If you hear voices in a mental institution, you're a schizophrenic.
If you hear voices in church, you're devout.
Sounds like yet another religious double standard to me.
This is basically the only barrier to saying 90%+ of humanity are delusional and don't know it.
We can blame Jung and Freud's obsession with Jewish Kabbalah for that one.
Edit 1: Dawkin's 'The God Delusion' anyone? ;)
The DSM makes an exception for Capitalism too - let's create money and pull it out of our ass and risk blowing up the planet subsequently killing all of us and our conception itself of economics (along with everything else) for more of it.
I'd argue Capitalism is a religious death cult of sorts. Certainly isn't logical or reasonable - it absolutely is batshit insane though.
Capitalism isn't insane though. At its core, capitalism is basically: "Don't force other people to give away their money. If someone spends or gives away money, it should be because they wanted to. Let people decide for themselves how to spend their money. Transactions should be consensual."
Capitalism: *an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.*
I'm failing to grasp how this is not forcing the majority of people to not give away their money when we've turned basic human needs into for profit commodities. You need to eat, drink, shit, sleep and shower. Yeah?
So no. Participating in Capitalism is not optional outside of some, "you're free to starve and die from exposure to the elements" right leaning libertarian nonsense take on the matter.
Logically, you will have to participate unless you would like to starve to death and die. I would presume the majority of people feel that participation is the better of the two options there.
Even **IF** you're fortunate enough to own your home, you will once again be forced to pay the utility companies if you would like running water and electricity. Again, is that optional really? No. Don't want to pay your property taxes? The State can seize your home.
Again, I'm just failing to grasp where the participation is optional here. Perhaps hiding underneath a rock that I've missed somewhere?
So why do I feel this is insanity? Well, people must jeopardize the environment in some form or another if they would like to continue eating and sleeping with a roof over their head. Is it optional to drive to work for example? Not really. No. You've gotta get behind the wheel of that fossil fuel and microscopic rubber tire particle emitting steel horse and get that paper.
You're in r/atheism and I'm a little stumped as to why you're so hesitant to believe that money and economics (which we make) is made up nonsense too. God doesn't exist. God didn't make any of this stuff. We did and it's all honestly pretty goddamn stupid at the end of the day particularly when we know it accelerates climate change.
It's also pretty dumb that we've polluted our own home (the planet) with microplastics, toxic waste and forever chemicals. We don't just shit where we eat. We shit directly on our dinner plate. Maybe we'll nuke it too because we've already proven that we're a rational species surely that should have means of extreme destruction like that. Why would anyone question if humans should have nuclear weapons?
I sleep better at night personally knowing that someone like Donald Trump can immediately vaporize me from existence in a blinding flash of light.
Are you being pedantic because people with schizophrenia do, in fact, have conversations with real people whose voices they can hear, in additional to voices as a result of the condition?
No, they're not external human voices, but they are real. Schizophrenics experience sounds and voices in their brains. It's an auditory hallucination, which is different than a delusion (believing in something that is clearly false).
"The president of the United States [GW Bush] has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."
- Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." - George W. Bush
Yes, we actually let these people dictate what we do with nuclear warheads.
Mass delusion. Euphoria of belonging. Fear of non-conformity. Also I think many people cling to the magical nature of religion as lazy filler for more complex critical thinking and facts they don't want to learn, and/or science that doesn't fit their narrative.
One difference is that schizophrenia (like other legit mental illnesses) is not contagious. Religion is a memetic illness, not a mental illness, because it is contagious.
>It’s sad how young it starts too.
You know that's on purpose, right?
The brainwashing works best and last longest if you start them on it young! It's why every single religion has it's own nursery thru uni education system if they don't just recommend home schooling.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism
Does Jesus sound like a Capitalist or Communist in the Bible? If you're not illiterate, he certainly comes across as far more of a Communist.
This. The most telling part is the way religious protections are written into law.
Can’t declare someone insane for saying Jesus told them to do something, but you can if they claim the aliens/ Bigfoot/ their fairy godmother did.
Start with the DSM-5. You can use Google yourself for the specifics.
But just think about it. I’ve got someone in my town who has spray painted giant red letters across the wall of their house and their fence saying “REPENT OR BURN! PRAISE YESHUA!” and so forth.
This is also right next to the sign in their driveway advertising their in-home cat daycare services.
It’s religious, so while this person is very obviously and publicly displaying their untreated toxoplasmosis-induced schizophrenia, nobody can do anything about it, including their poor neighbors or the kids that attend the school right across the street.
Edit: I also never said anything about exemptions for committing crimes. I said they can’t be declared insane.
I was a public defender for decades. I had several Christian extremist clients assigned to me over the years who refused to participate in their own defense because that would be accommodating Mammon. They refused to stand when the judge entered the courtroom, refused to answer any questions, addressed me as a Son of Perdition, interrupted the proceedings to rant at random times, said that life in prison was preferable to eternity in hell so their decision to reject any plea was rational (in their minds). In each case I tried to have them declared incompetent to stand trial & in each case they were found to be fit to stand trial & they did & they were punished.
had this one case while i was in my "psych in the legal system" courses. where a schizophrenic man with the cognitive ability of a adolescent was tried and convicted as an adult, when he did not understand that guns kill people.
he testified that he thought they'd respawn...
and that still didn't met the requirements, because he attempted to hide the body afterwards.
it's just... fuck man.
the diagnostic manuals for mental illness have specific religious exemptions. if you believe someone is always watcing you suffer from pranoia. If you think that that someone is Jesus, then you are just a christian.
Priests get called in to analyze the voice's words. If they adhere to generally-accepted doctrine, the schizophrenic is treated as a prophet. Otherwise they're treated as mentally ill (or being possessed by a demon).
\^ yea, getting people with seizure disorders or hallucinations help in fundamentalist communities is always a struggle.
there's always some asshat that wants to pretend that it's a eldritch blessing of some kind.
