Religion, A Curable Illness

[missingnocchi]

I'm extremely wary of anything being called a 'mental illness' purely for the reason that it may be involuntary. We make involuntary decisions all the time for various reasons, and nitpicking on one of them is dangerously close to a political stance.

[Dragonetti]

Fundamentalist are staying true to their religious belief system. It just shows how cruel and fucked up religions are.

[Justtristo]

A leading neurologist at the University of Oxford said this week that recent developments meant that science may one day be able to identify religious fundamentalism as a “mental illness” and a cure it.

During a talk at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales on Wednesday, Kathleen Taylor was asked what positive developments she anticipated in neuroscience in the next 60 years.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/30/leading-neuroscientist-religious-fundamentalism-may-be-a-mental-illness-that-can-be-cured

Kathleen Taylor I believe is somewhat right. Since I believe that many religious fundamentalists have some psychological condition or major emotional issues, their religious fundamentalism is a symptom of their condition or emotional issues. Wonder why religious fundamentalists generally despise the whole Psychological profession.

[Angrboda]

I think that perhaps Taylor is more putting the idea out there as food for thought, and to stir interest in her book, than endorsing a specific hypothesis. I personally believe the opposite, that religious belief is perfectly normal, and it's stubborn persistence is a consequence of standard psychological and social mechanisms that are at work in all people. It may be similar to political ideologies or, say, vegetarianism, in that it preferentially attracts people with certain qualities, but those qualities are well within the range of normal human variation, to my uneducated view.

It does bring up an interesting question though, given that advances in brain science may deliver control over things which we don't currently have ethical or philosophical frameworks for deciding clearly and responsibly, how do we respond to such possibilities? If religious belief could be "cured" would it be ethical to do so involuntarily? Voluntarily? TEGH created a thread recently about whether or not we would or should cure homosexuality if there were an intervention prior to birth which could prevent it. I think the abortion debate is similar in that it pushes our normal, fuzzy conception of things into a place where our comfortable certainties are not as clear or certain. (I just watched the movie "180" comparing "killing babies" in the womb to the Nazi holocaust. To me, one of the issues it raised is how, in order to defend the right of women to decide, people can be drawn to exaggerated positions, not because they reflect the way they feel so much as they are seen as necessary distortions in order for them not to have any ambivalence or ambiguity available to be used against them by people who want things that they don't [the outlawing of abortion].) Anyway, our technology is tending to advance faster than our understanding of ethics is, and that creates problems at the boundary, such as the one suggested by Taylor. What if tomorrow (or some future tomorrow), neuroscience proved that free will is a myth — what would we change and why? What wouldn't we change and why? And how would we decide?

(Similar examples of where technology advances faster than our ability to deal practically or philosophically with it are copyright and the internet, the case of digitally created "child pornography", and many ethical dilemmas in medicine.)

[FlyingNarwhal]

To be honest, personally I've always seen fundamentalism as really similar to Stockholm Syndrome. It's also why I don't typically get angry at religious folks. You wouldn't blame a person for having Stockholm syndrome, you would blame whoever caused the syndrome in the first place.

[Whateverist]

Fundamentalism itself isn't a mental illness - all religious belief is. (How can fervently believing in the non-existent be completely sane?)

No way. Fundamentalism, as a tendency toward inflexibility and literalism may very well be a form of mental illness, though I sure don't think everyone who chooses to wear that monicker must be mentally ill. Also, it would be hard to be sure it wasn't just the result of a negative spiral of self defeating habits of mind. Or it may be that some ways of operating our consciousness feed back on our health in negative ways.

[Zarith]

I don't think fundamentalism (or religious belief in general) is a form of mental illness in the sense that we usually use the term, and I'd be skeptical of any sort of physiological basis for it. On the other hand, I do believe that religion is the mental analog to the computer virus.

[phil77]

Does this include the fundamentalist belief in Richard Dawkins?

[Something completely different]

Does this include the fundamentalist belief in Richard Dawkins?

Belief is to be convinced of somethings existance without there being any evidence.

Now I have seen Richard Dawkins - So I dont need to believe in him - I know he exists.


Now would you explain what you meant with the statement above.

Do you assert that atheists create "false prophets"?

[phil77]

Does this include the fundamentalist belief in Richard Dawkins?

Belief is to be convinced of somethings existance without there being any evidence.

Now I have seen Richard Dawkins - So I dont need to believe in him - I know he exists.


Now would you explain what you meant with the statement above.

Do you assert that atheists create "false prophets"?

---

Yes! Aetheisism has no proof in its beliefs and latches on to any accademic with sany merit to back up its beliefs. If you have proof then I am pleased for you. I can't understand though why Dawkins is obsessed with God. Shouldn't he be curing cancer or something. Maybe he will start a forum to dismiss the toothfairy and we can stay up all night typing away telling how it was our Mum that put the shilling under the pillow!! kerching!!