(May 8, 2015 at 11:25 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:(May 8, 2015 at 6:33 pm)mbk734 Wrote: From a psychiatrist's perspective, religion can be considered a delusion or illness (The God Delusion). This is why many religions are anti-psychiatry (Scientology is very anti-psychiatry). Hearing voices (God, angels, or demons) is a symptom of psychosis in mental illness. Speaking in tongues? Exorcisms? Religious delusions are common among the mentally ill and as we know the "sane" too. There is a book called the Three Christs of Ypsilanti about three schizophrenic patients that thought they were Jesus. Prayer is trying to talk to "God." Anyone that talks to God needs an antipsychotic and a mood stabilizer. I should know, part of my bipolar when I am manic is religiosity and obsession over existence of God, religion, the meaning of life and death. When I am stable, I am more rational and atheist in my thinking.
http://www.bible.ca/psychiatry/psychiatr...hrenic.htm
I'm not a psychologist, just got a little BA in it, but being religious isn't diagnosable as a mental illness. Some schizophrenics sometimes hear religiously-themed voices or suffer from religion-oriented disorganized thinking; but their illness is schizophrenia, not religion, nor is it caused by religion.
Speaking in tongues is eccentric, not a mental illness. When they do it in the checkout line at the supermarket, it may be time to start talking about mental illness.
Your personal experience with prayer and bipolar disorder does not mean other people who pray have a disorder, and it certainly doesn't mean that anti-psychotics or mood stabilizers are needed in their cases.
People are social animals and it is normal for us to act to fit into the groups to which we belong and believe what the people we care about and admire have shown us they believe since before we could talk. Religion isn't a mental illness, it's fundamentally an idea. It can be a dangerous one, but unless a person really does suffer from a mental illness as well, their religion is just an opinion ultimately based on other people having the same opinion. It's not a sickness, it's just not rationally grounded. Lots of things people believe aren't rationally grounded, it's almost impossible to not have such beliefs without realizing it.
Before 1973, the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental illness. In 1973, they no longer classified homosexuality as a mental illness. Nothing changed about homosexuality itself. What changed were societal attitudes toward homosexuality.
What makes something a mental illness is its level of social acceptability.
Religion in not considered to be a mental illness because it is socially acceptable. Otherwise, it would be a mental illness.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
