Religious Beliefs ARE Mental Illness

“Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.” --Richard Dawkins

I have long been fascinated with things like psychology and sociology, learning about the things humans do and, to some extent, the reasons for their thoughts and actions. “Mental Illness” is, of course a vast subject, so much so, that most of us have had some direct personal experience with it in one way or another. Some ‘mental illness’ is very subtle and even the best experts might disagree on whether a particular person doing a particular thing is or isn’t ‘mental illness’. Other things are abundantly obvious to everyone, such as, when a couple allow their child to die from starvation and sickness when plenty of food and medical care were readily available; when some guy ‘snaps’ and cuts off his wife’s head because she has ‘dishonored’ him.

You might notice the examples above are likely to be associated with some kind of religious belief. It is this specific kind of illness that I want to point out in this blog.

Of course, most mental illnesses, whether they have any religious component or not, are not violent. But it is not necessary for delusions to be violent in order to do great harm. Yes, there are many kinds of delusions which have nothing to do with religion or religious beliefs at all. But many do.

I understand religion about as well as one can, I think. I don’t mean all the technical and academic details of theology, hermeneutics, etc., but religion. I was a devout Christian for over thirty years. I believed in God as much as anyone possibly can. I spoke in tongues (yeah, still can of course), felt the spirit of God move in me and around me. I considered it a great privilege to get on my knees and pray fervently to God, thanking Him for all His blessings, and sometimes asking for direction and guidance. I know what it means to “know God” and to talk with God and to listen to his voice. I was a very content Christian, happy with my life, until one night something happened. I stopped believing...almost. Just like that. I say ‘almost’ because I had to think about it for a little while; why was I suddenly terrified that I was going to Hell for turning my back on God, prayed more fervently than ever in my life to God to “help my unbelief”. It took a little thought to realize how goofy it was to be scared of and praying to a critter I didn’t believe existed in the first place. Then I started to grow.

Eventually, I concluded that religious belief is actually a clinical delusion. Not in some smart-ass insulting kind of way, but in the same way that other delusions are delusions. Most delusions are either somewhat or extremely rare. You can find a list of examples here. The DSM-IV is often called the “Bible” of psychiatry, as it is a listing of many various disorders, and illnesses. I cannot say that I was truly surprised, but was very disappointed when I learned that the APA (American Psychiatric Association), or whatever body is in control of the publishing of the DSM, had succumbed to the same greed and corruption as most other such groups. Why?

Because, according to the DSM, a delusion is: A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. ''The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture''.

This is very sad. They inserted a phrase in there that should have never been there: “despite what almost everybody else believes”. The honest definition of a delusion is the rest of the statement, minus that phrase. A delusion is a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. Why is this sad? Because “what almost everybody else believes” is absolutely and utterly irrelevant to whether or not a given thing is a delusion. Truth is not determined by popularity. It is determined by whether a belief is based upon evidence about external reality.

Freud had it right on this when he said religion was “A system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else...but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion.” Albert Ellis, PhD, said in an interview in 2001, “Spirit and soul is horseshit of the worst sort. Obviously there are no fairies, no Santa Clauses, no spirits. What there is, is human goals and purposes...But a lot of transcendentalists are utter screwballs.”

It should be obvious there are at least two main reasons for the inclusion of that ridiculous phrase about “what everybody believes”. One is that the body responsible for the DSM is not JUST a professional one, but also a political and social one. It would not be politically, socially, or especially financially, prudent to declare that most of the population of the world is deluded, never mind that this is the truth. The other main reason, I suppose, is that a huge percentage, perhaps most, of the “mental health professionals”, are themselves under such delusions. Maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t think a person with an ongoing mental delusion is qualified to be a mental health professional. In the same way that I don't think a believing Baptist minister is qualified to lead an atheist organization.

One of the things that most irks me about my fellow atheists is the idea that religious folk are just dumb and/or uneducated. I always point to Francis Collins who ran the Human Genome Project and is currently director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This is a genuine world class scientist...surely no one would assert that this man is just dumb or uneducated. He is also a Christian and wrote The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

People make mistakes all the time. I do, you do. We might make statements or hold opinions that are not correct. Most of us will modify our opinions if we are presented with actual evidence. This is what distinguishes a delusion from merely being wrong or mistaken about something. There is NO amount of logical reasoning, NO amount of evidence to the contrary, that will convince a delusional person that he is wrong. It is because his delusions are not arrived at through evidence or logical reasoning in the first place, but are based mostly upon emotion and ‘feeling’. This ALWAYS trumps reason in the human mind. Hence we have the world that we do, instead of one that could be vastly better. The Capgras Syndrome is basically when a person becomes convinced that his mother, for example, has been removed and has been replaced by an imposter that looks, sounds and behaves exactly like his mother. It has been discovered that the REASON for this delusion is due to a loss of any emotional connection to his mother within the brain.

