Religion And psychiatry

Although people will tell you that everyone is entitled to believe what they want to believe- we all know that isnt true !
If someone tells you they are the Emperor Napoleon that tried to conquer Europe. You will wonder whether they believe that or not, but you will also believe they are in need of psychiatric help if they behave as though they are Napoleon and have delusions of that sort -
Similarly people suffering from schizophrenia are by-and-large not left to their own mental abberations and are persuaded by social workers and doctors to take medication in order to suppress their beliefs in the supernatural and in the voices they hear telling them things.

It shouldnt be difficult to realise that people who have ideas that supernatural beings exist - that they talk to - and that they believe created the universe are actually in need of medication or re-education. These foundless beliefs in gods and prophets are delusional and are having a serious impact on the economies and welfare of other people all around the world. Such people hold office in government and other establishments - but we cannot tell if they are just corrupt and preying on gullible believers.
Certainly religious people are using gullible young people to carry out acts of violence - It is time for medical practitioners and psychiatric workers to take interest in the phenomena of religion and to help curb its propensity for war by issuing papers that go some way toward diagnosing the illness of religion within people. Religious people are very similar to mild schizophrenics IMHO, so it is surely not right that we should suffer because ill people create war and biggotry. Surely the symptom of religious schizophrenia is the belief in a supernatural being - and the belef that "praying" is alike to a telephone call.
The fact that one cannot bring reason to the religious is a symptom too
If religious people cannot see reason - maybe they will see a doctor

There is still time to end this insanity and bring reason to the world
Otherwise we are all like early christians who thought schizophrenics were possessed by "devils" whatever they are supposed to be.
we now know schizophrenia is caused by chemical imbalances which occur when the brain is starved of some chemical or other - perhaps the religious
would benifit from such a study into their illness !

 

Forget for a minute that a whole lot of our Psychiatrists are also Theists...

You really have a wacky thing when it comes to the health of the body and the mind and this is from my Doctor btw:
If enough people have a condition - then it becomes 'normal'.
If 55% of women over the age of 45 have varicose veins in their legs then it no longer is a problem - its now 'what is' the body and the condition it should be in.
(that was roughly the analogy he used)

With humanity its a helluva lot more than that.
Humans have, from the earliest known times, throughout every era, throughout cultures across the planet have a 'sense of god'.
Psychiatrists sometimes describe this as part of our 'hardwiring'.
This may very well explain to you why so many Psychiatrists themselves believe in God.
The Evidence suggests that the human brain is seemingly built to hold not only a working knowledge of a God but it also seems to naturally 'seek' that God.
From there you can suppose there is a reason for that.

So yeah,
Strictly speaking, from a psychiatric point of view your abnormality might be something worth investigating.
If that part of your brain does not work then who knows what dangers you are capable of.
Maybe your 'hardwired' sense of 'right and wrong' dont work either?
Next thing you know you will be killing people faster than Mao and Stalin?

 

This is from the viewpoint of one of the people I was describing - it is far from accurate and terefore untrue. If a virus like "bird flu" hits more than 1% of the population is an epidemic - if it hits across borders and increases - its pandemic but even if it hits 90% of the population its not considered normal butr out of control

Proximo is suffering religiomania BTW and his reasoning powers have diminished considerably - that much is obvious - either that or hes about 11 years old

 

Sure enough but if you had a situation where we know that all birds develop this flu when they age - then it no longer becomes a pandemic but it becomes 'what birds do'.

To give you the most obvious example its us aging.
We all have this horrific 'disease' which starts working on us pretty much as soon as we start.
So if you go to your Doc and say you have hair thats turning white he doesnt consider that 'something wrong'.

Dont worry, my Doctor thinks this is funny himself but getting back to the core of this,
If you have a vast majority of people born with (meaning also develops into) a 'Hardwire for God'
then,
That just is what is considered 'normal'.
Now someone like you comes along and claims that they do not have an ability to 'comprehend' a God or any desire to seek after the notion?
Abnormal.
The next question is whether or not this is hindering your ability to function in society and if so, to the extent that you become a danger to yourself or others?

But yeah, I dont know what you think about the 'God Hardwiring' that Psychiatrists find.
Do you think these Psychiatrists are 'irrational' for considering that evidence that a God exists?

 

Of course thats if we assume that there is anything called "god" - personally I dont know what people are babbling on about when they use that word - perhaps you could explain it to me - It seems to me that actions speak louder than words - now the thought that by clasping your hands together and thinking the words to a "prayer" (shorthand in the religious world for "telephone conversation with 'god'") you can influence the world is just a symptom of the disease - its not what you think but how you act in accordance with what you observe - for example a sane person does not believe that they are napoleon III and neither do they think they can have a conversation with a being that created the universe - mainly because in order to belkieve those things there has to be some reasonable proof to base their actions upon - and in the abscence of empirical evidence there can be no reason to assume it is true

 

Is it just me or did you pretty much just give up entirely and sorta start muttering to yourself and pretending you didnt just walk headfirst into a wall you didnt even see coming?
No, Its you alright.

