Is religion a mental disorder?

Eryiedes
reply to post by BlueMule

 

So you are conceding that you can't refute the medical and psychological data on this too?
Nice talking with you.

-Peace-

I'm saying that you aren't instilling enough confidence in me to convince me to gamble two hours on your vid.

It's nice talking with you too.

The facts established here remain undisputed.

No one will dare dispute the medical & psychological survey findings and polls cited or research companies used.
No one can contradict the conclusive medical findings on ideology.
No one has dared to find fault in the subjects or conductors of the studies or the conditions of the testing.
No one has found fault in the way the results were gathered.
No one has found fault in the decisions of the panels that oversaw these studies.
And the simple (unpleasant) truth that you're all so reluctant to face is that you never will.
"Deny Ignorance" took a holiday.
I am flat out claiming that mental or physical trauma is the cause.
I'm not suggesting.
I'm not aluding.
I'm not hinting.
You were all invited to attack the premise put forth on mental disorder and religion.
I put the facts out there.
Everyone (of faith) is afraid to watch them...pretty telling actually.
None of you did so much as budge a single premise put forth...not even on the map.
You came up with elaborate alternate theories but you couldn't disprove the facts presented.
Then there was thread derailment...so, no facts disproved there.
Next came the attempts to make the conversation about: "Is god even real?" so that's a negative on refutation.
You even tried to answer alternate questions...
Everyone was pretty angry at that point but amidst all the ad-hom's not a single fact presented was proven false.
Not even one.
Everyone's faith was tested...and they failed. Not one had faith strong enough to see an opposing view so radical to their own and remain intact.
It's simply facinating.

Refute the facts presented or you must concede the arguement.

-Peace-

reply to post by Eryiedes

I'm going to go against my better judgment and assume that you are not just playing a game, trying to see how long you can stretch this out. I'm also hoping that you have some reasoning ability and intellectual honesty. Please prove me right. I'll break this up into individual points for ease of reading.

1.) Our conversation began when I asked you to prove two claims you made. One, that you could prove scientifically that God did not exist. Two, that today's Christians believed they could murder people and that that would be all right because they were merely setting their souls free.

2.) Despite repeated requests, you have provided nothing at all to support the idea about current Christians' beliefs on murder, after hours and hours of searching.

3.) I pointed out fallacies in the arguments you provided against God's existence, remember?

Look at it. The "proof" is that if you take one God and add the "nothingness" of the universe before it was created, that equals adding 1 and 0, resulting in 1 (The original God). If that is your strongest argument against God then you may as well claim you're an emotional Atheist, because there is no reason behind the belief.

Problem #1 You've heard of comparing "Apples to Oranges." Comparing God to absolute nothingness is infinitely worse. It's like adding an explosion to the inside of a bubble and deciding it doesn't add up to 2.

Problem #2 God is infinite, the nothingness was infinite. Math gets weird when you start playing with infinities.

Problem #3 The math is only window dressing, it's just putting an Atheist claim in a different language. It's simply claiming that God cannot create. That's not proof, it's just a restatement. How in the world do you know that God, who goes by the alias of "The Creator," can't create?

The "proof" is not a proof. It is simply an argument which does not stand up. What I was hoping for when you said "proof" was something like.

"No being can create something out of nothing.
God is a being.
Therefore God can not create something out of nothing."

That, at least, is an argument. Very weak, invalid, and misleading, and certainly not a proof, but at least it would have been a start.

You're second proof was answered as follows:

Now that you've recovered from your laughing fit, may I present the second proof? God has to be able to change the future, and to know the future. Since He can't do both, He doesn't exist. (A vulgar barnyard term comes to mind.)

How do you know He can't do both? This is God we're talking about, He's outside of time. That's not a proof God doesn't exist.

4.) After you failed to present any evidence or solid argument in any of these areas, you switched to arguing that religion is a mental illness. Perhaps you remember that the video in the OP had, as its first spoken words.

I want to start with an obvious point. If there was just one Christian we would all think that he was crazy. Not just crazy, but completely f------ insane.

