(December 21, 2017 at 3:48 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:(December 21, 2017 at 3:42 pm)Jehanne Wrote: 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.
