the animals. In my opinion, humans are more than simply biological machines. We are, I believe, synergistic beings.

Faith, I believe, springs from, or is a by-product of sentience and self-awareness. Whatever that faith is in, is up to the individual. Without faith, most places would never have been discovered by the pioneering explorers who had faith that something out there to find.

Religion is just another kind of faith.

That's all I really want to say on the issue.

[RebeccaFog]

Right. As long as they don't hurt anybody, it isn't a disorder.  When they do start hurting or controlling others it becomes a disorder.  But then, anyone who hurts or attempts to control others has a disorder whether or not they are religious.

[lisagurl]

you cannot share abstract ideas with machine

Abstract ideas can come from a random number generator. I do not put much worth in the abstract. I prefer logic based on reason and fact.

When you speak to a person on the phone, that is vibrations through fiber optic cable.

No the vibrations are changed to electric impulses then overlapped onto a frequencies of light then turned back to electrical impulse then to sound vibrations. In any case you can not smell that person or observe their shaken foot or the way they clean their nails etc. they are a ghost of a person.

Posted on: November 08, 2008, 10:53:22 pm

Faith is what separates humanity from the rest of the animals

My dog has faith that I will feed her. You never heard of faithful animals?

[RebeccaFog]

Faith is what separates humanity from the rest of the animals. In my opinion, humans are more than simply biological machines. We are, I believe, synergistic beings.

I disagree. I feel that what separates us from the rest of the animals are the walls of our houses; and the fact that animals unfairly suffer only death, but not taxes.

Oddly, I have faith that animals know there's something more. Of course, they can't communicate it. Everything is intuitive. Animals are good with intuition. Intuition is where you find God.

[Aurelius]

How does a random number generator generate anything besides a random number?

Technical flaws, but you understood my point.

My question still stands, shaking feet or nail clippings, it is all sensory perception no matter what medium. When does real become real? When can we all agree that something is real? The sight you see is not the same thing I see...the angle is different, the light took longer to reach my eyes, etc. We cannot even agree on the time...your clock runs at a different rate than mine. So what does logic say about what time it is? If logic is purely in the eye of the beholder, it is no longer logic. Only what's relative.

[Sephirah]

I disagree. I feel that what separates us from the rest of the animals are the walls of our houses; and the fact that animals unfairly suffer only death, but not taxes.

But many other species of animals build dwellings... nests, dams, hives... the difference is that humans place things in those dwellings because they appeal to the sense of aesthetic, a trait other animals don't seem to possess, and not because they're necessary for the dwelling to function.

Everything is intuitive. Animals are good with intuition. Intuition is where you find God.

I'd disagree with that. I think animals are good with instinct, from an evolutionary perspective. Instinct is a different thing to intuition.

[Aurelius]

I think in essence, the problem I have with pure logic is I can only come up with relative answers. Nothing is universally real on that path.

[RebeccaFog]

Everything is intuitive. Animals are good with intuition. Intuition is where you find God.

I'd disagree with that. I think animals are good with instinct, from an evolutionary perspective. Instinct is a different thing to intuition.

aren't instinct and intuition the same, almost?


How come nobody ever asks if mental disorders cause religion?

[Aurelius]

"My dog has faith that I will feed her. You never heard of faithful animals?"


No, that is something we call faith because it is akin to what humans feel...the way we describe anything in nature that is not ourselves. How do you know the dog feels faith? Repetition of approximate time and measure of feeding builds habit. God never came down and spoke with me, but nonetheless I believe he exists.

For the life of me cannot figure out how to extract quotes...this is annoying.

[Sephirah]

aren't instinct and intuition the same, almost?

I guess that goes on what you believe, what you have faith in.

In my opinion, no, they're not. Instinct is a process based on need... you have the instinct to feed when you're hungry, to drink when you're thirsty, to mate in order to maintain your population... it's a more primal biological function than intuition, which requires some measure of emotion and empathy.

Intuition is, in my view, based on being aware of other sentient beings and how they function in order to predict a likely outcome for a given scenario... and to do that you have to be aware of yourself and how you function. Other animals, I would guess, don't have sufficient self-awareness to develop intuition.

For the life of me cannot figure out how to extract quotes...this is annoying.

Honey, just click on the 'quote' button on whichever person's post you want to quote. That will insert it into the Post Reply window. Then you can remove whichever parts you don't want.

Or use the quote tags:

Code Select Expand

[quote=The person who made the quote]What they said[/quote]

[Janet_Girl]

Have you ever noticed the 'God' spelt backwards is 'Dog'.  Or maybe it is the other way round?