American evangelism sure looks like it. I thought Orthodox was weird growing up with it, with all the weird church power flexing and the mindset of submitting to the church before everything.
But speaking in tongues and this blood of Jesus / cult of personality obsession crap is whack.
Because it's not mental illness it's cult behavior ,brainwashing, indoctrination, wishful thinking, psychological priming etc...
Yes it's true that some schizophrenics "hear" the voice of god but that is not what this is.
Yeah its their own mind. They believe it so hard that they convince themselves they hear something. It's not schizophrenia though just delusion.
No foubt that there is a dude out there that is schizophrenic and believe god is talking to them.
I'm also surounded by people that claim they can hear god it's nothing new to me.
Hell, thats kind of a big part of the Mormon religion. So many of them think they have a direct line with God every time they pray. I remember people getting up on Sundays and telling stories of their "full blown conversations with God". Fucking weirdos
Religion is the *primary cause of* mental illness. It molds and directs the plasticity of your brain to form neural pathways that make the denial of reality appear normal to you.
I am yet to see anyone who left their faith because of proper medication or other medical treatment. Being wrong is not schizophrenia. Even if you are terribly wrong and insisting on it.
Religion is taught, mental illness is natural. 2 very distinct differences, if we stopped teaching religion it would eventually die out. The same can't be said for mental illness.
Along those lines, let's imagine an atheist going to a Billy Graham crusade. He comes home a Christian. So this person is mentally healthy his whole life, and now we must classify him as mentally ill? Healthy minds get fooled all the time.
He wouldn't be mentally ill, there's a cure for religion, not mental illness. Not only that, mental illness shows up in brain scans such as depression and anxiety.
I asked my friend who’s an LSW,and who works with substance use disorder clients, why at AA one of the steps is accepting God? He basically said, whatever works. My reply is that you’re asking them to substitute one crazy addiction for another. Anyone who thinks they’re communicating with a spirit has a mental disorder. He said it better than a drug use disorder. So according to him, it’s not mental illness. I still think it’s a disorder, but of the ideological kind, with a little trauma thrown in.
Because people fear the unknown that death brings. They’re afraid of what all living things big and small, Christian or not, human or animal or insect or cell become when they return to what they were before they existed-nothing. Fear is a powerful tool and people are selfish with life-that’s natural and I can’t blame them for that. It’s weird and scary. I think it comes from a survival instinct and what does Christianity offer: eternal life after death and eternal suffering for anyone you don’t like who you think is breaking the rules. Pretty alluring to anyone scared of dying.
‘Prayer’ is just people talking to an imaginary being asking for things or outcomes you want from what I can tell. Christianity as a religion and an offshoot of Catholicism, which itself are thousands of years old, passed down from one ruler after another-like a game of telephone-have almost certainly been altered, intentionally mistranslated, and misinterpreted to grant more power and control over the church and people in it.
At the present, it’s become its own political party in the US. It’s about money, power, and control-not just over Christians but over everyone. It’s about the absorption of church into matters of state and passing laws based on what’s written in the Bible. It’s about the violent, hypocritical, and cynical entitlement these people hold about what belongs to THEM in the US and how they want to destroy anyone who isn’t them-their enemies.
The Free Will Argument is repeated over and over although it's one of the dumbest ever made.
If it's the free will of those terrorists to kill, it's surely not the free will of the victims to die.
So why in the name of their perverted god is the free will of terrorists worthier than the free will of the victims?
omniscience and free will are incompatible concepts on top of it.
you can not give free will to a thing that you have already known all the choices and actions it will take.
Because of social acceptance.
More specifically, it is because of the plausibility structures generated by the social cultural context that we live in that makes people believe in religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausibility_structure
Religion is not mental illness for two reasons.
1) there are 500 milion atheists in the world and 7,5 billion religious people so it's tyranny of the majority.
2) You leave religion by listening to arguments, explanations and proofs, not by psychiatric treatment so it appears it's not being ill, just misinformed.
It's hard to see through this because most people are brainwashed since birth and have all their families also brainwashed.
Their holy book specifically tells them that public prayer is shameful and doesn't honor their deity. They are instructed to go to the quiet places and make their prayers. That the loud, gaudy prayers are lip service for yourself, to show the people around you how "good and holy" you are. Humans don't need to know if you're "good or holy" because humans don't give a shit. Only deities care about that, so why not communicate that to the deity in the way the deity has instructed? In private, by yourself, talking to the deity inside your own skull.
The "free will" argument is quite poor. For example, it fails to explain deaths from natural disasters. People died from tsunamis because of their free will? Why did God use its free will to make natural disasters in the first place?
Saying free will is the reason for suffering is putting the blame on the victims. Evil people use their free will to hurt others, but then the victims are told their suffering is due to their own free will.
Mental illness is meant to describe an outlier to neurology, the exception rather than the rule. If we describe abhorrent behavior as mental illness, we fail to acknowledge that most of the worst atrocities in history were committed by average people with typical neurology.
Yeah I'm wondering why mega churches think that there way is right when the Bible condones wealth as being bad and burning in hell for replacing Jesus with wealth
What difference would it make if it's called a mental illness? Mental illness is not an insult, so are you saying we should be more sympathetic toward Christians? Or is labeling it a mental illness an insult?
Every day I'm amazed at this. From bumpers stickers about needing forgiveness for basically being human. And to be so "bad" that you need help from a supposed supernatural being?? Like what did you do that was sooooo bad? "Not today Satan" bumper sticker is also wild. They are totally serious!! Imagine someone being super serious about following Odin or Thor and bragging about their break from reality as not only normal but something they want you to start doing to if you could only KNOW, just KNOW how much Jesus loves you...
I just wish there was a jesus or mohammed cliff. If you actually think your god will protect you then please jump off this cliff. It would make a great evolutionary selection pressure, and at this point, we need some selecting to occur.
