Religion as a mental illness

[Pyrrho]

Isn't the fact that social norms are automatically excluded the point of contention?  A mass delusion is regarded differently from a single case, even if the beliefs are the same.

We can alter the example to bring the point in greater focus.  Suppose that we consider a fundamentalist Christian in a society in which no one else is a Christian, and everyone else is an atheist, with no one else being religious at all.  What would one say of that case?  Is believing that one has an invisible friend who one speaks with a sign of madness?  Is obsessively following strange, pointless rituals a sign of madness?


I think that the most important part of your claim is the first one about the genesis of the belief, as that may be a reason to classify it differently from what is generally regarded as insane.  "Sane" (or so-called "sane") people join up with crazy ideas after the crazies have come up with them.  One can see this in the case of the belief that we are being visited by aliens and people are abducted and medical experiments are performed on them.  The origins of such beliefs appear to come from people who are mentally ill (in a traditional sense), yet the belief has become more mainstream due to the persuasiveness of some of the crazies (and the poor critical thinking skills of "sane" people).

The upshot, though, is that one can have many crazy beliefs without being crazy, according to the current standards.  And there is something quite odd about that.  Even if one does not wish to change the classifications from the way they are at present, it is still good to remind people of this fact.

Actually, both religion AND alien abductions seem to be just the way our brains work.  
What I mean is, I don't think most people who claim abduction are mentally unstable, nor are most religious folks.

Religion is a very sane reaction to the unknown, IMHO.  Nowadays, we think it seems insane because there are better explanations for things, but for most of human history, people have been trying very hard to explain basic thing like natural phenomenon (lightning, rain, drought, birth, etc).  Pile on top of this natural disasters, death, and then add in human emotions + our pattern seeking brains, and poof, religion.

Don't we also have a part of our brain that can be triggered to cause us to incorrectly sense the presence of another "entity"?  This explains the very real sensations religious people can get that God is with them, or angels or saints or what have you.  This part, I think, is probably also responsible for some of the alien stories.

The other part is a something called Sleep Paralysis. I have narcolepsy, so my sleep paralysis is fairly frequent.  But for the vast majority of people experience this bain phenomenon once or twice in their lives.
It causes vivid hallucinations that seem very real (waking dreams), but you are unable to move.  I've often felt a presence with me, but I know now it's just my brain playing a trick.  It often causes a feeling of pressure on the chest or head (this is your autonomic breathing, but it feels like you CAN't breath, its alarming).  

Anyway, my point is that although religious people are sometimes delusional, I don't think they are any crazier than the average atheist.  I think those in charge of religion may prey upon the truly mentally ill, and religion may make mental illness worse, but it does not CAUSE it nor, is it, in itself, a mental illness.  It is just a product of how our brains work.  The more we learn though, the more we can help dispel the "unknown" and the fear that goes with it, and the less people will cling to those ideologies.

The takeaway on that seems to be that it is natural to be crazy, that the human brain is an extremely faulty mechanism for processing information.

Searching the heavens for intelligent life is an absurdity, as we have not located any intelligent life on this planet.  We have no reason to believe that intelligent life is even possible.


As for sleep paralysis, I have never experienced it myself, but am aware of it as something that is believed to be the cause of some faulty beliefs that many people have (like alien abductions).  

From doing a quick search, it seems that it is slightly more common among mental patients than the general population, according to:

http://bodyodd.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/11...n-students

However, the speculation is that it has to do with disruptions in sleep, rather than from the mental problems per se.  Which is relevant to it also being more common among college students than the general population.

[brewer]

You can be mentally ill and not delusional and delusional but not mentally ill. Society sets the standard.

[Pyrrho]

You can be mentally ill and not delusional and delusional but not mentally ill. Society sets the standard.

Which means that it is a relativistic concept, where one could be mentally ill in one society, but not mentally ill in another.  Which means that it is not about what the person is, but rather about the standards of a particular society.

[brewer]

You can be mentally ill and not delusional and delusional but not mentally ill. Society sets the standard.

Which means that it is a relativistic concept, where one could be mentally ill in one society, but not mentally ill in another.  Which means that it is not about what the person is, but rather about the standards of a particular society.

I agree. Look at different societies and human killing, i.e. head hunting.

