Religious belief...a mental illness?

answers said:
Can we take a second to compare that to the way religion works.

A person who has read a 2000 year old book tells other people about the 2000 year old book and convinces some people that what is in the 2000 year old book is true without any evidence besides the 2000 year old book.

I don't think any religious people can criticize the scientific method when that's their own method for learning.
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Actually what I am doing is analyzing how scientific "facts" are presented as such, within the folds of its own discipline.

What I am not doing is overhauling the epistemology to fit some chip on my shoulder (which is what you are doing, when you try and reduce the means of religiosity outside of the normative descriptions that frame it)
 
lightgigantic please write that again in english.

What exactly is your problem with what I am doing? And what exactly do you think I am doing?

Thanks.
 
answers said:
lightgigantic please write that again in english.

What exactly is your problem with what I am doing? And what exactly do you think I am doing?

Thanks.
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What you are doing?
Trying to dress up "science" as something that bypasses the regular means that any philosophical system requires in order to use the word "fact" ... while at the same time not properly representing theism when it does the same.
:shrug:
 
Also what exactly are the regular means that a philosophical system requires in order to use the word fact?
 
decons said:
I suspect we will have to question our understanding of "mental illness", before we make any more additions.
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I see

The evolution of religious belief as well as its place in human brain is already being examined(1). What people once called a mental illness appears as the difference that makes the research possible.
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yes , an abnormality

Is epilepsy a mental illness or a "chronic neurological disorder"(2)?
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neurologic

If a physical difference of temporal lobes result as a strong religious belief, what do we call billions of people believing in religion without having a different temporal lobe?
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unfortunate


I guess new knowledge problematises the older classifications, it is difficult to know what we will call illness in the future.
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emotional manipulation
 
okay lightgigantic

I know what you are talking about now. I've done research reports before, I know you can only ever claim that something lends support to your hypothesis and that it doesn't prove it or disprove it if the result is the null hypothesis.

I probably got more absolute with my language on here than I should have.
 
answers said:
okay lightgigantic

I know what you are talking about now. I've done research reports before, I know you can only ever claim that something lends support to your hypothesis and that it doesn't prove it or disprove it if the result is the null hypothesis.

I probably got more absolute with my language on here than I should have.
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Then I guess you just proved th e hypothesis about how science can come to be misrepresented
;)
 
answers said:
A mental illness is something that goes against the rational norms within a society.
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WHOA WHOA WHOA TIME OUT TIME OUT!!!
rational norms of human societies is that god is illogical?
doesn't that make atheism a mental illness, within that human society?


Believing in little green men stealing all of your potatoes, is attributed to mental illness because it's considered by society not to be a rational/normal belief.
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which is the case with atheism, in most societies in the world, which happen to be theist.


SHRINK I SAY... GO VISIT A SHRINK!!:m:
 
Mental illness is rather a strong description of religious belief. I think of it as a pre-dispostion of human beings to have to believe in a superior power. It's a mental weakness not an illness. It seems to work like a one way switch. Once activated there's no return. You cannot convince a religious person that he is wrong with pure logic. The switch has been thrown. That's why it appears to be an illness but if it is, then it's incurable which aslo makes it very dangerous.
 
parmalee said:
agreed. by cataloguing such, we are in a sense reifying abstractions--and likewise, forgetting the abstraction bit. true, abstraction is implicit in language, and perhaps even thought; but were we to think abstraction (thought, language) differently, the result could be less platonic:
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I guess I meant something more than reifying, but that the Laws are 'out there' - and generally permanent - Sheldrake has questioned this for some time and in a recent read of mine it seems physicists are looking into this also.
 
answers said:
Doreen why is it that people born in Afganistan generally believe in Islam, and people born in America generally believe in Christianity?
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This question, and the answer, does not relate to the point I was making.

It's because in one country they are told one story from an old book, and in another country they are told a different story from an old book. That's the greatest factor in a person's religious belief. What story someone came along and told them. Whether it be their parents telling them, or their school telling them, they are just passing on what they've read out of some old book.

Sure some religious people look for historical evidence and other evidence, but from my experience that's the minority, not the majority like you say.
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Think about this for a bit. You missing so many ways that people find reasons to believe in their religion.

I understand. You want to make them look silly. But your portrait is silly. Why not show the kinds of rationality you think they are lacking?
 
talking about books..

why is it that religions say that their book is everything god has to teach them?
do they really think that god stopped teaching after those books were written?
(yea i posted this in another thread..but it makes sense to me..)

also as far as a general statement about believers having a mental illness.
i would have to agree that some believers do..but not all..
its not the belief that causes the problems..its what the believer does with that belief that causes so many problems..
IOW would you feel the same way if so many believers didn't create such a problem with their belief?

what if no believer ever said 'believe or else'?
what if no crimes were commited in the name of religion?
what if they only shared their belief and left it at that.(did not try to convince you god existed or tried to convert you)?
 
answers said:
Now if society decides what is rational/normal. Do you think that one day society will become so atheist that they believe that religious belief is a mental illness?.
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Religious belief is not a mental illness and there are people with PHDs in maths, physics......etc who are religious .
Life is very complex and religion came to answer some life inexplicable aspects and failed miserably .......:D .
 
786 said:
Which religion came to do such a thing? Care to provide us with some evidence?

Peace be unto you ;)
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All religions failed to explain life in general .
You are Muslim and you know that Islam, Judaism and Christianity are very similar . The three religions do not provide a shred of proof about God, After life, ....etc and they keep on feeding us with ridiculous stories full of contradictions such as violence is bad and then it is good.....etc .
 
Perhaps you need to learn that everything is not black and white.

Peace be unto you ;)
 
mike47 said:
All religions failed to explain life in general .
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there are many who would disagree with that..

You are Muslim and you know that Islam, Judaism and Christianity are very similar . The three religions do not provide a shred of proof about God, After life, ....etc and they keep on feeding us with ridiculous stories full of contradictions such as violence is bad and then it is good.....etc .
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wonder what we would learn if they ever quit saying theirs is the 'only' religion..maybe there is something to learn if they ever got together...
 
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