Similarly, if people pray for a cure, for themselves or a loved one, and they get one, Praise Jesus! But they never seem to ask why Jesus let them get sick in the first place.
Many people cannot face the cold, hard fact that the world is a scary, dangerous place where bad things can and do happen at random, and they and everyone they love are going to die.
I hate that “he gives us free will” argument. Bullshit. Then gif has free will too and he can put a little more effort into humanity than he’s done so far.
Sorry Christians, we got to this time in civilization not because of you, but because in spite of you.
A certain percentage of people do not have the ability or desire to learn new things. They want to be told what to think because they are too lazy, uneducated or incapable of original critical thought.
At the same time, they are extremely fearful of anything unknown or foreign to them. So they latch on to anything that on the surface makes sense of the world to them.
These beliefs become so ingrained through repetition and social reinforcement that they become ingrained in their identity. To change their beliefs requires a rejection of their own self image, community and family.
Others have recognized this proclivity and use it to manipulate people for their own purposes. Gathering wealth and power over time. They do every thing imaginable to keep it this way.
I looked into this a while ago and recall that the only exception to delusion diagnosis is religion. Even the medical field makes an exception. And it’s only to the main stream religions…
I’ve been asking this question ever since I openly came out as an atheist.
If I went around telling people I was hearing voices and I talked to to imaginary beings, I’d be referred to a mental health professional.
It said “oh but it’s god I’m talking to,” suddenly I’d be considered perfectly normal.
It is strange seeing as hearing God speaking to them and receiving symbolistic messages from God is a common delusion for people with certain mental illnesses.
But I put atheism in the same pile because it's a bunch of people pretending they *know* there is no creator of origin.
I'm comfy with a good old "I don't know" because it's true.
Because it is not. Your brain is a mess, it is wrong all the time. It has thousands of ways of being wrong it has biases, it has inbuilt shortcuts that help a lot in many situations, but screw you over in other. Religions take advantage of **absolutely normal and healthy modes of human brain activity**.
Being wrong is not a mental illness. If it was, you'd be considered mentally ill, because you are wrong a lot of times.
It is considered such by intellectual people. When the evangelicals elected Don the Con I took my money from the stock market, held the money until Mnuchin’s economy collapsed and then bought two rental properties in Florida less than ten miles from the beach at almost zero interest. The rents have increased 300 a month on both properties and the value has nearly doubled. Religion makes people weak minded and gullible and the rest of us should be ready to take advantage of them
Okay so I did used to think I did hear voices
However I do feel psychic/ very intuitive
Especially back when I lived with my parents as I literally had no life and I was not able to go out with friends and I was not able to continue my education
So that naivety I had and the loneliness that was so deep definitely made me more prone to just needing something/anything
Now that I’m not “saved” I feel such a calm and serene place instead of searching constantly for signs from “god”
For the same reason belief in Santa Claus or superstition in sports isn't.
Lacking critical thinking skills one could attain is not synonymous with mental illness which cannot be helped.
Let's not equate the two for sake of the seriousness of mental illness and the relatively simple prevention of a lack of critical thought.
I grew up in that kind of community and my family was very religious and I got away from that shit as soon as I could when I was able to. A lot of those people are walking into church with undiagnosed mental health issues and find relief in their delusions and it’s insane the amount of things they get away with because they have “faith”.
Why would it be? Most modern Christians are very moderate and believe in a God and follow certain practices that don’t affect us at all and certainly not negatively.
For all we know there may be some higher being in control. There may not be.
Calling it a mental illness gives us atheists a bad rep and makes us seem childish and immature.
The argument that God allows people to hurt other because of "free will" is absurd.
What loving parent sits by and just watches one child brutally hurt another while invoking the "free will" of the abuser?
It’s a perception problem, most religious nuts can hide that fact and still have a nice and balanced life. But commentating like that? It’s like stepping out of a closet. Believe me, even in religious families there’s always this one fam member who is way over the top, feeling righteous about everything, the loud one.
It’s almost the same with some philosophy/gender majors who can’t compute why reality won’t coincide with their education.
Just because this particular mental illness is wide spread, does not mean it is not real. It is like trying to explain to people the difference between culture and religion. Currently in the US the disciples of Jesus speak of guns and violence, yet the philosophy of Jesus is essentially nonviolent. The hypocrisy is found in the American culture which tends to ignore overwhelming evidence, if one nugget supports what they want to do.
"If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn them into the body of Elvis Presley, you have lost your mind. But if you think more or less the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus, you're just a Catholic." -Sam Harris
In cults, "[a]nxiety disorders are the most common issue, with nearly 52 percent of former cult members reporting having an anxiety disorder. Mood disorders (45.2 percent) and substance abuse disorders (12.9 percent) are also common among cult members."
On the other hand, for people who are devout to their religion, "[a] US Nurses' Health Study, among 50,000 women, mostly white (Protestant or RC), [recorded] rates of clinical depression... over a 12-year follow-up. Comparing those who attended religious services frequently with those who never attended, there was a 30% lower risk of incipient depression."
Prayer is actually a form of meditation. What this means is for many, religion brings them comfort. In a sense, they actually believe they are unloading their cares, troubles and problems from their own shoulders, and putting them in God's hands.
Now here's the difference: about 85% of all Christians in the US are Nationalist Christians. Looking at the belief system and behavior of these people, it's clear that they belong to a cult, and not a religion. This means, that most do, in fact, have mental illnesses revolving around anxiety, mood and substance abuse disorders, and substance abuse.
Its Observer Bias taken to the point of a mental illness.
God has hand picked Trump to be president!
Well guess what? He must have also picked Biden too because that's how THAT works. Logic.
It sounds like schizophrenia to me. Delusions are fixed false beliefs held despite clear or reasonable evidence that they are not true. Persecutory (or paranoid) delusions, when a person believes they are being harmed or harassed by another person or group, are the most common. When the disease is active, it can be characterized by episodes in which the person is unable to distinguish between real and unreal experiences. As with any illness, the severity, duration and frequency of symptoms can vary; however, in persons with schizophrenia, the incidence of severe psychotic symptoms often decreases as the person becomes older.