Consider the website god is imaginary.com. There is a good deal of information there that most atheists would probably like, MAYBE some that might interest an “on the fence” person, but do you really think a serious Christian or Muslim would be persuaded by any of it? I don’t. It ain’t about reasoning. As Martin Luther correctly noted, “Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason”.

I spent most of my early life in religion of one flavor or another. I saw nothing odd or wrong or ‘out of place’ about it while I was in it. It was “...accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture”, so what could be wrong about it? Nonetheless, it was and is a “shared delusion”, as Richard Dawkins put it, rather than a ‘bizarre delusion’ (such as believing you are Napolean). I have done a great deal of research, especially reading fellow atheists and other skeptics who disagree with the label of ‘delusion’ for religious beliefs. I have yet to find one which disagrees based on the definition of delusion, or based on the content of religious beliefs. It is not good, most say, because religious beliefs provide so much comfort to so many people.

I find this especially troubling, coming from non-believers and skeptics. While I would not argue about the “comfort” question, it is beside the point. The question is whether the beliefs fit the clinical definition of delusion. They do. Period.

By 'religious beliefs’ I mean mostly beliefs in supernatural realms and beings; gods, devils, demons, angels, spirits, fairies, ghosts, heaven, hell, etc. Things like variations of “The Golden Rule”, or “Love your neighbor as yourself” are not religious beliefs, have nothing to do with religion.

I have seen religion destroy people...one example is a guy who is (apparently) a former friend on Facebook who goes all the way back to Myspace. I recently had to leave the ‘Article and Blog-sharing Group’, which Todd started and which I have enjoyed for a long time. Todd used to be an atheist. We’ve had many good discussions over the years, some disagreements, but when we disagreed it was good naturedly. Here is a recent comment from a thread: Wesman Todd Shaw “I find it offensive as a rule whenever someone says "this is rational," or "this is reasonable." I know such comments are nothing but shit, based on shit, and designed to do nothing but be shit.” Is this self-explanatory or what? Martin Luther would be proud. I am sad that I seem to have lost a friend.

TRB

Trust issues...

I'm having them. Hurts.

The Universe

I like to understand stuff. Stuff includes the universe. I know, of course, that not even all the cosmologists and physicists in the world combined fully understand the universe....still, I want to understand as much as I can. I’m reaching out to the very scientifically minded Facebook people (especially in the cosmology area) in the hope that someone can help me answer a few questions I have. First, maths mean absolutely zip to me, so if you wish to explain something to me, it must be translated into plain English or I’ll never get it. Second, just so we’re kind of on the same page, and especially if you have not seen this, I ask that you watch the video I will link to here, just so you will understand better what my questions are.

If you are at all familiar with layperson explanations of such things that the professionals give, you have probably seen the analogy of an expanding balloon to explain our expanding universe. I understand that analogy, but it has always left me with a huge question. Galaxies, and glactic clusters. it is explained, are depicted as dots on the surface of the balloon, and as the balloon inflates, all the dots grow further away from each other. So that no matter what dot you might be observing from, you will see the same basic thing....all other dots moving away from you, as though, as Carl Sagan put it, you had committed some cosmic blunder. So far so good.

But what is INSIDE the balloon? It might well be only a case of my being rather daft about that, but I don’t get that part. Then, I watched this video. It further confused me because it depicts, not just galaxies on the outside surface of a balloon, but a sphere FULL of galaxies, galactic clusters, etc. So, which is the more correct way to see “our” universe...are we and everything we can know just as ants crawling about on the outside skin of a vast balloon? Or is “our” universe a sphere, full of such things? And where are we relative to the rest of it?

Thank you in advance, for your enlightenment.

TRB

Debate?

This is a blog I’m doing about religion vs atheism, and will post at Blogger because I can include links and embed videos there (as opposed to doing a “note” on FB or just posting in an FB thread).