So he begins by assuming Christianity is insanity. What credibility does anything in that video have after that? Besides, I answered that statement by saying:

The argument for defining religion as a mental disorder seems to be as follows:

God is imaginary,
People who believe (or hear, or talk with) imaginary beings are "Nuts," (To use the correct clinical term.)
People who believe in God, therefore, are nuts.

If you are applying reason and common experience, you will see that both of the premises can be questioned, therefore the conclusion can be questioned.

The claim is made "God is imaginary." OK, prove it. Since you can't, it's a little questionable to use that as your major premise.

The minor premise is also shaky. Two days ago, I saw a creature that was kind of yellowish-beige, shaped a little like a barrel, walking on two legs, having four legs coming out of it's torso. I couldn't see it's head, but it was coming towards me about the same speed I can run. I will swear on anything holy that this is true. Does it matter that it occurred in a dream? I truly believed in that imaginary creature, and if you'll give me a minute, I'll find a copy of my sanity certificate.

So anyone who says Religion is a mental illness has shown themselves to be people who have trouble constructing a logical argument. Is that a mental illness?

5.) Having failed to offer support for any of your propositions, you're now accusing me of failing to disprove the medical information provided in the videos. But I haven't even begun to address those. They weren't a question between us, as far as I can remember. Can we at least deal with the questions raised, oh so long ago, and apparently abandoned by you? Deal with those, and I'll present my thoughts on your medical facts.

reply to post by charles1952


Our conversation ended when you essentially accused me of being a liar.
Remember?

-Peace-

Xtrozero
Humans spend most of their time abstract thinking,. Look around you, EVERYTHING was abstractly created first and then we made it or proved it. You can't even make your breakfast without first creating it in your mind.

So, why is religion out of the norm for how our brains work? We think of questions within out brains that we want answers to and then we abstractly crate those answers that may or may not be correct.

I would be surprised if we didn't have religion. We would most likely not have science or math too and be living like our chimp cousins. Just because it is a big question to answer and people have faith that the answer is correct doesn't make it any different than a scientist trying to answer a much smaller question that started as a thought.

ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

KellyPrettyBear
reply to post by wildtimes

 

Imposing a bunch of superstitious, antique dogma on a small child and instilling fear and self-loathing are abusive. You know that.

It would be kinder to a child to lock them in a room of
hungry cockroaches than to teach them hate, fear and
self-loathing like is done.

I cannot remember a time in my life that I did not believe in god, I was never taught to hate, never taught self loathing, fear, yes.

reply to post by Eryiedes

Called you a liar? From the page before this? You provided no evidence at all for twenty-three pages, because of something that happened on page 24?

Did you mean this?

What grinds my biscuits, or frosts my gears, is the person without honor, the knave, the villain, the cheat, the liar, the coward. That, far more than any attacks on my religion or politics, shuts down my amygdala. Against this person I react emotionally. People can insult others with the vilest names and accusations, under the impression that it's true, but when they learn that they have no reason to believe it's true, the honorable man has only one choice. He must, to remain an honorable man, withdraw the insult and apologize.

That rang a bell with you, did it?

Listen, this isn't just you and me, there's an audience. I want to discuss the questions raised, the audience may even want to see your response. Let's get these issues at least clarified, if not resolved. Provide evidence or counter-arguments, and we can start to work on this.

I maintain the existence of God is logically, very possible. The number of arguments supporting this position is quite large and they are discussed in learned journals, not You Tube videos. Please deal with the issues I've already raised, and then we can get to these.

The Argument from Change
The Argument from Efficient Causality
The Argument from Time and Contingency
The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
The Design Argument
The Kalam Argument
The Argument from Contingency
The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole
The Argument from Miracles
The Argument from Consciousness
The Argument from Truth
The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God
The Ontological Argument
The Moral Argument
The Argument from Conscience
The Argument from Desire
The Argument from Aesthetic Experience
The Argument from Religious Experience
The Common Consent Argument
Pascal's Wager

www.peterkreeft.com...

reply to post by Eryiedes

I WAS WRONG, I APOLOGIZE, AND I ASK YOUR FORGIVENESS

I realize that my comments in the post on page 23, which I copied in my post recent post, were excessively harsh and emotional. It was wrong of me to express my feelings in that way. I can think of no excuse for it.