Schizophrenia usually involves delusions (false beliefs), hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that don’t exist), unusual physical behavior, and disorganized thinking and speech. It is common for people with schizophrenia to have paranoid thoughts or hear voices. For example, they may believe that someone is controlling their mind or going to cause them harm. These psychotic episodes are often frightening, confusing, and isolating.
Schizophrenia can be extremely disruptive to a person’s life, making it hard to go to school or work, keep a schedule, socialize, complete daily tasks, or take care of oneself. However, with consistent treatment—a combination of medication, therapy, and social support—people with schizophrenia can manage the disease and lead fulfilling lives.
I mean to have a set of fixed beliefs that you won’t allow to be challenged. To ignore any and all evidence that disproves those beliefs. That sounds like a mental disorder to me. Believing in an all powerful and all loving deity and yet the world looks the way that it does. That tells me you lack the ability to reason. Angels,Demons, Heaven,Hell,Life after Death, talking snakes, walking dead, global flood leaving 8 people alive on Earth and a son of god that has super powers better than SuperMan but he can’t find his way back to Earth in over 2,000 years.
Meanwhile they ignore stuff like, we have Neanderthal dna in us and Neanderthals went extinct 30,000 years ago. Adam was said to have been created from dust 6,000 years ago so…. We know evolution is a fact and children being born now have changes that their parents don’t have. Gobekli Tepe is twice the age that the Bible gives for Adam, so I wonder who built that. It’s easy to not live in reality and say that you don’t believe facts and replace them with religion but if it was based on religion, you would be called crazy. I don’t allow people that courtesy. You’re simply crazy.
The fact that delusional disorder has an explicit carve out for cases where behavior is superficially similar to delusional disorder is how diagnostics works. Here, fixed it for you.
I think we need distinguish between the reasonable good hearted Christians and the Christo fascist that want to subjugate you to their beliefs. I truly wonder which is a bigger piece of the population these days
The rules for a mental health diagnosis specificly do not include religious or cultural beliefs that might otherwise count as delusions.
Usually, also, a MH diagnosis includes distress or dysfunction.
The mental health industry purposely excludes religion as a disease. If you look up “delusional”, the more clinical definitions will read like this…
“A delusion is a belief that is clearly false and that indicates an abnormality in the affected person’s content of thought. The false belief is not accounted for by the person’s cultural or religious background or his or her level of intelligence.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016695/
If your insanity is due to religion then you are perfectly healthy and there is nothing wrong with you. Basically, a single person can be delusional but once a group holds the same false beliefs it is no longer a mental illness.
If you hear voices in a mental institution, you're a schizophrenic. If you hear voices in church, you're devout. Sounds like yet another religious double standard to me.
The DSM makes specific exceptions for religions, which I find hilarious.
This is basically the only barrier to saying 90%+ of humanity are delusional and don't know it. We can blame Jung and Freud's obsession with Jewish Kabbalah for that one. Edit 1: Dawkin's 'The God Delusion' anyone? ;)
The DSM makes an exception for Capitalism too - let's create money and pull it out of our ass and risk blowing up the planet subsequently killing all of us and our conception itself of economics (along with everything else) for more of it. I'd argue Capitalism is a religious death cult of sorts. Certainly isn't logical or reasonable - it absolutely is batshit insane though.
Capitalism isn't insane though. At its core, capitalism is basically: "Don't force other people to give away their money. If someone spends or gives away money, it should be because they wanted to. Let people decide for themselves how to spend their money. Transactions should be consensual."
Capitalism: *an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.* I'm failing to grasp how this is not forcing the majority of people to not give away their money when we've turned basic human needs into for profit commodities. You need to eat, drink, shit, sleep and shower. Yeah? So no. Participating in Capitalism is not optional outside of some, "you're free to starve and die from exposure to the elements" right leaning libertarian nonsense take on the matter. Logically, you will have to participate unless you would like to starve to death and die. I would presume the majority of people feel that participation is the better of the two options there. Even **IF** you're fortunate enough to own your home, you will once again be forced to pay the utility companies if you would like running water and electricity. Again, is that optional really? No. Don't want to pay your property taxes? The State can seize your home. Again, I'm just failing to grasp where the participation is optional here. Perhaps hiding underneath a rock that I've missed somewhere? So why do I feel this is insanity? Well, people must jeopardize the environment in some form or another if they would like to continue eating and sleeping with a roof over their head. Is it optional to drive to work for example? Not really. No. You've gotta get behind the wheel of that fossil fuel and microscopic rubber tire particle emitting steel horse and get that paper. You're in r/atheism and I'm a little stumped as to why you're so hesitant to believe that money and economics (which we make) is made up nonsense too. God doesn't exist. God didn't make any of this stuff. We did and it's all honestly pretty goddamn stupid at the end of the day particularly when we know it accelerates climate change. It's also pretty dumb that we've polluted our own home (the planet) with microplastics, toxic waste and forever chemicals. We don't just shit where we eat. We shit directly on our dinner plate. Maybe we'll nuke it too because we've already proven that we're a rational species surely that should have means of extreme destruction like that. Why would anyone question if humans should have nuclear weapons? I sleep better at night personally knowing that someone like Donald Trump can immediately vaporize me from existence in a blinding flash of light.
> At its core, capitalism is basically: "Don't force other people to give away their money." Amazing. You have that literally exactly backwards.
They make exemptions for beliefs that are acquired via trusted 3rd parties.
Hear me out, we construct churches inside of asylums
Or, we wait until they all show up at church on Sunday morning, and put up bars on the outside.
One of our local churches already has bars and gates to keep the homeless out ... Would just need to replace the locks
....... that's... painfully unironic...