I was recently in the Facebook group Debate and Discussion. At the time I was apparently the only atheist rep in the thread and there were, I believe, three Christians. I have been in many other threads in which there was a mix of both sides and in a few where a lone Christian was trying to answer several non-believers. It was an interesting experience to be “The Lone Atheist”, even in such a brief and limited context as an FB thread, which only involved four people, for that period. Even with the “safety” of being online, as opposed to being physically in a group of Christians (not that all Christians are the same, of course), I began to experience just the barest twinge of unease. It would not be accurate to describe it as “fear”, but perhaps a precursor...a sense of unease.

Of course I knew absolutely nothing about the persons on the other end of the texts, except to take at face value that they were genuine in the things they were saying (as opposed to playing a troll or some such critter). To be clear, no one said anything nasty or threatening to me, at least in the ordinary sense. It was more the general tone of the thing...it came through quite clearly, that these people saw me as “one of them”... perhaps one to be pitied, maybe to be saved or convinced, but there was another undercurrent which suggested that if I did not show some signs, at least of what I would think they would see as ‘humility’ or a willingness to listen, in the way a student would listen, then shortly they would simply conclude that I was “lost”, and I would be abandoned to my (what they see as a) terrible fate.

Again, I have never met any of these people except in that online thread, so I cannot say with much certainty what kind of people they are. I can say only how I felt...and I felt unease...that perhaps I just might be in an “unsafe” place; that were we actually physically together sitting someplace...um, it might not be nice.

One of the things that I think cause this feeling to begin to show up was that they began hurling questions at me, in what felt like an accusatory manner; “Temy, have you ever told a lie?” “Have you ever lusted in your heart after a woman and committed adultery in your mind?”. To which I answered, by the way, “Yes, I have told many lies, and yes, I very much lust after every attractive woman I see, especially the ones on the porn sites.” A thing that seemed so surreal to me, especially, about that last question, was the assumption that, if I said “yes”, I should somehow feel embarrassed or ashamed or guilty. I know that in their world view, that would make perfect sense. As I told them, I was a devout Christian for over 30 years, and that was certainly part of my own worldview for most of that time. Now, of course, the notion that I should feel bad or guilty about looking “lustfully” at a naked woman is to absurd for words, and I’m fairly certain that the kind of folk I was dealing with would think that this is one ‘symptom’ or result of atheism, though actually, I can see that even if I had remained a Christian I would have matured enough to think that was just silly. That is just a part of my personality, not necessarily having any connection whatever to the fact that I am atheist.

There was some mention of science, and one person seemed to think rather highly of her own scientific knowledge, (though most of what was mentioned would leave an actual scientists shaking their head). Then, as often happens in such an exchange, videos started to pop up that they wanted me to watch...I’ll try to find the link to one to include at the bottom. It was called “180“ or something like that, and I began to watch it. I got just over 2 minutes in and could not get any further because I saw that it was Ray Comfort and Hitler and the Nazis were in the background, and I simply could not go there...not with Ray Comfort. I can sometimes watch a debate between atheists and Christians, and sometimes I can see a Christian making some good points here and there, but this man is just simply either quite insane or just a charlatan, one or the other. I have no doubt many Christians would agree with that assessment.

I found a video of Ray being interviewed via phone on the Atheist Experience program and I include that here to give a sense of Ray, if you are not familiar. I found it tolerable because there was some counterpoint to his madness.

The Christians I was dealing with in the thread I mentioned, apparently think highly of Ray and think in similar ways, hence they posted one of his videos. Several things were said about evolution which sounded much like the kind of things Ray would say. I hope we all know that many Christians understand evolution and have no problem with acknowledging the facts about it. Many, perhaps most?, don’t. I’m going to also include here a video by an actual scientist called “Why Evolution is True”. I know, of course, that such a video would be received by these folk in about the same way I received the one of Ray they posted. From their perspective, I am an amazingly deluded (and lost) person, unable to think clearly.

My request of you here is that, you get to know Ray a bit (if you don’t already) and then listen to the man explain why evolution is true, and then if you perhaps still do not “accept” evolution as a basic fact of life, I would surely hope you would deeply question your own self.

G’night Johnboy.

TRB

180 Changing the Heart of a Nation

Irony

Sorry...had to take a minute to go look at Jennifer Aniston’s nipples. You want irony? Well, here’s some anyway...