If i could edit those portions out, I would. They serve no good purpose. Again, I'm sorry for writing that.

reply to post by charles1952

The other difficulty I have is the expansive definition used for "Abuse" and "Trauma." Telling a child that God exists and that He loves him, is trauma only by the definition of a very warped dictionary indeed.

Charles,
I understand your reluctance to appreciate the statistics. If you'd watched Eryiedes' videos, you'd have seen that the results are scored on a scale of ACE - Adverse Childhood Experiences. ADVERSE childhood experiences. Not "God loves you and exists". No one said anything about that being bad.

The fact remains that NOT ALL RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING is limited to "God exists, and loves you". There is a LOT of child-beating, emotional abuse, and hatred instilled into small children by parents who are conservative, fundamental zealots.

No problem with a loving God who is always there. Same with a loving parent who is always there. Frankly, I'm rather surprised that after all of our conversations, you would not recognize the difference.

The functioning of the brain UNDER STRESS is the issue here. Certainly, MANY MILLIONS of people were reared with religion that was NOT shaming, fear-instilling, and based on absolute submission to authority (arbitrarily assigned) lest one be abandoned or tossed into "hell."

The videos address ALL FORMS of child trauma - and measures the number of ACEs in ratio to the occurence later of dysfunctional behaviors. It also included dogmatic political issues...

This is not the thread, however, to discuss the brain damage caused by Early Childhood Trauma - in particular, CHRONIC trauma - such as a disturbed parent, and unavailable parent (physically absent or emotionally absent, as with drug abuse and depression). It also talks about how the state of mind of the mother is LINKED DIRECTLY to the state of mind of the child.

The point being: Adverse Childhood Experiences DO cause exceptional brain wiring and hormone and/or neurotransmitter activity that is only CAUSED when a person is under severe stress, danger, or abuse.

Religion in and of itself is not a mental disorder, no.
ABUSIVE religious dogma unleashed on small kids CAN cause a fear response that later causes REactive instead of PROactive decision making. It is true that the the brain stem; our most primal "reptile" brain takes over (fight/flight) when we are exposed to extreme (real or imagined) danger.

When the 'reptile', reactive brain is activated, it stops the 'reason' centers from operating.
I watched this every day with the kids in the school where I worked. When a child feels threatened (whether they really ARE threatened or not makes no difference; if a child has been primed to EXPECT extreme danger when he hears, for example, the door slamming and then mommy getting beaten up...

or spilling milk and being told the devil is waiting in hell for milk-spillers...

then every time they hear a slamming door (benign, such as when wind pushed one shut; or sees a glass of milk spill - or even just milk in a glass! - they EXPECT extreme danger. Not rationally, but reactively.

The video explained PTSD, and how difficult it is for soldiers to reintegrate back into society if they've endured "shell shock." A backfiring car can cause them to dive for the bushes FIRST, and they go into defensive, terror-mode of fight or flight. Explaining to them that it was just a car backfiring helps - BUT NOT UNTIL THEY HAVE CALMED DOWN and are able to recognize their 'kneejerk' reaction was - in this circumstance - unnecessary fear.

Please be assured, I do not think that ALL religions teach their children hellfire and demons - but SOME DO.

Also, one must take into account that all individuals are different. Two kids can hear the same story and take away from it VERY different messages.

That's why it's so important for caregivers/parents to KNOW their child's style of learning and sensitivities, and sensibilities to incoming data.

One kid's trauma is another's yawn. Some are more resilient than others. But an early childhood (age 0-4, including in utero) that lacks structure, calm (as with an angry, anxious, or depressed mother) and consistent benevolent love DOES produce a child who MIGHT exhibit greater dysfunction later in life.

