Personal causes of religion

When I was religious, the only thing keeping me in was fear. Fear of dealing with physical pain for an eternity if I didn't adhere to the rules, and fear of losing an afterlife if those pesky questioning thoughts in my head turned out to be right.

Turned out there wasn't really anything to be afraid of, but I was a child (and I got better), so maybe I'm off the hook.

[ubs]

oldhippychick wrote

ubs, I'd also say that for adults to continue to need to please their parents past a certain age is not mentally healthy.

I don't think "pleasing one's parents" and loyalty to the tribe are the same thing, and I also don't think that loyalty to a group is necessarily mentally ill. In fact isn't an inability to attach to a group a sign of mental illness?

Maybe we need a better definition of "mentally ill." How are you defining it hippychick?

Certainly many of us are here because we feel frustrated at dealing with religion all day but I cringe at the habit of knee jerk name calling that has developed. And that's really what arm chair diagnosis is. Just name calling with a big book (the DSM IV) to back it up.

[Irreligious]

Theism or religion, to me, is just pure speculation. Personally, I can accept it better when it's viewed in that light. I say we're all free to speculate about things that will, in all likelihood, never be definitively settled. The danger, as I see it, is when folks think that their personal truths (even if they're shared by billions) ought to be everyone else's reality.

As for adopting the prevailing creed of the culture in which one was raised, that doesn't seem like such a stretch to me. I do it in other areas outside of religion. I firmly believe in equal rights for all, largely based on what I was taught about that ideal. I imagine my life would be a lot more miserable if I rejected this particular creed.

Still, it's a hella hard to buck the popular trend. It probably goes against our "human instincts" to do this, but if shit don't make sense to me, I'd rather take the slings and arrows. I don't know if that makes me all that different from a lot of other folk, though.

ubs wrote

Maybe we need a better definition of "mentally ill." How are you defining it hippychick?

Certainly many of us are here because we feel frustrated at dealing with religion all day but I cringe at the habit of knee jerk name calling that has developed. And that's really what arm chair diagnosis is. Just name calling with a big book (the DSM IV) to back it up.

Good point. Emotionally troubled would be a more fitting term, perhaps, in some of these cases. Meaning, just not having a full set of healthily functioning adult emotions; being childlike far beyond one's childhood. As far as the DSMIVR, I have a lot of disagreements with it and probably should not point to it ever as authority. For instance, some of what they call "BPD," I simply call "interesting person."

To digress a bit, to what extent is the field of psychology a normalizing process? Historically, it very much has been. I was reading some 100 year old newspapers and came across a case of a woman who had gone to college, come home to her small midwestern town, and neither wanted to marry or teach with her degree. She was also, gasp, always "reading books." The county "insane commissioners" came by one evening and dragged her off to what had to be some awful institution. Well, girlie, that'll teach ya. To what extent do some counselors have similar attitudes today? (Not all--I've had three terrific ones at various times in my life.) In a lot of cases, they are trying to get the person to "adjust," but when the society around you is sick and inauthentic and doesn't match your particular strengths/gifts, why is adjusting to that a good thing? That is, why diminish yourself just to get along? Certainly, it's easier in one sense--gaining societal approval and ending harassment makes life less stressful--but that's often at the cost of the authentic self, and in the case of religion, it causes great social harm, when groups of people conform to something that drives such destructive acts. So what is won by adjusting to a dysfunctional society or family or group? Well...dysfunction is won, in part.