In about 4 hours the most ambitious mission yet will attempt to land on Mars. The amount of technical, mathematical, engineering, and other kinds of knowledge necessary for that is almost staggering. And the coordinated work of thousands of people. It makes some of us kinda misty, hoping for a safe landing for Curiosity. Ray Kurzweil has correctly pointed out that billions of people now have smart phones...they are so cheap and powerful that a bushman in the Congo has nearly the collected knowledge of humanity, literally in his hand. Even many of the literally starving people in the world have such phones....

But they can’t eat them. Does it help them get any food, clean water, medicine, sanitary toilets? Where’s the “profit” in helping such people? Where is the motivation for tens of thousands of people to work together for the sole purpose of providing the basic necessities of life for so many destitute people? It just ain’t there. There is perceived to be no profit in it. God, my species is sick.

TRB

Your Penis Is NOT Your 'Manhood'

Sexuality, sexual organs and anything to do with sexual behavior seems to be among the things which illicit the most completely insane and irrational thoughts and even laws among humans, especially if there is any religious involvement. Currently in the USA, it is considered much worse for a young child to see a naked woman’s breast on television or other media, than to see the blood and gore of war and accidents. This suggests a twisted mind to me; one who values pain and death more than the beauty of sex and life.

For most men, it is hard to imagine anything that could be more ‘emasculating’ than comments about his penis, even if the comments are completely false. It also can be source of much ‘pride’, ridiculous as that is. For most men, their penis is the focus of a lot of attention long before they are consciously aware of what a penis is and that they have one. It is still very common for males to be physically mutilated - on their major sexual organ, of course - mostly because of ancient religious beliefs and misguided notions about cleanliness and hygiene. When I ‘Google’ the words ‘penis’ and ‘manhood’, the first link presented is for a product called Manhood, which is, “an undergarment acting as a foreskin substitute.”

There’s that word again, ‘manhood’. The word ‘manhood’ has come to be almost universally synonymous with ‘penis’. This is an outright statement by virtually the whole society that, if you do not possess a penis you are not a man. Several implications follow, the main one perhaps that, the smaller your penis the less ‘manly’ you are. No, really. So much so that a ‘celebrity Mohel’ wrote only a couple of months ago about what he called a micro-penis...he said: “Today I circumcised a baby with the smallest penis I've ever seen – a 'micro penis'," wrote the rabbi and added: "Just so you understand, it was slightly thicker than a matchstick; at first I thought it was a girl… May this small one grow to greatness." . Source. Poor kid...little does he know he can never be much of a man now, thus sayeth the Rabbi.

Luckily, for most men who may not measure up physically, there is one last chance to be a man. Esquire magazine (and what better authority could there be on the subject?), had an article in 2009 called “How To Be A Man”. The first sentence of that article? “A man carries cash.” Source. You know it’s true too because how many times have you seen middle-aged to old funny-looking bald guys with pot bellies with babes on their arms. There you have it guys; as soon as you’re old enough to realize you don’t have a big dick and prolly are gonna be poor as dirt, you might as well dig a hole (if you’re man enough) and get in it for good, cuz your life is just fucked (and not in a good way).

Of course, many poor guys do have sex (after all, someone has to continually replenish the supply of useless eaters, right?), and I’ve personally known of guys who are police officers, firemen, etc., who were ‘small’ who managed to survive. I know of a cop whose hard erect penis is less than one inch, but he is happily married to a lovely woman and has three children. What’s “average”? “Ninety percent of all men[’s erect penises] fall between the extremes of 14.5cm (5.6 inches) and 17.5cm (7 inches) despite any claims to the contrary.” Source.

What does it mean to be a man? What is ‘manhood’? There may be myriad answers to such questions but I do hope you guys (and girls) will keep it in your heads that ‘manhood’ is NOT a physical object that can be cut off. I hope you will question why anyone would find even the thought of a small penis remotely funny or amusing, as though its owner had a brain fart and just forgot to grow a big one. I would hope that we can eventually make this kind of absurdity as socially unacceptable as belittling gay people.

TRB

Privacy

To me, a phone is a tool; a nice thing to have when you need it...like a hammer. I like to carry a phone in the car with me for the same reason I’d like to have a hammer with me...in case I need one for something. It’s unlikely I will need to use one. I certainly don’t want anyone else calling me on one or hitting me with their hammer if they have one. Most of the time when at home, I like to keep all phones turned off because I really don’t like the idea of being interrupted at any moment...it’s stressful to me. I only turn it on when I feel up to dealing with it if it rings.

