Record few Americans believe in Biblical inerrancy.

[Jehanne]

Religious faith is a sickness, a mental illness.  I sincerely hope that you recover someday; I did.

Yeah, because you seem really happy and well-adjusted... 

I find atheism to be both depressing, yet liberating, at the same time. Yet your statement proves the point that religious belief is akin to drug abuse.

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Religious faith is a sickness, a mental illness.  I sincerely hope that you recover someday; I did.

Religious faith can be healthy or unhealthy. Religion faith  isn't a mental illness. (However, mental illness, on occasion, manifests itself as religious faith.)

There is a difference between being mentally ill and being just plain wrong.

Any system of thought that obfuscates one's sense of reality to the point of asserting the existence of invisible beings is a mental illness, even if such is the product of a cultural virus.

[vulcanlogician]

Any system of thought that obsfricates one's sense of reality to the point of asserting the existence of invisible beings is a mental illness, even if such is the product of a cultural virus.

"Cultural" being the operative word. The Greeks believed there were gods who lived on Mount Olympus, not because they were sick, but because they were wrong. By your rationale, every member of a stone age Amazonian tribe is sick because they believe in the gods and spirits of the forest. They're not sick. They're wrong.

[Jehanne]

Any system of thought that obsfricates one's sense of reality to the point of asserting the existence of invisible beings is a mental illness, even if such is the product of a cultural virus.

"Cultural" being the operative word. The Greeks believed there were gods who lived on Mount Olympus, not because they were sick, but because they were wrong. By your rationale, every member of a stone age Amazonian tribe is sick because they believe in the gods and spirits of the forest. They're not sick. They're wrong.

I would agree that in cultures without an established scientific community that superstitious beliefs are not necessarily a mental illness, but persisting in ridiculous beliefs when shown clear and convincing evidence to the contrary is a mental illness. If Alpha male wants to believe that the South won the Civil War, then he has the freedom to do just that. I think that his commitment to Biblical inerrancy is a sickness; it is an absurd position for anyone in the modern Western world to hold to.

[vulcanlogician]

Look, I'm admitting that it CAN be unhealthy, and in many cases your addiction metaphor holds up. I just think that religious faith isn't in and of itself synonymous with mental illness, that's all.

[Jehanne]

We can agree that such is a spectrum, a continuum. Christian fundamentalism is, in my opinion, over the line. Ditto for the Jewish, Islamic, etc., knockoffs.

[JackRussell]

If there is a god, whichever god or religion, and he cares and wants to know me, surely he knows how.

The tortuous exhortations from resident theists should be redundant.

Any god that wants to say hi, certainly can. I have asked, she hasn't answered.

Yet rational explanations for our universe grow in integrity with each passing year.

No absolutes, but no supernatural required.

Gods seem weak to me, could do better, D-.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Other books in the NT are considered to be written "in the name of" various apostles. Dishonest practice, but hey, it's religion.

"In the name of" or "according to" are both way of ascribing authority to a text, not necessarily its authorship. It's like when a low feudalistic official says, "You are hereby summoned in the name of His Majesty, the King." The low official is claiming the King's authority for whatever he is about to say.

[John V]

I would agree that in cultures without an established scientific community that superstitious beliefs are not necessarily a mental illness, but persisting in ridiculous beliefs when shown clear and convincing evidence to the contrary is a mental illness.

I agree. We disagree on the existence of clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. To you, a wiki page asserting scholarly consensus is clear and convincing evidence. To me, it's not.

[JackRussell]

Other books in the NT are considered to be written "in the name of" various apostles. Dishonest practice, but hey, it's religion.

"In the name of" or "according to" are both way of ascribing authority to a text, not necessarily its authorship. It's like when a low feudalistic official says, "You are hereby summoned in the name of His Majesty, the King." The low official is claiming the King's authority for whatever he is about to say.

Or,

A later claim to authority, very frequent in ancient documents. Try the Venerable Bede for one. Old stuff weren't written to modern standards, yet we have these endless arguments about biblical ones that contain weird stuff we would never countenance today.

[Jehanne]

I would agree that in cultures without an established scientific community that superstitious beliefs are not necessarily a mental illness, but persisting in ridiculous beliefs when shown clear and convincing evidence to the contrary is a mental illness.

I agree. We disagree on the existence of clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. To you, a wiki page asserting scholarly consensus is clear and convincing evidence. To me, it's not.

It isn't Wikipedia; rather, it's the authoritative sources that the Wiki article cites and references.

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Other books in the NT are considered to be written "in the name of" various apostles. Dishonest practice, but hey, it's religion.

"In the name of" or "according to" are both way of ascribing authority to a text, not necessarily its authorship. It's like when a low feudalistic official says, "You are hereby summoned in the name of His Majesty, the King." The low official is claiming the King's authority for whatever he is about to say.

The Gospel of Peter claims, explicitly, to have been written by the Apostle Peter; do you accept that as being authentic?