Perhaps, as you intimate, I should be more sympathetic to religios' weaknesses, if that's what it comes down to: weakness of mind, weakness of will, dependence, lack of critical consciousness, etc. (Hmm, come to think of it, these are all characteristics I was raised to believe were "feminine," which I always thought was screwed up, to suggest such awful characteristics should be fostered in anyone.) But I'm sick of the religious and beyond sick. I had to put up with their crap in the classroom, could not point out they were JUST WRONG because that would somehow violate their "rights" to spew poop into the verbal spaces of the classroom. The worst of it came from homeschooled people who were sickening in their ignorance and arrogance. Perhaps I should have been thinking, "well, your mother must be some nut to have not wanted to let you out of her sight her whole life, and to feed you all these lies, and shame on the government for not outlawing or strictly regulating homeschooling, and you poor victim, you." But what I really, truly was thinking was, "I hope you get hit by a bus tonight. I'd like to see your horrible little head squished like a pumpkin." It drove me from academia, religion did. It turned me from an award-winning teacher into a total misanthrope.

As hateful as religos are, it seems they've finally stirred up an equivalent hatred in me in response. I've gone far beyond impatience. Thoughts of the utter destruction of humanity, through climate change or nuclear war, no longer bother me, for at least it means those assholes will all be gone. And if we cannot stop the disease of religion, if it truly is hardwired into our brains, the sooner this species is extinct, the better.

Cheerful thought for the day, eh?

[calpurnpiso]

calpurnpiso wrote

What's a religious belief? Isn't the hope of an extension of our existence in an ethereal world promised by an imaginary friend not unlike those of 6 year old children? This would clearly define religious beliefs on the educated adult as a schizotypal type retardation that, by producing feel-good delusions, creates dopamine making these irrational beliefs stagnate the intellect. A religious person is a retarded person that dismisses the fact that the imaginary friends at the center of all religious beliefs are produced by their brains, making the belief in god not unlike a belief that insists 2+2=6 which a person with a healthy brain, aka atheist, lacking this reality distorting anomaly sees as false.

Religious beliefs are simply a form of delusions accepting psychosis not unlike those produced by schizophrenia or temporal lobe epilepsy.

I am expressing this sentiment of Christ-psychosis with the video I just posted on YouTube. A personal cause of religion is not different to a personal cause of schizophrenia, IMHEO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xLbEjxpp78

Its not a valid argument to say those who believe in God are mentally ill because I could say the same about those who dont believe in God....

[Sternwallow]

oldhippychick wrote

Cheerful thought for the day, eh?

Your unflagging optimism buoys my wings and carries me aloft. And it is all the better because you are right.

It is the nature of socialization that the individual must relinquish some (perhaps many) freedoms in order to live peacefully among humans.

....a lot of big words that basically means, I just dont understand who God is

[nkb]

PollyP wrote

Its not a valid argument to say those who believe in God are mentally ill because I could say the same about those who dont believe in God....

Therefore, a psychiatrist can not label a patient mentally ill, because the patient may label the psychiatrist the same.

Outstanding logic, Polyp! I don't know how you haven't convinced us all yet.

Note: I don't agree with the "mentally ill" label for theists either, but my reasoning is a little less retarded.

[nkb]

PollyP wrote

....a lot of big words that basically means, I just dont understand who God is

But, neither do you. Or are you arrogant enough to say that you understand a supernatural being?

why is that atomatically an arrogant thing to say? i dont understand everything about god but the more i live for him and the more i do understand. whats so arrogant about that?

[nkb]

PollyP wrote

why is that atomatically an arrogant thing to say? i dont understand everything about god but the more i live for him and the more i do understand. whats so arrogant about that?

You don't think it's arrogant to claim that you understand an omniscient, omnipotent supernatural being, that has the power to create an entire universe, and read your thoughts?

You don't appear to have the mental capacity to understand your fellow human beings, what makes you think you have any chance of understanding such a complex being?

why is it arrogant, again?

Perhaps that is something your learning in that "law school" of yours?

[nkb]

PollyP wrote

why is it arrogant, again?

Are you having trouble reading?

OK, I'll take you through it, step by step:

1. You are a human (I'm assuming), with a limited amount of intelligence.
2. God is the ultimate being, and, by comparison to his intelligence (omnipotence is tough to beat), your intelligence is negligible.
3. You, with the negligible intelligence, is saying that you understand an infinitely intelligent being.

Was that a little more clear?