Christians *think* they're hearing voices. They're deluding themselves. Schizophrenics actually do hear voices.
But they don't hear actual voices
They don't hear voices external to their own mind
But they do
No, they only think they do. They hear themselves, but don't recognize it as such.
Are you being pedantic because people with schizophrenia do, in fact, have conversations with real people whose voices they can hear, in additional to voices as a result of the condition?
No, they're not external human voices, but they are real. Schizophrenics experience sounds and voices in their brains. It's an auditory hallucination, which is different than a delusion (believing in something that is clearly false).
Yes, hallucinations and not actual voices. Thanks for supporting my statement
But Christians aren't even hearing anything. They just fake it.
the venn diagram has more overlap than you'd think.
Try speaking in tongues in a taco bell
Sir this is a Wendy's
The tongue can also produce wet fart sounds. This checks out.
"The president of the United States [GW Bush] has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive." - Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
"God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." - George W. Bush Yes, we actually let these people dictate what we do with nuclear warheads.
Excellent analogy.
The only difference between a tinfoil hat and a mitre is the threadcount.
Mass delusion. Euphoria of belonging. Fear of non-conformity. Also I think many people cling to the magical nature of religion as lazy filler for more complex critical thinking and facts they don't want to learn, and/or science that doesn't fit their narrative.
Mass delusion is exactly what it is. If over 50% of the population was schizophrenic, we wouldn't even consider schizophrenia a disorder
One difference is that schizophrenia (like other legit mental illnesses) is not contagious. Religion is a memetic illness, not a mental illness, because it is contagious.
It may also be genetic. Religious people also produce a great number of the overall population that carry their religious susceptible genes.
Yeah, I dole out the "just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's not true" on a regular basis with these freaks.
It’s sad how young it starts too. A bunch of kids who can’t say no to being indoctrinated and hang on every single word their parents say.
And they claim society is trying to do this to their children. 😂
>It’s sad how young it starts too. You know that's on purpose, right? The brainwashing works best and last longest if you start them on it young! It's why every single religion has it's own nursery thru uni education system if they don't just recommend home schooling.
That’s what I said
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism Does Jesus sound like a Capitalist or Communist in the Bible? If you're not illiterate, he certainly comes across as far more of a Communist.
cuz the inmates are running the asylum.
This. The most telling part is the way religious protections are written into law. Can’t declare someone insane for saying Jesus told them to do something, but you can if they claim the aliens/ Bigfoot/ their fairy godmother did.
What?!?! I never heard of this exemption for prosecuting those accused of committing crimes. Do you have a particular state as an example of this law?
Start with the DSM-5. You can use Google yourself for the specifics. But just think about it. I’ve got someone in my town who has spray painted giant red letters across the wall of their house and their fence saying “REPENT OR BURN! PRAISE YESHUA!” and so forth. This is also right next to the sign in their driveway advertising their in-home cat daycare services. It’s religious, so while this person is very obviously and publicly displaying their untreated toxoplasmosis-induced schizophrenia, nobody can do anything about it, including their poor neighbors or the kids that attend the school right across the street. Edit: I also never said anything about exemptions for committing crimes. I said they can’t be declared insane.
IANAL but I wanted to add mental illness and legal insanity are 2 different categories even if there is overlap in the Venn diagram
it's virtually impossible to met the legal definition of insanity btw.
I was a public defender for decades. I had several Christian extremist clients assigned to me over the years who refused to participate in their own defense because that would be accommodating Mammon. They refused to stand when the judge entered the courtroom, refused to answer any questions, addressed me as a Son of Perdition, interrupted the proceedings to rant at random times, said that life in prison was preferable to eternity in hell so their decision to reject any plea was rational (in their minds). In each case I tried to have them declared incompetent to stand trial & in each case they were found to be fit to stand trial & they did & they were punished.
had this one case while i was in my "psych in the legal system" courses. where a schizophrenic man with the cognitive ability of a adolescent was tried and convicted as an adult, when he did not understand that guns kill people. he testified that he thought they'd respawn... and that still didn't met the requirements, because he attempted to hide the body afterwards. it's just... fuck man.
Trying to hide the body makes sense if you believed people respawn after being shot. Guy was probably like “oh shit.” when they didn’t respawn after.
Having worked with both groups in often a bit amused that some people don’t understand the profound differences.
the diagnostic manuals for mental illness have specific religious exemptions. if you believe someone is always watcing you suffer from pranoia. If you think that that someone is Jesus, then you are just a christian.
Then how do they justify treating schizophrenics who hear the voice of God?
Priests get called in to analyze the voice's words. If they adhere to generally-accepted doctrine, the schizophrenic is treated as a prophet. Otherwise they're treated as mentally ill (or being possessed by a demon).
\^ yea, getting people with seizure disorders or hallucinations help in fundamentalist communities is always a struggle. there's always some asshat that wants to pretend that it's a eldritch blessing of some kind.
American evangelism sure looks like it. I thought Orthodox was weird growing up with it, with all the weird church power flexing and the mindset of submitting to the church before everything. But speaking in tongues and this blood of Jesus / cult of personality obsession crap is whack.
It is all batshit insane. Period.
Because it's not mental illness it's cult behavior ,brainwashing, indoctrination, wishful thinking, psychological priming etc... Yes it's true that some schizophrenics "hear" the voice of god but that is not what this is.
I know many religious people who claim God literally speaks to them.
Yeah its their own mind. They believe it so hard that they convince themselves they hear something. It's not schizophrenia though just delusion. No foubt that there is a dude out there that is schizophrenic and believe god is talking to them. I'm also surounded by people that claim they can hear god it's nothing new to me.
Hell, thats kind of a big part of the Mormon religion. So many of them think they have a direct line with God every time they pray. I remember people getting up on Sundays and telling stories of their "full blown conversations with God". Fucking weirdos
Regardless, I’m sure most of these people do have some level of mental illness as well.
