Ah Yes, Spiritual akin to mental disorder

There is a lot embellishment and loss of meaning in many religious writings, and those so quick to take up these embellished stories appear well associated with mental illness and living in their own little fantasy world:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Spiritual people are more likely to be mentally ill (but at least they think life has more meaning)

Researchers at University College London say spiritual believers are more likely to suffer problems such as eating conditions or an anxiety disorder.

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They suffered problems including abnormal eating conditions, drug abuse, anxiety disorder, phobias and neurosis.
They were also more likely than others to be taking medication for mental health problems.


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They also had a 77 per cent higher chance of being dependent on drugs and were 37 per cent more at risk of neurotic disorder.


Spirituality was also associated with a 40 per cent greater likelihood of receiving treatment with psychotropic drugs.

Perhaps now we see lots of these effects on this religion area of discussion!!

Just wondering...could it be that those truly spiritual are being so "poisoned" by our society, that they present as mentally ill?

reply to post by MagnumOpus


HA! I consider myself moderately spiritual, and I don't take medications at all. I don't believe in altering myself for the convenience of others. I may have a few problems, but hey, who doesn't?

Sounds like addictive personalities, and when they want to stop the drugs, food disorder, alcohol, they fill one addiction with another( religion) . ...but at least it's productive....

reply to post by smyleegrl


The more spiritual you are, the more detached from the real world will you be - by definition.
And that surely should start showing as some kind of illness.

Of the participants, 35 per cent described themselves as 'religious', meaning they attended a church, mosque, synagogue or temple. The vast majority of this group were Christian.

This does not equate to "spiritual". They were church-goers which, really, could be anybody from atheists to Jesus himself. I know a lot of people who go to a church who do not have a spiritual bone in their body.

I smell academic BS.

How can we be sure the research was not biased to begin with?
If this is what they wanted to prove to start with, they id say they found what they wanted too.

If a survey was carried out to find the contrary, it too would find what it wanted too.

I think this would more be a matter of perspective on what a normal mind is....

reply to post by MagnumOpus


Daily Mail eh, would you believe any thing written in that rag. More the millions in the world that have been coerced into believing what was written in a book over 2000 years ago are deluded and living in a fantasy world.
Blind faith is delusion, a lot of spiritual gurus are in it for the money and probably dont believe everything they write.
Truth is in each and every one of us, every cell in our body existed at the beginning. Seek answers internally.
Meditation and contemplation will give you more answers than some spiritual guru or some book that was compiled in order to control.
Peace

reply to post by Nevertheless


What, so buying into the MSM, the dogma of religion, what is written in scientific journals is the real world and healthy.
And that spirituality and thinking for yourself is the product of a sick mind?
OK then I must be very sick or maybe I am awake to the delusion created to control us on an every day basis.
Think for yourself, read and make up your own mind. But dont believe everything that is written as fact.
Scientific theories are changed and proven wrong every other day, something is discovered and proven wrong by somebody else.
Remember the earth was flat, but we now know it is round and known causes of cancer has been blamed on everything that we eat at some time or another. I remember reading years ago that apples can cause cancer.
Scientific theories are proven wrong again and again, nothing is constant. Think for yourself, all answers are within.

reply to post by kudegras


I know it's helped me a lot more than this cheap become-psychic-overnight garbage you see floating around.

I don't know who they are studying, because the spiritual people I know are healthier then the atheists. These studies are always biased.

Oops... double post

Originally posted by AnnKoontz
I don't know who they are studying, because the spiritual people I know are healthier then the atheists. These studies are always biased.

Since when are atheists not able or allowed to be spiritual? A lack of belief in god does not preclude one from spirituality.

Originally posted by kudegras
reply to post by Nevertheless

 

What, so buying into the MSM, the dogma of religion, what is written in scientific journals is the real world and healthy.

First of all, you shouldn't "buy in", you should study and understand.. However, it is impossible for one person to study and understand everything in this world. Thankfully the scientific method has made it possible for us to get much further than we could without it, as we can rely on previous results to great extent.
And no, what is written in scientific journals are is not "the real world", but research results and theories about our observable universe. Some results will be dismissed, others will live on.
So yes, quite healthy indeed. You can thank science everything you and your country owns to make your life as luxurious as it is, so you don't need to fend off beasts with sticks and pray to the sun that it won't burn you.

And that spirituality and thinking for yourself is the product of a sick mind?

Dismissing what is logical is illogical, incorrect and maybe that could be called "sick"? You know, as in "not well".

OK then I must be very sick

Maybe, I can't say [yet].

Think for yourself, read and make up your own mind. But dont believe everything that is written as fact.

I do think for myself, and I definitely don't take your written words as fact.

Scientific theories are changed and proven wrong every other day, something is discovered and proven wrong by somebody else.

Excuse me? Of course theories are shot down and proven wrong if a flaw is found. That's the whole point with the scientific method. This is what differs science from people just making things up and it becoming their "own belief".

And it is extremely rare that something that is called a "scientific fact" would be proven wrong. Usually what happens is that a new context is found where the model is no longer accurate, it does not mean that the theory itself has suddenly broken, it was valid in the context. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be a scientific fact.

Remember the earth was flat,

This shows that you aren't even educated in the subject. Earth being flat comes from pre-science days, and it was the first so-called scientists that found out that this was not the case. It was also the scientists who fought against the spiritual leaders trying to convince them that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

and known causes of cancer has been blamed on everything that we eat at some time or another. I remember reading years ago that apples can cause cancer.