Personalized attention (such as recognizing the daughter eats cookies one crumb at a time; the son shoves the whole thing in his mouth - examples of natural attitudes about delayed gratification) that is tailored to the CHILD's temperament, style of learning, and emotional sensitivity is absolutely necessary for maximal brain development.

It's simply a fact. The brain that is wired to expect lions to jump out every clump of grass is different from the brain that is wired to expect mom to come and kiss a booboo and make things okay. We are all born with the capacity to learn either situation. It's the situations, combined with the natural temperament and physiological responses that the very young brain "wires into" - out of necessity for survival - that must be addressed.

We know that children
who experience the stress of abuse will
focus their brains’ resources on survival and
responding to threats in their environment.
This chronic stimulation of the brain’s fear
response means that the regions of the
brain involved in this response are frequently
activated (Perry, 2001a). Other regions of
the brain, such as those involved in complex
thought and abstract cognition, are less
frequently activated, and the child becomes
less competent at processing this type of
information.
One way that early maltreatment experiences
may alter a child’s ability to interact positively
with others is by altering brain neurochemical
balance. Research on children who suffered
early emotional abuse or severe deprivation
indicates that such maltreatment may
permanently alter the brain’s ability to use
serotonin, which helps produce feelings of
well-being and emotional stability (Healy,
2004).
Altered brain development in children who
have been maltreated may be the result
of their brains adapting to their negative
environment. If a child lives in a threatening,
chaotic world, the child’s brain may be
hyperalert for danger because survival may
depend on it. But if this environment persists,
and the child’s brain is focused on developing
and strengthening its strategies for survival,
other strategies may not develop as fully.
The result may be a child who has difficulty
functioning when presented with a world of
kindness, nurturing, and stimulation.

This is from the government site called the Child Welfare Gateway:

Understanding the Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development

In the Name of God: A Profile of Religion-Related Child Abuse

This is an article (that is pdf and doesn't allow copying, so you'll have to look at it rather than me extexting it all here) from the Journal of Social Science in 1995.

I copied just the first line from the Google results page, though:

In this article, we examine cases of religion-related child abuse reported to mental health professionals nationwide.

Here is a similar paper from 2003 that has as the same abstract: Religion-related Child Physical Abuse: Characteristics and Psychological Outcomes It let me copy the title, but not the abstract. ????
Anyway, here's clipped from the beginning of the paper:

Religion provides specific directives for positive moral action and the promotion of
human welfare. It may be difficult to realize, then, that religious beliefs can also foster,
encourage, and justify abusive behavior. The myriad connections between religion and child
abuse led Donald Capps, a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion,
to entitle his presidential address, "Religion and Child Abuse, Perfect Together."

Although religious himself, Capps (1992) sorrowfully traced the indisputable connection between
traditional religion and violence against children. Similar points have been made by Capps
(1995), Straus (1994), Pagelow and Johnson (1988), and by Greven (1991) in his sobering
book Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse. **


In this paper, we explore the complex role of religion in child abuse cases reported
retrospectively by young adults in a survey. We sought to understand the nature,
circumstances, and emotional, psychological, and spiritual outcomes of religion-related
physical abuse as compared to other physical abuses.

**here's the description of the book linked above, from amazon:

He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. These words provided generations of American Christians with the justification for physically disciplining their children, in ways that range from spankings to brutal beatings. This learned and deeply disturbing work of history examines both the religious roots of corporal punishment in America and its consequences -- in the minds of children, in adults, and in our national tendencies toward authoritarian and apocalyptic thinking. Drawing on sources as old as Cotton Mather and as current as today's headlines, Spare the Child is one of those rare works of scholarship that have the power to change our lives.

and a couple of reviews:

Amazon.com Review

This is a richly researched, acutely unsettling study of corporal punishment in the United States. It focuses on the "Christian" use of Biblical texts to justify corporal punishment and its destructive legacy in our culture. Greven's insightful scholarship traces rationales for parental brutality through generations of religious apocalyptic thinking. His forceful argument takes the issue of physical discipline from the realm of parental rights and tradition and makes finding an alternative a moral responsibility.