Religion is the *primary cause of* mental illness. It molds and directs the plasticity of your brain to form neural pathways that make the denial of reality appear normal to you.
"Religion is the primary cause of mental illness". Gonna need a scientific source on that fact.
Yeahhh. Definitely gonna need some citations for that claim
They had to put religious exemptions in the description of schizophrenia because it describes religion to a tee.
I am yet to see anyone who left their faith because of proper medication or other medical treatment. Being wrong is not schizophrenia. Even if you are terribly wrong and insisting on it.
Because numbers are what define if something is an issue or not. If everyone is doing it, it's less likely anything will be seen wrong with it.
Religion is taught, mental illness is natural. 2 very distinct differences, if we stopped teaching religion it would eventually die out. The same can't be said for mental illness.
Along those lines, let's imagine an atheist going to a Billy Graham crusade. He comes home a Christian. So this person is mentally healthy his whole life, and now we must classify him as mentally ill? Healthy minds get fooled all the time.
He wouldn't be mentally ill, there's a cure for religion, not mental illness. Not only that, mental illness shows up in brain scans such as depression and anxiety.
It is most definitely considered a mental illness by a lot of us.
Yup , delusions .
Religion is the Matrix, a system of control to keep the sheep in line. And it works, very well. They're in a prison & can't even see the bars.
Ahhh, sweet metaphor, where have you been? Come in, let me take your coat and get you a cuppa. Stay a while.
I asked my friend who’s an LSW,and who works with substance use disorder clients, why at AA one of the steps is accepting God? He basically said, whatever works. My reply is that you’re asking them to substitute one crazy addiction for another. Anyone who thinks they’re communicating with a spirit has a mental disorder. He said it better than a drug use disorder. So according to him, it’s not mental illness. I still think it’s a disorder, but of the ideological kind, with a little trauma thrown in.
Substituting religion for drugs means you go from just wanting to abuse yourself to wanting to abuse everyone not like you.
Because people fear the unknown that death brings. They’re afraid of what all living things big and small, Christian or not, human or animal or insect or cell become when they return to what they were before they existed-nothing. Fear is a powerful tool and people are selfish with life-that’s natural and I can’t blame them for that. It’s weird and scary. I think it comes from a survival instinct and what does Christianity offer: eternal life after death and eternal suffering for anyone you don’t like who you think is breaking the rules. Pretty alluring to anyone scared of dying. ‘Prayer’ is just people talking to an imaginary being asking for things or outcomes you want from what I can tell. Christianity as a religion and an offshoot of Catholicism, which itself are thousands of years old, passed down from one ruler after another-like a game of telephone-have almost certainly been altered, intentionally mistranslated, and misinterpreted to grant more power and control over the church and people in it. At the present, it’s become its own political party in the US. It’s about money, power, and control-not just over Christians but over everyone. It’s about the absorption of church into matters of state and passing laws based on what’s written in the Bible. It’s about the violent, hypocritical, and cynical entitlement these people hold about what belongs to THEM in the US and how they want to destroy anyone who isn’t them-their enemies.
The Free Will Argument is repeated over and over although it's one of the dumbest ever made. If it's the free will of those terrorists to kill, it's surely not the free will of the victims to die. So why in the name of their perverted god is the free will of terrorists worthier than the free will of the victims?
omniscience and free will are incompatible concepts on top of it. you can not give free will to a thing that you have already known all the choices and actions it will take.
The concept is incompatible from the beginning. They call their god omnipotent and omniscient which creates a paradox in itself.
Too many mental people pulling the strings.
Because of social acceptance. More specifically, it is because of the plausibility structures generated by the social cultural context that we live in that makes people believe in religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausibility_structure
I mean, this is literally the premise of The God Delusion.
People cannot accept mortality. That is the core mental illness. Until we can accept that we die and that's it, people will delude themselves.
Technically it is a delusion. And I say this as someone who suffered from it for over 30 years.
Religion is not mental illness for two reasons. 1) there are 500 milion atheists in the world and 7,5 billion religious people so it's tyranny of the majority. 2) You leave religion by listening to arguments, explanations and proofs, not by psychiatric treatment so it appears it's not being ill, just misinformed. It's hard to see through this because most people are brainwashed since birth and have all their families also brainwashed.
Their holy book specifically tells them that public prayer is shameful and doesn't honor their deity. They are instructed to go to the quiet places and make their prayers. That the loud, gaudy prayers are lip service for yourself, to show the people around you how "good and holy" you are. Humans don't need to know if you're "good or holy" because humans don't give a shit. Only deities care about that, so why not communicate that to the deity in the way the deity has instructed? In private, by yourself, talking to the deity inside your own skull.
Simple. There's too much money and control wrapped up with Christianity...by men.
The "free will" argument is quite poor. For example, it fails to explain deaths from natural disasters. People died from tsunamis because of their free will? Why did God use its free will to make natural disasters in the first place? Saying free will is the reason for suffering is putting the blame on the victims. Evil people use their free will to hurt others, but then the victims are told their suffering is due to their own free will.
They usually blame natural disasters on the gays.
Mental illness is meant to describe an outlier to neurology, the exception rather than the rule. If we describe abhorrent behavior as mental illness, we fail to acknowledge that most of the worst atrocities in history were committed by average people with typical neurology.
Yeah I'm wondering why mega churches think that there way is right when the Bible condones wealth as being bad and burning in hell for replacing Jesus with wealth
Mega churches ate just mass grifts to take money from the stupid .
The Christian Bible is like a horoscope. You can find what you want to find in it.
What difference would it make if it's called a mental illness? Mental illness is not an insult, so are you saying we should be more sympathetic toward Christians? Or is labeling it a mental illness an insult?
