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Religion is Mental Illness
.: posted 4/17/2003 ::: by webmdave
::: 
Annotations to Spurzheim's Observations on Insanity:
Religion is another fertile cause of insanity. Mr. Haslam, though he declares it sinful to consider religion as a cause of insanity, adds, however, that he would be ungrateful, did he not avow his obligation to Methodism for its supply of numerous cases. Hence the primitive feelings of religion may be misled and produce insanity; that is what I would contend for, and in that sense religion often leads to insanity.
Most people's religion is what they want to believe, not what they do believe. And very few of them stop to examine its foundations."
Texas mother over the edge because of cult! - Interestingly enough, this is a Christian View.
Glen Milstein , doctoral student from Teacher's College, Columbia University says that Religious faith effects the way you view the mental illness of a relative. To declare that a relative is incurable is a direct challenge to religious faith when it comes to mental illness.
Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote:
"'Religion is based . . . mainly upon fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand . . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.'"
Christianity Causes Insanity !!??!!
Did I get your attention? I have been doing some personal research to determine if there are any reputable studies available documenting a verifiable link between a belief in Christianity and mental illness. This article is my resulting conclusions and rant on the subject.
I have more than a jaded interest in this topic. Someone very close to me is suffering from severe mental illness and has been for most, if not all of his life. He is now in his 70s and the symptoms of his debilitation are more apparent than they were some 20 years ago when I first met him. Sometime in the early 1960s he felt the call of GOD on his life and became part of the Operation Mobilization missionary organization based in Belgium. He quit his job, packed up his wife and five small children and became a fully committed servant of the Lord using his ability as an automobile mechanic to keep the missionary wheels in Europe rolling.
Interested in raising his family in the fear and admonition of the Lord, he would insist on having daily family devotions which would often last two to three hours. He required his children to memorize whole chapters of the Bible at a time. If they failed to perform as instructed, the kids could expect severe chastisement in the form of screaming tirades with threats of hell and eternal retribution at the hands of an angry God. These "lectures" could go on for hours. He refrained from open physical abuse, but would deny meals as a regular incentive toward "holiness".
He believes that GOD speaks to him in an audible voice. He is convinced that when he needs help with mundane chore that GOD himself intervenes in a similar way as the saints of the Old Testament testify. For instance, once he was faced with some plumbing problems. He had no funds to hire a repairman and lacked the proper knowledge to fix his kitchen sink. He prayed to "Jesus" and was promptly answered by a disembodied voice who stated emphatically, "I AM A PLUMBER." Once he heard that, he was able to fix the leaking sink. He relates other experiences along the same line, which he claims assist him on a regular basis. He also believes his theological understanding is superior to most other people's because of his special relationship with his creator.
He was asked to leave Operation Mobilization after several years of working there. His ability to maintain positive relationships was and is extremely limited. The seemingly slightest provocation could and still can send him into a violent tirade. If the argument he had was with a man, it would be nothing for him to throw the man up against a wall and threaten to kill him. The argument could be about anything, especially religion. Although he would eventually "repent" for his behavior, another episode would follow shortly. The pattern was never broken, so he would be asked to leave one Christian organization or church after another as the years progressed.
Once his children grew up and left home, he would stalk them, trying to find out if they were sinning against GOD in any way. If he found them doing something he believed was inappropriate, he would barge into their place of employment sometime after the observed behavior and make a terrible scene, exclaiming emotionally that GOD was going to splatter their blood all over the wall in his wrath if they did not immediately repent.
Eventually all the Children moved far away. From then on his wife had to endure the full energy of his idiosyncrasies. Recently one of his daughters visited him at his home for the first time in 22 years. She is 43. It went well at first, but while at dinner in a restaurant, he began eating off of her plate, licking her food, hitting her with gospel tracts and then began yelling and screaming in anger for all the patrons to witness.
The poor man is just plain mentally ill. He never did act exactly normal, but now as early stages of senility are becoming apparent, the strange behavior is simply more pronounced.
This is my interest and motivation for exploring the topic at hand.