From Publishers Weekly

Greven marshalls a wealth of clinical evidence to show that beatings and spankings administered in childhood have long-lasting harmful consequences, including suppressed anger, self-hatred, recurring depressions, apathy, and stifling of compassion for oneself and others. A Rutgers history professor who teaches courses on the family, Greven maintains that the violence against children endemic in our society contributes to adults' unquestioning obedience to authority and to the oppression of women. He traces support for physical punishment to the Protestant belief that use of the rod is necessary to break the child's will; he also briefly outlines nonviolent alternatives to corporal punishment. Although this is more sociological treatise than childrearing guide, parents will benefit from this wise and liberating book.

Interesting idea but possibly a bit simplistic. If religion is a mental disorder then a significant proportion of the human race are affected. Technically in psychology and psychiatry religion is not a recognized mental illness.
The scientific atheist sees the human as nothing more than a product of evolutionary biology. The true scientific objective observer cannot prove or disprove the existence of god or a creator and so does not have an ultimate conclusion. Even the famous atheist Richard Dawkins says god could exist, however he believes it is unlikely. Science provides the how not the why and has no ultimate answer. You are free to make up your own mind and believe what you will. Religion has caused violence and war and on the other hand Hitler and Stalin weren't big on religion.

reply to post by charles1952


No.
When I told you of the length's I was going to find your information, you spat on my efforts incinuating I was doing no such thing.
We are done sir.

-Peace-

JimTSpock
Religion has caused violence and war and on the other hand Hitler and Stalin weren't big on religion.

You are mistaken in your interpretation.
Hitler was an occultist so you can throw the atheist label out the window there and as for Stalin?
He was originally to enter into the orothodox priesthood and was raised by very devout, strict religious parents. This also overlooks that in his time, in that part of the world, he ruled over what was the most religious part of the Soviet Union so obviously, the religious majority was his immediate enemy.
So you see, what you did was make an oversimplification.
Perhaps it's not crazy to assume your stance on the subject may also be an oversimplified version of the true events or facts.

-Peace-

wildtimes

Religion in and of itself is not a mental disorder, no.

But that's the bottom line.

Fundamentalism is a personality trait that can be found among the religious and the non-religious alike. So is humanism. Take religion out of the picture and people with fundamentalist personalities will find some other us-vs-them dynamic to get uptight about.

So rather than attacking religion, activists should be promoting comparativism. Comparativism blurs the boundaries that fundamentalists rely on. It's hard for secular fundamentalists or religious fundamentalists to promote and enforce us-vs-them thinking patterns when the boundaries between us and them are blurred, crossed, shifted.

reply to post by Eryiedes


If those two evil people had followed the ten commandments history may have been a little different. It's not like they were good christians respecting their fellow man is it. I think there is some benefit to some aspects of religious faith.

reply to post by JimTSpock


That had nothing to do with anything.
History is filled with murderers and psychopaths who also believe that god's word on Earth is final.
All sorts of deaths have been carelessly advocated and carried out by those who think they are doing god's work for him. This arguement holds no water at all.
So, where does that leave you?
Here's some simple math:

If 1 in every 5 people is an atheist and murders still happen unabated, then the numbers suggest you are 80% more likely to be killed by someone who believes in some form of god than someone who doesn't.
Does that mean the 1 in 5 atheist killer is more likely to murder than than the 4 in 5 religious killer who believes in god?
Of course not...because this isn't about religious morality.
It's about abuse and trauma.

-Peace-

God wins! -has more compassionate writers...



Pious Jesus
Who takes away the sins of the world
Give them rest

Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the world
Give them rest

Everlasting Rest

reply to post by Eryiedes


I can say exactly the same thing back to you about your statement. Hitler and Stalin are the greatest mass murderers in human history. No other figures in history outside the 20th century can even compare to their crimes against humanity. Their motivation was not religious.

JimTSpock
reply to post by Eryiedes

 

I can say exactly the same thing back to you about your statement. Hitler and Stalin are the greatest mass murderers in human history.

You are derailing the thread.
Stay on the OP please.
You are trying to make a thread about mental trauma into a history lesson.
One you are relating incorrectly but just to end this discussion...