 

You definitely influence the world when you pray, because you are a part of the world and you influence yourself. But can you force God, through prayer, to stop someone's cancer? I wouldn't suggest that you can force God to do anything. Has prayer ever coincided with a remission of cancer? Yes. Did prayer have an effect? It's a matter of faith. Personally I don't pray for things like that -- a 'telephone conversation with God' does not necessitate 'asking God to make certain things happen'.

A sane person believes they are Napoleon III...if they are Napoleon III. I don't know if anyone has named their child that, nor do I care.

A sane person doesn't believe they can converse with an entity whose sentience they can't prove exists? Then you're insane for having this conversation with us.

 

A friend of mine suffers from a form of manic depression, and now and then, ends up in hospital fow a few weeks. Whilst there, as well as being given medication etc, they are subject to attempts at conversion to christianity on the part of christian members of staff.

As far as I am concerned, this is totally unacceptable.

As far as I can see, there is absolutely no rational basis for accepting the belief system of christianity. By rational means, we could perhaps decide there could be some higher intelligence behind the cosmos. Thats as far as we could go.
People take to c/anity because either they are brainwashed into it from childhood, or because of some kind of emotional reaction.
Anyone prepared to believe in irrational nonsense on the basis of some kind of emotionalism is clearly not fitted to become any kind of psychotherapist.
It is even possible that as you suggest, they themselves are actually suffering from some kind of delusional condition.
Christianity is cleary nothing to do with any form of psychiatric medicine, and should be kept out of it.

It is also a fact that many chriatian so-called teachings run entirely counter to the thinking of modern psychology. C/anity teaches us to regard ourselves as basically flawed, and incapable of running our own lives, or deciding what we think is right and wrong. That kind of negativity is itself a form of neurosis, which stands in the way of a positive self image, which is so important to our overall mental balance and happiness.

I won't even mention the damage inflicted by christian anti-sex attitudes.....

 

Hmm solipsism ! nice try but practically it wouldnt matter since I always have the excuse that at least I know enough about the condition of humanity to make a guess at whether other humans are like me. I can simply make the assumption based on what experience tells me - for example I cannot assume posters answering this post are god - because I know other humans who post in forums and I know they are more-or-leess like me. - people who pray cannot do that since they have no direct experience of god - or if they say they have then eithjer they are mistaken or nuts. A prayer cannot be like posting in a forum since you cannot say there is any experience that leads you to believe god is at the other end but I can prove other humans are at the end of a post - I merely post to a friend "meet me at 10pm" phone them to make sure they read the post then wait to see if they turn up . God doesnt do that so !??????

 

Believing in something that is provably untrue (you are Napoleon III, for example) is no more insane than not believing in something that is true (Holocaust denial).

It is an expression of both of those potential insanities to insist that reality should be defined only by your own thoughts, beliefs and experiences. If that were true, then all that exists outside of your limited omniscience would vanish. There never would be, and never would have been, any new songs, stories, or meaningful changes in perspective, blank spots would replace most of every map and globe, most of the enzymatic and metabolic processes in your own body would cease to be, along with those laws of physics outside the influence of your reality-defining consciousness.

It could be argued, however, that none one of this has any real significance in the endless debate about the existence of God. These are only arguments about your beliefs regarding the existence of God.

Peace and Love

 

The child believes in Santa,
The teenager knows better, presents are bought by credit cards.
The adult isn't so sure about all that, but he loves his children,
and so the presents will continue to appear, regardless.
One day they'll understand.

 

typical materialist, suffereing from darkness.

you are the ones suffering from delusion.

 

i apologize for i am spamming, dont mind me.

peace.

 

This thread just proves all athiests are nihilists or facsists at heart (agnostics are decent though because at least they accept the possibility of a higher force, creator god or whatever, unlike athiests who are just so narrow minded with their heads stuck so far up there self-righteous arses). They are great at critising and riduculing everything that remotely resembles a religion, but when you ask them what they actually believe they get all upset and start with the personal attacks...You see they don't really believe in anything and will stop at nothing to convert the world to this depressing world view. They are worse than the christians they attack, it's impossible to seperate the two. Athiests are all depressed and full of hate. They like to blame all of their problems on christians, muslims, etc when actually the problem lies in their nihilistic mentality. Athiests are self-destructive and are absolutely terrified of death.

 

Sounds like you've got a problem there -

 

Neither shaman sun's ID or sig would lead any sane person to the conclusion that he's a materialist.
The trouble with religions is that their followers have been taught that they in some way have a monopoly on spirituality - that is simply not true. And often, the reverse is true - many religious people I've met wouldn't know spirituality if it hit them on the head.

 

Typical athiest response that proves my point.

 

you're point proves only your own moronic nature.

 

I think you were on to something here but I couldnt follow the rest of your post

Well supose I know there is a life form on mars that exists - yet opinion is against me - they havent done the research I have and when I point out certain observations - they laugh and say "we havent seen that "
I merely need to retort ""but you havent looked to the extent that I did - with these instruments - "
It could be that knowing is much better than believing - dont you thinkso?

 

definitely. At least, I believe that's true.....