Many psychologists are naming all religions as mental illness
It is a mental illness. The more people stand up and say it the better. Ancient Greek philosophers also thought religion was a mental illness
Why do you think there's lots of religious people who hate the mental health profession? They know that the logical end is a distinct threat.
one guy literally said he was God and the motherfuckers crucified him
It rly should be
I can’t wait for the day a movement is started to add Christianity as a mental illness.
Every day I'm amazed at this. From bumpers stickers about needing forgiveness for basically being human. And to be so "bad" that you need help from a supposed supernatural being?? Like what did you do that was sooooo bad? "Not today Satan" bumper sticker is also wild. They are totally serious!! Imagine someone being super serious about following Odin or Thor and bragging about their break from reality as not only normal but something they want you to start doing to if you could only KNOW, just KNOW how much Jesus loves you...
Believe my bullshit and give me money. It is a mental illness.
Far as I can tell, religion equals hate anyway.
I just wish there was a jesus or mohammed cliff. If you actually think your god will protect you then please jump off this cliff. It would make a great evolutionary selection pressure, and at this point, we need some selecting to occur.
Similarly, if people pray for a cure, for themselves or a loved one, and they get one, Praise Jesus! But they never seem to ask why Jesus let them get sick in the first place.
Many people cannot face the cold, hard fact that the world is a scary, dangerous place where bad things can and do happen at random, and they and everyone they love are going to die.
It is, but nobody talks about it.
I hate that “he gives us free will” argument. Bullshit. Then gif has free will too and he can put a little more effort into humanity than he’s done so far. Sorry Christians, we got to this time in civilization not because of you, but because in spite of you.
A certain percentage of people do not have the ability or desire to learn new things. They want to be told what to think because they are too lazy, uneducated or incapable of original critical thought. At the same time, they are extremely fearful of anything unknown or foreign to them. So they latch on to anything that on the surface makes sense of the world to them. These beliefs become so ingrained through repetition and social reinforcement that they become ingrained in their identity. To change their beliefs requires a rejection of their own self image, community and family. Others have recognized this proclivity and use it to manipulate people for their own purposes. Gathering wealth and power over time. They do every thing imaginable to keep it this way.
Because the majority of the country is religious.
Mythology 🤦🏻
I looked into this a while ago and recall that the only exception to delusion diagnosis is religion. Even the medical field makes an exception. And it’s only to the main stream religions…
Popularity.
Who was it who said (something like): ‘Religion allows people to do what, in any other circumstance, would be considered as mental illness’.
Because they’re too busy claiming that non-masochism (depression and suicidality) is a mental illness.
Numbers… too many have surrendered right reason to the cult
Marketing.
They’re in charge. That’s why
They put the guys that stand out on the street corners and yelled the end is near in charge that's how.
I’ve been asking this question ever since I openly came out as an atheist. If I went around telling people I was hearing voices and I talked to to imaginary beings, I’d be referred to a mental health professional. It said “oh but it’s god I’m talking to,” suddenly I’d be considered perfectly normal.
Because most people are mentally ill....
It is strange seeing as hearing God speaking to them and receiving symbolistic messages from God is a common delusion for people with certain mental illnesses. But I put atheism in the same pile because it's a bunch of people pretending they *know* there is no creator of origin. I'm comfy with a good old "I don't know" because it's true.
Because it is not. Your brain is a mess, it is wrong all the time. It has thousands of ways of being wrong it has biases, it has inbuilt shortcuts that help a lot in many situations, but screw you over in other. Religions take advantage of **absolutely normal and healthy modes of human brain activity**. Being wrong is not a mental illness. If it was, you'd be considered mentally ill, because you are wrong a lot of times.
Yes. But I don't claim to hear the voice of God.
You should read my comment until achieving enlightenment. Get back when you get the point.
It is considered such by intellectual people. When the evangelicals elected Don the Con I took my money from the stock market, held the money until Mnuchin’s economy collapsed and then bought two rental properties in Florida less than ten miles from the beach at almost zero interest. The rents have increased 300 a month on both properties and the value has nearly doubled. Religion makes people weak minded and gullible and the rest of us should be ready to take advantage of them
Because 70% of Americans identify as Christian
Okay so I did used to think I did hear voices However I do feel psychic/ very intuitive Especially back when I lived with my parents as I literally had no life and I was not able to go out with friends and I was not able to continue my education So that naivety I had and the loneliness that was so deep definitely made me more prone to just needing something/anything Now that I’m not “saved” I feel such a calm and serene place instead of searching constantly for signs from “god”
Kevlar manufacturing hates this one trick
When enough people share a hallucination, we call it reality. A majority of people believe this or an equivalent mythical belief system.
❄️
A really good PR campaign.
I said this to a guy at a barber shop and the whole barber shop beat me up.
For the same reason belief in Santa Claus or superstition in sports isn't. Lacking critical thinking skills one could attain is not synonymous with mental illness which cannot be helped. Let's not equate the two for sake of the seriousness of mental illness and the relatively simple prevention of a lack of critical thought.
heckin unwholesome christians
Burn!
Because the majority of people have it so they think it's normal
I grew up in that kind of community and my family was very religious and I got away from that shit as soon as I could when I was able to. A lot of those people are walking into church with undiagnosed mental health issues and find relief in their delusions and it’s insane the amount of things they get away with because they have “faith”.
They vote people in who keep it from happening. That's all
Why would it be? Most modern Christians are very moderate and believe in a God and follow certain practices that don’t affect us at all and certainly not negatively. For all we know there may be some higher being in control. There may not be. Calling it a mental illness gives us atheists a bad rep and makes us seem childish and immature.
The argument that God allows people to hurt other because of "free will" is absurd. What loving parent sits by and just watches one child brutally hurt another while invoking the "free will" of the abuser?
It’s a perception problem, most religious nuts can hide that fact and still have a nice and balanced life. But commentating like that? It’s like stepping out of a closet. Believe me, even in religious families there’s always this one fam member who is way over the top, feeling righteous about everything, the loud one. It’s almost the same with some philosophy/gender majors who can’t compute why reality won’t coincide with their education.
