When is a Religious Belief Delusional?

[Fake Messiah]

For a non-believer, to lump mainstream Christians in with people who are clearly mentally ill and failing to acknowledge various safe guards (that are by no means infallible) built into religious traditions, is at best IMHO thoughtless and at worst offensive and provocative

Oh, the horror of admitting to yourself that you are mentally ill. It doesn't mean that if you're mentally ill that you are automatically fit to be locked up in a rubber room for good. Society has strong prejudices toward mental illness, but rest assured there are ways to recuperate yourself from religion.

But yeah you consider yourself not to be mentally ill, so let's analyze what you think: sitting at a table over pancakes, saying a prayer and believing that a pancake is now Elvis Priestley is insane, but doing the same thing over a cracker and believing that a cracker is now Jesus makes you normal and a Catholic. I mean give me a break.

[robvalue]

I don't consider that having a delusion necessarily implies any kind of mental problem. It's more to do with how and why it arises. If you're surrounded by people who think the same way, it's much less likely to suggest there's anything to worry about than if you hold such beliefs in isolation.

Some countries are completely packed with theists, mostly all of the same religion. It's ridiculous, in my opinion, to suggest they are all mentally ill. They have been indoctrinated, and they have their beliefs reinforced every single day.

[brewer]

OP: To you most of the religious are not delusional because their beliefs and actions comply with the belief system. When the occasional believer is identified that does not comply with the belief system (i.e. Jim Jones/extreme example, Joseph Smith/less extreme) you then consider them delusional also.

That is true. To the degree that a new doctrine or revelation is being introduced it should be viewed skeptically. That is why I admitted that the internal safe-guards include consistency with prior teachings and would add that this safeguard is more of a warning sign than a test. A new doctrine could be a further clarification of prior revelations and historically these have not always been accepted. That is why there are still religious Jews and why Christians do not convert to Islam.

Since atheists do not hold your belief system we have no choice to consider it anything other than delusion. You communicate with an invisible being (for which there is not concrete evidence) that created everything and watches over the creation all the while directing actions, proclaiming judgement's and imposing rewards/punishments.

I do not consider the practice of prayer, in and of itself, evidence of delusion. The idea that there is a level of reality deeper (or higher depending on your perspective) and more fundamental that what is currently known does not seem on its face to be irrational. After that, it is more a difference of degree than of kind by which we evaluate its reasonableness.

Ah, but Jones and Smith did not consider themselves delusional. At one time wasn't christianity a new doctrine without consistency to prior teacjhngs? Why do you get to pass judgement on them yet we should not also judge?

Of course to you prayer is not delusional, but it is to me. Same holds for the levels of reality (assume that this means the supernatural). 

I notice that you failed to respond to my last comment.

[Cod]

I don't consider that having a delusion necessarily implies any kind of mental problem. It's more to do with how and why it arises. If you're surrounded by people who think the same way, it's much less likely to suggest there's anything to worry about than if you hold such beliefs in isolation.

Some countries are completely packed with theists, mostly all of the same religion. It's ridiculous, in my opinion, to suggest they are all mentally ill. They have been indoctrinated, and they have their beliefs reinforced every single day.

^^^ Very much this.

[Fake Messiah]

I don't consider that having a delusion necessarily implies any kind of mental problem. It's more to do with how and why it arises. If you're surrounded by people who think the same way, it's much less likely to suggest there's anything to worry about than if you hold such beliefs in isolation.

Some countries are completely packed with theists, mostly all of the same religion. It's ridiculous, in my opinion, to suggest they are all mentally ill. They have been indoctrinated, and they have their beliefs reinforced every single day.

Sure, but there are such things as driving someone crazy. Brian Baker, who was an ex Christian preacher, explained it best when he said how he healed himself from Christianity:

In effect I had removed myself from the ‘Christian bubble’ in which I had resided for so many years – at last I was free to look into my beliefs from the outside. As a totally committed Christian within the ‘bubble’ it is almost impossible to see or to examine any belief or evidence ‘outside.’ This is the main reason why Christians are not open to question their own faith. Fear is the other major factor why believers are reluctant or refuse to consider anything which may question their faith. Simply they are convinced that any contrary teaching or evidence which is not Bible based is ‘satanic’ in origin.

[robvalue]

Oh sure, I bet religion can push someone towards mental illness.

I think the biggest practical problem is diagnosing mental illness, when the kind of things religious people say can sound very similar to genuine symptoms. Such things can even be encouraged among the religious. I'm sure people end up saying things they think people around them want to hear, and perhaps end up convincing themselves that they are really true.

[paulpablo]

characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument, typically as a symptom of mental disorder.

Using this as a definition of delusional. 

I would say the majority of mainstream religions aren't delusions the way I think most people are raised within them.

Successful cults/religions are, for the most part,  very careful in making claims that can't be contradicted by reality.

The claims are things that can never be proven or disproven. Things like.....

You go to heaven if you're good and you believe in the specific religion.

The prophet did this magic thing thousands of years ago.  

The book the prophet wrote is absolutely miraculously amazing. 

There are spirits everywhere that can't be seen except sometimes in your dreams or if you take drugs.

Magic boats, talking snakes, giants, monsters, transforming animals, miracles, this stuff happened loads back in the day.

There are gray areas such as claims that homosexuality is a choice, evolution didn't happen, dinosaurs didn't exist.  I suppose those beliefs might be considered to be delusional in the sense they do go against mainstream scientific knowledge.  They're beliefs that are contradicted by reality as we know it proven by mainstream science but they're all more complex topics than I think a typical delusion consists of.  It's not as simple as someone believing they can fly or read minds when they can't.  And not everyone who has gone against mainstream science has been delusional. 

The people who I would say are delusional are the prophets themselves, or they might just be lying.  Also people who involve mainstream religion into their delusional mental disorder.

[robvalue]

One way in which I have improved and refined my beliefs is in regard to this kind of topic. I used to think religious people must be stupid, crazy or both. Now I don't think it implies either of those things. I understand that the way people come about their beliefs is complex, and highly dependent on their surroundings and upbringing.

Hell, I might actually be dreaming right now, or in a coma, or dribbling in a hospital bed. Or just too plain stupid to see what's really going on. Without any way to challenge a delusion I might have, I'm powerless to do anything about it. The whole point of a delusion is that you don't think/know it's a delusion. All I can do is challenge my assumptions and beliefs as much as I can.

Theists should consider themselves really lucky they have arse holes like me, who can present to them the case that they are indeed deluded. I don't think any less of them for being so, it could have just as easily been me. No one comes forward to present a case to me that I'm actually dreaming, or dribbling away in a corner, because that would mean none of you exist outside my own mind anyway.

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. It doesn't matter if I'm dreaming or not, I have to continue regardless. Maybe I wake up, maybe I don't.

[The Grand Nudger]

Gotta wonder whats going on in your nugget if you're imagining us, of all the people you could imagine. 

[Nay_Sayer]

All the time, Unless it's mine. All other faiths are false.