[rexbeccarox]

Moderator Notice
Moved from Life Sciences to Religion.

[Cephus]

You can be mentally ill and not delusional and delusional but not mentally ill. Society sets the standard.

But that really is the problem, isn't it?  The determination is entirely subjective, something that we don't do with other medical diagnoses.  Either you have cancer or you don't.  What people in that particular area think about cancer is irrelevant.  How many people have cancer in that area is meaningless.  You either have it or  you don't. But psychological diagnoses are subjective.  They depend on what others in the area consider normal.  They depend on a subjective determination of whether they're a danger to themselves of others.  If you live in an area where everyone believes in unicorns, you're not delusional because your delusions are commonplace.  That's utterly stupid. Society doesn't get to set the standards for reality.  Reality exists regardless of what society wants.  That really makes psychology a pretty pointless pursuit.

[IATIA]

Which means that it is a relativistic concept, where one could be mentally ill in one society, but not mentally ill in another.  Which means that it is not about what the person is, but rather about the standards of a particular society.

I agree. Look at different societies and human killing, i.e. head hunting.

I disagree that they are interchangeable.  Mental illness is from chemical imbalances that may be congenital, aging, disease or a variety of other causes affecting the physiology of the body.  Delusions, on the other hand, are simply mental interpretations and these can vary from culture to culture.  There can be a combination of both, but delusions are a 'belief system' whereas mentally ill is a malfunctioning body.

[AFTT47]

You can be mentally ill and not delusional and delusional but not mentally ill. Society sets the standard.

But that really is the problem, isn't it?  The determination is entirely subjective, something that we don't do with other medical diagnoses.  Either you have cancer or you don't.  What people in that particular area think about cancer is irrelevant.  How many people have cancer in that area is meaningless.  You either have it or  you don't. But psychological diagnoses are subjective.

Good point. You can diagnose a physical cause of a delusion and that will be objective. And in the vast majority of people, religion (or any other non-rational belief) has no physical cause as a result of a physiological malfunction but of the general limitations of our species.

[Angrboda]

You can be mentally ill and not delusional and delusional but not mentally ill. Society sets the standard.

But that really is the problem, isn't it?  The determination is entirely subjective, something that we don't do with other medical diagnoses.  Either you have cancer or you don't.  What people in that particular area think about cancer is irrelevant.  How many people have cancer in that area is meaningless.  You either have it or  you don't. But psychological diagnoses are subjective.  They depend on what others in the area consider normal.  They depend on a subjective determination of whether they're a danger to themselves of others.  If you live in an area where everyone believes in unicorns, you're not delusional because your delusions are commonplace.  That's utterly stupid. Society doesn't get to set the standards for reality.  Reality exists regardless of what society wants.  That really makes psychology a pretty pointless pursuit.

The point of clinical psychology is to relieve subjective distress or disability. What causes distress or disability may indeed be relative, not only between societies but within them as well. There are people who get along fine in society with 'strange beliefs' and people with similar beliefs for whom they are a great dysfunction. The point of diagnosis of mental disorders is to group people who may respond to a specific treatment together, and it is the response to treatment which forms the basis of diagnosis. While the vast majority of religious people may have delusional beliefs, the prevalence in society seems to indicate that it is a product of a normally functioning brain. Treating a normally functioning brain generally has no effect because there is no deficit in the functioning of the brain. Since treatment doesn't apply to the religious, and they don't suffer distress or disability, it would make no sense to group them as mentally ill.

[Cephus]

But that really is the problem, isn't it?  The determination is entirely subjective, something that we don't do with other medical diagnoses.  Either you have cancer or you don't.  What people in that particular area think about cancer is irrelevant.  How many people have cancer in that area is meaningless.  You either have it or  you don't. But psychological diagnoses are subjective.

Good point. You can diagnose a physical cause of a delusion and that will be objective. And in the vast majority of people, religion (or any other non-rational belief) has no physical cause as a result of a physiological malfunction but of the general limitations of our species.

But you ought to be able to say that a belief in anything that we cannot demonstrate to be real is, by definition, a delusion.  It doesn't matter whether you're talking to a giant invisible rabbit or a god, we have no reason to think that these things exist, thus they represent a mental aberration.  But the people who believe in Harvey get put away or drugged up, the people who talk to gods do not.  It's hypocritical.