(1) Japan's Savage Military: From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.

(2) The Khmer Rouge Hell State: In proportion to its population, Cambodia underwent a human catastrophe unparalleled in this century. Out of a 1970 population of probably near 7,100,0001 Cambodia probably lost slightly less than 4,000,000 people to war, rebellion, man-made famine, genocide, politicize, and mass murder. The vast majority, almost 3,300,000 men, women, and children (including 35,000 foreigners), were murdered within the years 1970 to 1980 by successive governments and guerrilla groups. Most of these, a likely near 2,400,000, were murdered by the communist Khmer Rouge.

(3) Turkey's Ethnic Purges: The infamy of executing this century's first full scale ethnic cleansing belongs to Turkey's Young Turk government during World War I. In their highest councils Turkish leaders decided to exterminate every Armenian in the country, whether a front-line soldier or pregnant woman, famous professor or high bishop, important businessman or ardent patriot. All 2,000,000 of them.

(4) The Vietnamese War State: Perhaps of all countries, genocide in Vietnam and by Vietnamese is most difficult to unravel and assess. It is mixed in with six wars spanning 43 years (the Indochina War, Vietnam War, Cambodian War, subsequent guerrilla war in Cambodia, guerrilla war in Laos, and Sino-Vietnamese War), one of them involving the United States; a near twenty-one year formal division of the country into two sovereign North and South parts; the full communization of the North; occupation of neighboring countries by both North and South; defeat, absorption, and communization of the South; and the massive flight by sea of Vietnamese. As best as I can determine, through all this close to 3,800,000 Vietnamese lost their lives from political violence, or near one out of every ten men, women, and children.1 Of these, about 1,250,000, or near a third of those killed, were murdered.

(5) The Pakistani Cutthroat State: After a well-organized military buildup in East Pakistan, the military launched its campaign. No more than 267 days later they had succeeded in killing perhaps 1,500,000 people, created 10,000,000 refugees who had fled to India, provoked a war with India, incited a counter-genocide of 150,000 non-Bengalis, and lost East Pakistan.

(6) Orwellian North Korea: Perhaps from 710,000 to slightly over 3,500,000 people have been murdered, with a mid-estimate of almost 1,600,000. But these figures are little more than educated guesses. In this case, Kim's thought control over all his people and their foreign and domestic communications has protected him and his party from nothing more than deep suspicion about having committed genocide so enormous as to be megamurder.

(7) Barbarous Mexico: Through its system of peonage and chattel slavery, terror, summary executions, and political terror, pre-revolutionary and revolutionary Mexican regimes committed murder on a massive scale, surely totaling at least hundreds of thousands of Indians, peons, innocent villagers, captured soldiers, and conscripts. From 1900 to 1920 total government genocide alone amounted to somewhere between some 600,000 to 3,3000,000 Mexicans, perhaps closer to 1,400,000 killed. Although these figures amount to little, more than informed guesses.

(8) Qin Dynasty: In the eight years that the Han Dynasty was being replaced by the Qin Dynasty 221-207B.C., the population of China decreased from 20 million to 10 million.

(9) Dong (Eastern) Han Dynasty 206B.C.-220A.D., the population of China was 50 million. After the transition of power to the Three Kingdom period 222-589, the population decreased to 7 million.

(10) At the end of the "Grand Guignol" inside Batavia, most sources agree, 10,000 city-Chinese lost their lives, but little is said about the many more who must have perished outside the city's walls. Of the 80,000-odd Chinese in Batavia's environs prior to the extermination, only around 3,000 survived.


(Including war casualties...no distinction made between the two)

61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State
35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill
20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State
10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime
5,964,000 Murdered: Japan's Savage Military
2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State
1,883,000 Murdered: Turkey's Genocidal Purges
1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State
1,585,000 Murdered: Poland's Ethnic Cleansing

Suspected
1,663,000 Orwellian North Korea
1,417,000 Barbarous Mexico
1,066,000 Feudal Russia

Now please...stay on the OP.

-Peace-