Religion as a mental illness

[RedRod]

Although my under-grad degree was in psychology, I never went on to become a professional psychologist & so I am making no claims of expertise. However, being brought up in a Christian evangelical fundamentalist family, I formed the suspicion that religion is a form of mental illness. When I went on to post-grad studies in cultural anthropology I became absolutely convinced that religion (in all its forms) is a form of socially sanctioned schizophrenia & is more than just a delusion. It is a hateful, divisive, bigoted, intolerant, unthinking & abusive disorder which has destroyed individuals, couples, families & entire nations. Most mental health professionals know this, but none dare mention the elephant in the room for fear of the reaction it would provoke. How is this different from the care people take not to "offend" Muslims (too late, if you're not a Muslim you're already on their hit list)? Moreover, how is it religious belief ticks all the diagnostic boxes for mental illness yet escapes the label? Imagine if there was only one Christian in the world & he/she was asked to describe Christian doctrine? A man claiming to be a god, who could turn water into wine (ie. an enabler for alcoholics), could return the dead to life, could walk on water & created the entire universe from nothing - who wouldn't conclude this person was crazy? Yet how do you treat someone who doesn't believe they're ill? How does one break the spell that binds their minds?

Religion is a pernicious meme deliberately fashioned over centuries to disable critical thinking & demand unconditional obedience. That many are prepared to die for their faith disturbs me far less than their readiness to kill for it. Abraham never displayed any doubt when god told him to murder his son, & he is held up as a role model for Christians to follow! Surely proposing to murder your child because a voice in your head told you to must qualify as a serious mental disturbance. Would any court of law accept a criminal's defence that he didn't commit "murder", he was just performing a "sacrifice"? This insanity has been tolerated for too long  &, as Edmund Burke said, "for injustice to triumph, men of good conscience must remain silent". I am no longer prepared to remain silent & therefore complicit in the greatest evil facing humanity. I have hope that as global atheist momentum grows we may have the courage of our convictions to treat religion as the insidious lunacy it clearly is. Here endeth the lesson.

[Alex K]

I would interject though that joining in a ubiquitous, traditional and socially accepted far-out belief is much less a sign of mental illness than being the only believer, because the genesis of the belief is usually very different. You can grow up in catholic society, learn to truly believe in the virgin mary and be a perfectly functioning member of that society. With that, the usual definition of a mental illness is afaik not met. If someone spontaneously starts to believe things of that type, there is usually something not quite right with that person a priori.

[brewer]

I agree, a delusion of both fantasy and grandeur. Unfortunately once the belief becomes a society norm and institutionalized it is no longer considered delusional. Those not believing are then considered the delusional and become societal outcasts. They become the focus of attack, the enemy, within that society.

Our society unfortunately has many delusions, not just religious, that are acceptable. Take a look at advertising. One good example is the female form delusion. How many women torture them selves chasing that made up perfection. Another is aging.

Fortunately, religion is on the decline. I doubt that it will ever completely go away.

[abaris]

How's that any different than other ideologies? They all deal in disabling critical thinking & demanding unconditional obedience.

You have to make a distinction though. At the basic level, religions as well as other more secular ideologies, simply take people by the hand and offer them a seemingly safe haven amongst likeminded people. If fanatism enters the mix, you have a point.

[Pyrrho]

I would interject though that joining in a ubiquitous and socially accepted far-out belief is much less a sign of mental illness than being the only believer, because the genesis of the belief is usually very different. You can grow up in catholic dociety, learn to truly believe in the virgin mary and be a perfectly functioning member of that society. With that, the usual definition of a mental illness is afaik not met.

Isn't the fact that social norms are automatically excluded the point of contention?  A mass delusion is regarded differently from a single case, even if the beliefs are the same.

We can alter the example to bring the point in greater focus.  Suppose that we consider a fundamentalist Christian in a society in which no one else is a Christian, and everyone else is an atheist, with no one else being religious at all.  What would one say of that case?  Is believing that one has an invisible friend who one speaks with a sign of madness?  Is obsessively following strange, pointless rituals a sign of madness?


I think that the most important part of your claim is the first one about the genesis of the belief, as that may be a reason to classify it differently from what is generally regarded as insane.  "Sane" (or so-called "sane") people join up with crazy ideas after the crazies have come up with them.  One can see this in the case of the belief that we are being visited by aliens and people are abducted and medical experiments are performed on them.  The origins of such beliefs appear to come from people who are mentally ill (in a traditional sense), yet the belief has become more mainstream due to the persuasiveness of some of the crazies (and the poor critical thinking skills of "sane" people).