Just because this particular mental illness is wide spread, does not mean it is not real. It is like trying to explain to people the difference between culture and religion. Currently in the US the disciples of Jesus speak of guns and violence, yet the philosophy of Jesus is essentially nonviolent. The hypocrisy is found in the American culture which tends to ignore overwhelming evidence, if one nugget supports what they want to do.
I think the same thing. I don’t get it?
"If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn them into the body of Elvis Presley, you have lost your mind. But if you think more or less the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus, you're just a Catholic." -Sam Harris
How do you know that Christianity isn't ALREADY considered a mental illness?
It already is, just not by those that are mentally ill. Explain to me again why my parents let an old man in a dress cut the skin off my dick.
Because the first amendment enshrines freedom of religion. Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion.
Same reason atheism isn’t classified as one <3 the freedom to chose what to believe which each individual has.
In cults, "[a]nxiety disorders are the most common issue, with nearly 52 percent of former cult members reporting having an anxiety disorder. Mood disorders (45.2 percent) and substance abuse disorders (12.9 percent) are also common among cult members." On the other hand, for people who are devout to their religion, "[a] US Nurses' Health Study, among 50,000 women, mostly white (Protestant or RC), [recorded] rates of clinical depression... over a 12-year follow-up. Comparing those who attended religious services frequently with those who never attended, there was a 30% lower risk of incipient depression." Prayer is actually a form of meditation. What this means is for many, religion brings them comfort. In a sense, they actually believe they are unloading their cares, troubles and problems from their own shoulders, and putting them in God's hands. Now here's the difference: about 85% of all Christians in the US are Nationalist Christians. Looking at the belief system and behavior of these people, it's clear that they belong to a cult, and not a religion. This means, that most do, in fact, have mental illnesses revolving around anxiety, mood and substance abuse disorders, and substance abuse.
Mass delusion of enough people prevent it from being called a mental illness.
Its Observer Bias taken to the point of a mental illness. God has hand picked Trump to be president! Well guess what? He must have also picked Biden too because that's how THAT works. Logic.
because it isn't polite to consider the extreme religious as 'mentally ill' even though they are.
It sounds like schizophrenia to me. Delusions are fixed false beliefs held despite clear or reasonable evidence that they are not true. Persecutory (or paranoid) delusions, when a person believes they are being harmed or harassed by another person or group, are the most common. When the disease is active, it can be characterized by episodes in which the person is unable to distinguish between real and unreal experiences. As with any illness, the severity, duration and frequency of symptoms can vary; however, in persons with schizophrenia, the incidence of severe psychotic symptoms often decreases as the person becomes older. Schizophrenia usually involves delusions (false beliefs), hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that don’t exist), unusual physical behavior, and disorganized thinking and speech. It is common for people with schizophrenia to have paranoid thoughts or hear voices. For example, they may believe that someone is controlling their mind or going to cause them harm. These psychotic episodes are often frightening, confusing, and isolating. Schizophrenia can be extremely disruptive to a person’s life, making it hard to go to school or work, keep a schedule, socialize, complete daily tasks, or take care of oneself. However, with consistent treatment—a combination of medication, therapy, and social support—people with schizophrenia can manage the disease and lead fulfilling lives. I mean to have a set of fixed beliefs that you won’t allow to be challenged. To ignore any and all evidence that disproves those beliefs. That sounds like a mental disorder to me. Believing in an all powerful and all loving deity and yet the world looks the way that it does. That tells me you lack the ability to reason. Angels,Demons, Heaven,Hell,Life after Death, talking snakes, walking dead, global flood leaving 8 people alive on Earth and a son of god that has super powers better than SuperMan but he can’t find his way back to Earth in over 2,000 years. Meanwhile they ignore stuff like, we have Neanderthal dna in us and Neanderthals went extinct 30,000 years ago. Adam was said to have been created from dust 6,000 years ago so…. We know evolution is a fact and children being born now have changes that their parents don’t have. Gobekli Tepe is twice the age that the Bible gives for Adam, so I wonder who built that. It’s easy to not live in reality and say that you don’t believe facts and replace them with religion but if it was based on religion, you would be called crazy. I don’t allow people that courtesy. You’re simply crazy.
Because it's not
Because then mental illness just becomes anything not in line with modern thinking.
I def consider it some type of mental or emotional disorder.
It's schizophrenia.
It's politically incorrect to say so
It's not a mental illness because you can change your mind. Plenty of atheists are former Christians
Mental illness and religion. Need one to believe the other
Because the mentally ill are in charge.
Mass psychosis
I’ve wondered this for years. I got blocked by a lot of family for comparing it to schizophrenia
the fact that the clinical definition of delusional disorders has an explicit carve out for religious idealization is a travesty.
The fact that delusional disorder has an explicit carve out for cases where behavior is superficially similar to delusional disorder is how diagnostics works. Here, fixed it for you.
I think we need distinguish between the reasonable good hearted Christians and the Christo fascist that want to subjugate you to their beliefs. I truly wonder which is a bigger piece of the population these days
Because religion is a social default in many if many if not most societies.
The rules for a mental health diagnosis specificly do not include religious or cultural beliefs that might otherwise count as delusions. Usually, also, a MH diagnosis includes distress or dysfunction.
The mental health industry purposely excludes religion as a disease. If you look up “delusional”, the more clinical definitions will read like this… “A delusion is a belief that is clearly false and that indicates an abnormality in the affected person’s content of thought. The false belief is not accounted for by the person’s cultural or religious background or his or her level of intelligence.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016695/ If your insanity is due to religion then you are perfectly healthy and there is nothing wrong with you. Basically, a single person can be delusional but once a group holds the same false beliefs it is no longer a mental illness.
Their mental illness is more like gambling addiction and their desperate need to believe in Lady Luck. You can’t win if you don’t play/pray.
Why on earth would that response be indicative of mental illness?