Again, this shows that you don't know what you are talking about.
What you have "read" are articles from media that lives off "sensational" news, and take the bait whenever a study is conducted that points towards something dramatic as apples killing you. When in reality someone has simply researched and came into the conclusion that a certain substance in food x -might- be cancerous.
Science does not accept such preliminary studies, Media does.

Scientific theories are proven wrong again and again, nothing is constant.

Don't confuse scientific facts with theories, and don't confuse preliminary studies as theories (that's probably even worse!), and you'll see that the number drops dramatically.

Think for yourself, all answers are within.

No, the answers are out there. Answers within you seem to be very incorrect.

Originally posted by Nevertheless
reply to post by smyleegrl

 

The more spiritual you are, the more detached from the real world will you be - by definition.
And that surely should start showing as some kind of illness.

The more physical you are the less human you become. The less spiritual you are the more cold and calculating you become.

Some people cannot conceive art. Some cannot conceive mathematics. Some are color blind, others cannot read, some don't even feel love.

The point is that some cannot understand spirituality are under the same handicap as the above mentioned. My brother-in-law was this way. I worked for the same man as he did, the day I started I realized his boss was very spiritual. My brother-in-law worked for the same man for eight years. I asked him "did you know Mark was very spiritual (non religious) and he was dumbfounded and denied it. One I proved to him Mark was spiritual he nearly broke down and cried and said with grief in his voice ( I just cannot feel it or understand it).

Our path is one life at a time, we cannot be everything in one lifetime so don't feel bad about not understanding it. Its ok this is your current path.

What I find interesting is all the atheists who come into religious fora and commence telling everyone why they're stupid for not being atheists. Why do they care? What's their purpose for doing so? What do they get out of it? Do they think they're going to convince someone to change their spirituality, to lose faith in it? We all choose what to have faith in, even if it's "nothing," and the only thing that can change our beliefs once they're set is us. Faith doesn't depend on proof, so only having "Religion A" proven to us will make us believe in it instead of what we already believe, and no real proof is likely to be forthcoming.

It is literally impossible to prove God does not exist; therefore, no atheist can have any effect on believers. So why do they keep trying?

I'd bet you drink fluoride every day, and think it is good for ya. Do you really like rodent poison?

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by MagnumOpus

 

HA! I consider myself moderately spiritual, and I don't take medications at all. I don't believe in altering myself for the convenience of others. I may have a few problems, but hey, who doesn't?

Originally posted by AnnKoontz
I don't know who they are studying, because the spiritual people I know are healthier then the atheists. These studies are always biased.

The atheists I know are usually more spiritual than the religious. They just don't put the words and labels to it.

reply to post by Nevertheless


Nevertheless, you obviously have come here to troll. So troll away. I would have loved to have had a debate with you but I was on my to work, another time maybe.

There's something strange about knowing that MSM rarely gets anything complicated right, and then launching a discussion of something complicated, based solely on an MSM report. The original paper is not available online for free, but the abstract is, and it is here:

bjp.rcpsych.org...

According to the abstract, the actual conclusion, the one that survived peer review (as opposed to dribbling out the author's mouth during a telephone interview) is

People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder.

The key flaw is that nowhere is the term "spiritual understanding of life" defined for the benefit of the people who are being asked whether or not they have one.

The survey instrument is also available for free,

www.ic.nhs.uk...

and the religious-spiritual questions are on physical page 98 of the pdf file, pages 124-125 of the printed version.

A quick scan shows that religion is defined as "actual practice of a faith," the only examples of which in that question are going to a public place of worship, named by denomination-specific terms ("temple, mosque, church or synagogue"). "Spiritual" is never defined, except to note that some people have spiritual beliefs and experiences without religion (no word about whether they have them with religion; religion has only been linked with going to some public place with a permanent special name.).

The survey form also notes that some people "make sense of their lives without any religious or spiritual beliefs." Nothing about non-religious and non-spiritual people's experiences, and nothing about religious or spiritual people making sense of their lives.

So, with all of that woolgathering as preparation, what are you asked about: actual practice, belief, experience, some sense made of your life without practice, belief or experience? Why no, you're asked about a new idea, "religious or spiritual understanding of your life," neither defined nor even discussed up to that point:

Would you say that you have a religious or a spiritual understanding of your life?

It gets worse. Then there are follow-up questions, the second of which (not asked of those who answered "neither" to the question just ex-tagged) brings up "pracitce" again. Except that now, practice, the only defining feature of 'religion,' includes "private meditation."

How important to you is the practice of your belief (e.g. private meditation, religious services) in your day-to-day life? Please look at this card and tell me the number that best describes your view, from 0 'not necessary' through to 10 'essential'

WTF? I wouldn't even get asked that question, because I'd answer "neither" to the earlier question (I don't go to church, and whatever my beliefs and experiences are, I "understand my life" as a physical situation). However, apparently, I am actually religious, because I do "practice" private meditation, and it is a daily thing, so I'd have to say it's important to me. That is, if i were asked, which I wouldn't be.

The key risk factor "found" in the conclusion, recall, is to have a "spritual understanding of life" without a religious framework. Although I would be classed as "neither religious nor spiritual," I would have a "religious framework." Hypothetically, somebody else who also meditated daily, based on some spiritual belief or experience, and who also didn't worship publicly would, according to the way the classification question is worded, be "spiritual and not religious," even though they have a "religious framework," namely the actual practice of "religion" as the survey conceives of it.

This is disappointingly poor survey design. I really wouldn't base anything important on these "results."
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