Religion as a mental illness

[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.