The upshot, though, is that one can have many crazy beliefs without being crazy, according to the current standards.  And there is something quite odd about that.  Even if one does not wish to change the classifications from the way they are at present, it is still good to remind people of this fact.

[robvalue]

I'd say a lot of the things religious people say sound indistinguishable from mental illness symptoms. I suspect thought that they don't actually believe all the stuff they say; the extent will vary for each person of course. The fact that so many theists talk about belief as if it's a choice is a giveaway that they are professing beliefs rather than describing them.

I think this is a big problem, but I also think calling it a mental illness is oversimplifying and in most cases probably wrong. Most of the time it's going to be due to psychological programming, and the mind can cope due to its ability for cognitive dissidence. In extreme cases though, the results can be pretty similar.

[Iroscato]

Religion isn't so much a mental illness as it is a drug, and a wholly consuming and addictive one at that.

[Longhorn]

Religion isn't so much a mental illness as it is a drug, and a wholly consuming and addictive one at that.

^this.

Figuratively speaking, though I've no doubt it has similar effect on the brain. It's an emotional crutch, but one that's forced on people when they're children.

[Aroura]

I would interject though that joining in a ubiquitous and socially accepted far-out belief is much less a sign of mental illness than being the only believer, because the genesis of the belief is usually very different. You can grow up in catholic dociety, learn to truly believe in the virgin mary and be a perfectly functioning member of that society. With that, the usual definition of a mental illness is afaik not met.

Isn't the fact that social norms are automatically excluded the point of contention?  A mass delusion is regarded differently from a single case, even if the beliefs are the same.

We can alter the example to bring the point in greater focus.  Suppose that we consider a fundamentalist Christian in a society in which no one else is a Christian, and everyone else is an atheist, with no one else being religious at all.  What would one say of that case?  Is believing that one has an invisible friend who one speaks with a sign of madness?  Is obsessively following strange, pointless rituals a sign of madness?


I think that the most important part of your claim is the first one about the genesis of the belief, as that may be a reason to classify it differently from what is generally regarded as insane.  "Sane" (or so-called "sane") people join up with crazy ideas after the crazies have come up with them.  One can see this in the case of the belief that we are being visited by aliens and people are abducted and medical experiments are performed on them.  The origins of such beliefs appear to come from people who are mentally ill (in a traditional sense), yet the belief has become more mainstream due to the persuasiveness of some of the crazies (and the poor critical thinking skills of "sane" people).

The upshot, though, is that one can have many crazy beliefs without being crazy, according to the current standards.  And there is something quite odd about that.  Even if one does not wish to change the classifications from the way they are at present, it is still good to remind people of this fact.

Actually, both religion AND alien abductions seem to be just the way our brains work.  
What I mean is, I don't think most people who claim abduction are mentally unstable, nor are most religious folks.

Religion is a very sane reaction to the unknown, IMHO.  Nowadays, we think it seems insane because there are better explanations for things, but for most of human history, people have been trying very hard to explain basic thing like natural phenomenon (lightning, rain, drought, birth, etc).  Pile on top of this natural disasters, death, and then add in human emotions + our pattern seeking brains, and poof, religion.

Don't we also have a part of our brain that can be triggered to cause us to incorrectly sense the presence of another "entity"?  This explains the very real sensations religious people can get that God is with them, or angels or saints or what have you.  This part, I think, is probably also responsible for some of the alien stories.

The other part is a something called Sleep Paralysis. I have narcolepsy, so my sleep paralysis is fairly frequent.  But for the vast majority of people experience this bain phenomenon once or twice in their lives.
It causes vivid hallucinations that seem very real (waking dreams), but you are unable to move.  I've often felt a presence with me, but I know now it's just my brain playing a trick.  It often causes a feeling of pressure on the chest or head (this is your autonomic breathing, but it feels like you CAN't breath, its alarming).  

Anyway, my point is that although religious people are sometimes delusional, I don't think they are any crazier than the average atheist.  I think those in charge of religion may prey upon the truly mentally ill, and religion may make mental illness worse, but it does not CAUSE it nor, is it, in itself, a mental illness.  It is just a product of how our brains work.  The more we learn though, the more we can help dispel the "unknown" and the fear that goes with it, and the less people will cling to those ideologies.

[AFTT47]

Nailed it, Aurora. It's a function of our limitations. We atheists either have a strong tendency towards scientific thinking that allows us to overcome those and/or we have our own emotional biases against supernatural thinking.