I was flabberghasted when I first saw how many people seem to grow a phone from their ear and are constantly talking on one no matter where they are. Normally, I can go many days without ever needing a phone. Another thing is, I hate it with a passion, when I have to talk on a phone and other people in my presence can hear what I’m saying. I’m a one to one person...I can only deal with one person at a time. If I’m talking on a phone, I want to be out of earshot of anyone else, so that I can pay all my attention to the person on the phone. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to or the subject, it just seems a private thing to me. Likewise, I also hate hearing someone else’s one-sided conversation. When reasonably possible, I like to remove myself from the vicinity of another talking on a phone. I don’t want to hear it...I don’t want it intruding into my hearing unless I am being addressed or it involves me somehow.

For many years I had two really good friends, Jimmy and Sam. I could spend hours with either one and be just fine. When I ended up with both of them at the same time I was anxious. They were not the sort of people who would ever have been friends unless they had a friend in common...me. I've always been that way...one person at a time is fine, two at once are two many.

I hate the idea of having anyone come to my house. It’s not about being embarrassed about the house, nor about not liking the person in question, or spending any time with them. I don’t want anyone with me in my house (except for my wife who belongs here) for the same reason I don’t want anyone with me in my pants. It’s too personal. I’m not at all thrilled about going to anyone else’s house either...it’s almost like I’m in THEIR pants with them. To me, ‘home’ is that one place in the world which is sacred, not to be intruded upon; a place in which all anxiety can be released. I like it fine if I can visit with a friend at some neutral place...although I’m not big on eating with other people either. I can eat or I can visit and chat, but not simultaneously. I sometimes manage it for short periods, but it’s quite stressful.

I’m not much of a drinker (of alcohol), though I do enjoy having a few beers or mixed drinks on occasion. I just want to do that alone too. I’ve often heard in movies and shows that it’s generally not good to ‘drink alone’. To me that’s the only time it is good to drink. When I drink I want to do that at home...I detest bars, even more so if they are noisy. When I have been in a bar I have always tried to be sure to have my back to the wall, preferably near an exit. People are even more unpredictable and potentially hazardous when they drink than otherwise. I like avoiding potentially dangerous interactions with other humans whenever possible.

Recently I saw some show in which a person had made themselves a magazine rack in the bath room reachable from the toilet. I was very surprised when I first knew that many people like to read on the toilet. I still don’t get it. I wonder if they have some bowel trouble. To me, I want to get in, get that done and get out as quickly as possible. If I’m going to read, I’d much rather do that sitting on the porch or lying in bed. Less stinky. I see people brushing their teeth or shaving on shows all the time, and other people coming in and out of the bathroom. To me, those are very private things...I no more want someone else seeing me do that than sitting on the toilet.

Were I ever to be in prison, my only possible chance of surviving it would be in solitary. It seems most people hate that and some consider it a kind of torture; it’s even been said that a few have become insane from so little interaction with other humans. If the only choices I had were general population or solitary, the solitary would be bliss for me. I have a very full and active internal life, and can get on well for long periods with almost zero interaction with other humans. I do like to have SOME interaction, which is why the Internet is great for me.

It’s the best of both worlds. I can shut out everything else and read or watch videos, or I can go on a ‘social’ site and laugh and talk and visit with others, but without the anxiety of other persons being in my physical space, or me in theirs. Most people seem to have a ‘personal space’, typically about 2-4 feet, which they don’t want other people to violate. Many will get angry if you get very close to their face while talking to them. For me, this ‘personal space’ is my home. I call my online friends my push button friends. This does NOT imply that I care nothing for them, or less for them, only that I have the option of instantly vanishing, at the push of a button, if I need to. I don’t feel cornered or trapped in a situation I can’t easily get out of. I used to have daydreams about being able to interact with people ONLY on a mental level, and the Internet made that (kinda) possible for me.

These are my notions of ‘privacy’. I care nothing for the kind of ‘privacy’ in which one never wants Jim to ever know what you said to John, etc. As for government or the corporatocracy, I really couldn’t care less what all they may know about me. I think it hardly matters...the days of that kind of privacy are long gone in a digital age.

TRB