RE: Religious vs disability accommodations
April 15, 2015 at 7:45 am
(This post was last modified: April 15, 2015 at 7:59 am by Razzle.)
(April 14, 2015 at 4:40 pm)Aroura Wrote: First, people with PTSD and anxiety disorders aren't just imagining things, nor is it "all in their head". People with mental disabilities have been fighting that particularly stubborn bit of stigma for ages.
There is, in most cases, either a chemical or physical (damage) reason for these sorts of disorders. For instance, recent studies show that people suffering PTSD have a smaller region of their brain regulating fear responses.
Comparing people's religious beliefs to someone who suffered severe trauma and has a mental disorder is seriously just insulting to people with mental disorders.
So no, we cannot make the same types of allowances for things that really are made up (and differ from person to person BTW, not just religion to religion), as we do for people who are suffering from a LEGITIMATE ILLNESS!
Hi Aroura,
I very much want to address your points as soon as possible because as some will have guessed from my other threads, I share your passion for mental health advocacy - in fact what prompted me to make this thread was primarily concern that the Nonprophets' arguments could also be used against accommodations for certain mental disabilities, and no one would be more opposed to the exclusion of mental disabilities from such protections than I would - and because you've interpreted my words "from the imagination" in exactly the way I feared they would be interpreted.
Unfortunately I'm currently both bandaged up and drugged up (I mean, more drugged up than usual), and temporarily vision impaired, so forum posts are taking a great deal of time, effort and Red Bull. I don't feel able to clarify my case with the care and detail your objections deserve right now, but I hope to be back to normal (as Monk says, "it's a kind of normal") within the next four days. I might respond later today or it might take longer before I'm thinking clearly enough to give it a go, I just wanted to let you know that I do intend to respond to you point-by-point, and that I consider us ultimately on the same page about mental illness, as I will explain.
