OBJECTIONS TO RELIGION BEING A MENTAL ILLNESS
Atheist Chris Stedman keeps saying religion is not a mental illness. It would not be as bad if he would say this is true of some religion. But he gives the impression that there are no cults of religion that are deranged.
The fact remains that every religious community does give leadership roles, prophet roles, to people who are mentally disturbed. The ravings of the Book of Revelation come to mind. That permission is a serious matter. If religion is not a mental illness, it certainly uses the mental illness of others. That is a deal-breaker.
Also, religion seems to want people to develop dissociative disorders. For example, John does good. And we may thank him but we really mean we thank God. We think God prompts him to do the good. As God makes all and John in reality makes nothing, God gets all the credit. It is one thing if you are John. But what right has another to try and declare him disconnected from his own goodness? Even if you imagine that praising God and John are compatible, even if they are, the fact remains that many people of faith may be trying to distance him from his goodness. That is a form of dehumanisation. It is clever for it finds a way to hide what it is. It uses faith as a cover.
Stedman should see if religion is a process of dissociation. He doesn't want to. If a religion is not exactly a disorder it should be condemned for trying to make people ill even if it does not succeed that well.
Other examples of the disorder include:
Seeing the Qur'an as a masterpiece when it is clearly not.
Saying that sacraments heal bad tendencies and blaming the person if nothing happens.
Saying that we should hate the sin and love the sinner as if the sin is not part of the person and doesn't show what kind of person they are.
Dissociation is about escape from some trauma or the threat of a trauma.
But the escape is not real. You are dulling yourself and that is not
coming to terms with the pain. You can end up with seriously impaired
ability to find or feel your emotions in your own body. You put yourself
in danger for you need to see threats
clearly. How can you protect yourself otherwise? You feel you
are outside or disconnected with your pain body, your body. To help
yourself you have to get rid of anything that is dulling your sense of the pain
that is there. The harder bit is getting rid of anything that MAY be doing
this which is scary. If it works and you cast it out you will know it
works and you can get it back. Get rid of the faith based and
psychological pain killers or pain hiders. You have to see that you are
your body and the body is your mind and the mind is your body. This is
lonely for you have to abandon God and prayer as they might be traps and
crutches. It's fundamentally using atheism as a method to free yourself or
to aim for freedom. Aim even if you think you will not succeed.
The atheistic mental health advocate Miri Mogilevsky
stated, "“Religion and mental illness are different psychological processes”.
Mir suggests that religious faith will "stem from cognitive processes that are
essentially adaptive, such as looking for patterns and feeling like a part of
something larger than oneself.” So religion is not a mental illness if it helps
you be a functional member of society.
The reasoning is that religious belief helps you
adapt to society. Mental illness blocks adapting. The religious will form
communities but the insane will not integrate in society. They will think and do
things that make such integration impossible.
Dr Ken Pargament stated, “When it comes to
facilitating mental health, empirical data demonstrates that religious people
have more positive emotion, more meaning in life, more life satisfaction, cope
better with trauma, are more physically healthy, are more altruistic and
socially connected, and are not diagnosed with mental illness more than other
people.”
Religion could easily be a foundation for many forms
of mental illness. The believer might not develop the illness but is at risk.
The only answer is to encourage her or him to keep religion at a polite
distance.
Some in religion behave in an insane disturbing way. But it may be about wanting to be right and the critics to be wrong. They use faith as a sort of, "We told you so." They warn that one day critics will know the truth and how they failed to serve God in accordance with that truth and then it will be too late. They may say it is not about wanting to be right just for the sake of wanting it. Yet it is possible to want the truth not because (or not mostly because) it is the truth but because you like how truth is a battering ram. Everybody lies to themselves and makes mistakes so being a servant of truth may be less common and less a force in society than we are led to believe
They may say it is about the truth rather. But anyway, there is the issue of religion leading to crazy behaviour if not actual craziness.
Artistic expression can
sometimes disguise mental disorders and religion is a form of artistic
expression. Talking to people who are not there is normalised which means
we have more madness here than in mad painters. Religion is a mental
illness or at least has a lot to do with it and though most members do not need
treatment they do not need their delusion reinforced or celebrated. Great
harm will be done to many.
If self-deception can be helpful then it is only as a
temporary measure. We don't need the supernatural. We all feel we will live for
a long time though we know we will not. Natural self-deception is all we need.
But it is better to get tough and face reality - that makes you your own person,
your own strong person.
We must remember that Christ did encourage religious
delusion as in sickness.
He said you must love God with your mind - believe in
him totally. You must love God with all your heart - all your feelings are
feelings of love for him alone. This centering on God is the greatest
commandment according to the Bible. Everybody agrees that love your neighbour as
yourself is put lower down and refers to how you treat your neighbour not how
you are to feel about him. Hypothetically, if you had to choose love of God or a
person you choose God. Jesus teaching is extremism. Extremism is never satisfied
and to obey Christ is to go on the slippery slope to religious terrorism.
Catholics feel about the communion wafer as they do a
person. That is not right.
Religion is more than just a suspect for being based on mental illness. It clearly shows there is something wrong. Many who are sane believers may not be believers but playing along.