Regardless of the quotes and story above, I found no verifiable correlation between religious faith and mental illness. What I found was that mental illness is just like any other illness that affects people's lives. Mental illness is somewhat hard to define, because in some ways, all human beings are subject to delusions and fantasies. This is not really a bad thing. Each of us can attest to having wildly vivid and impossible dreams from time to time in our sleep. During the dream, we are sure of the reality of the experience. It is only on waking that the fantasy is dispelled. It is our capacity to imagine things that do not exist that has made modern medicine, technology and our fledgling space program possible. Imagination is the cousin to insanity and the line between the two is often thin.
From what I have been able to discover, such things as having a bad heart, being allergic to cats, being diagnosed with prostate cancer or any other of the untold host of diseases available on earth are no different than having most mental disorders. Diseases or weakness of mind is something people randomly experience, and predicting who will be afflicted is an undeveloped science.
While it may not be a truism that religion drives people mad, it is a truism that religion does not cure madness, any more than it cures lung cancer, heart disease, or poor eyesight. In many ways religion may help restrain some erratic behavior, but in others it probably exacerbates aberrations.
I have done what I can to help my friend overcome a lifetime of mental abuse, cloaked in a shroud of "Christianity." It has taken my friend years to overcome the emotional scars begun in childhood and continued into adulthood. This friend has also completely left behind Christianity. My friend finally realizes that Christianity and religion really had nothing to do with her father's odd behavior. He was and is simply "not right." Accepting this fact has been the greatest of healing. Accepting this fact has also tolled the final death knell to her "faith". Realizing that her father was mentally ill all those years with neither the "Church" or the "Holy Spirit" being able to cure him or even properly diagnose him has culminated with her present state as an "ex-Christian".
There is simply no reality to the reported blessings of Christianity.
To conclude, I offer this quote from The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill :
Mental illnesses are disorders of the brain that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, moods, and ability to relate to others. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are disorders of the brain that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life.
Mental illnesses do not discriminate; they affect people of every age, gender, race, religion, or socioeconomic status. Mental illnesses are not the result of personal weakness, lack of character, or poor upbringing. In the United States, over seven million adults and over five million children and adolescents suffer from a serious, chronic brain disorder. These illnesses have a great impact on society. Four of the top ten leading causes of disability are mental illnesses including major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder, and the estimated cost of mental health care is over $150 billion per year. But far more important is the effect untreated mental illness has on the lives of individuals and their loved ones.
These brain disorders are treatable. As a person with diabetes, takes insulin, most people with serious mental illness need medication to help control symptoms. Supportive counseling, self-help groups, housing, vocational rehabilitation, income assistance and other community services can also provide support and stability, contributing to recovery.
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14 Comments:
wrote:
Stan: I'm doing reseach on the matter right now, but as far as i can see, it's religious exremism that causes many mental illnesses.
the bible, i believe in proverbs, it says, 'it is not good to be over-righteous, why destroy yourelf, it is not good to be overly-wicked, why die before your time'.
also, in peter, he writes, 'Paul writes things that are hard to understand that ignorant and unstable people distort to their destruction'.
posted: February 15, 2006 EST
Mary Ellen wrote:
Religion is a sort of brainwashing that parents use to control children with fear. These superstitious beliefs are dangerous. If you can lead someone to believe in absurdities, you can lead them to commit atrocities, someone once said. Religion is the opiate of the people. You get pie in the sky when you die. Reality is that you die when you die. Religious people can not accept reality so they choose to believe in delusions. It is a survival or defense mechanism for people who can not cope with the real world just like schizophrenics.
Schizophrenics create their own religion/fantasy world to live in. The only difference between religious people and schizophrenics is that religious people share the same delusions and schizophrenics have original delusions. Schizophrenics are just more original and creative than religious people but not any less in touch with reality than the relgious delusionals. They are both living in another reality. It is the same disorder in thinking. No reality testing. No critical thinking. Belief without reason.
posted: May 17, 2006 EST
wrote:
Mellack says: Interesting, I was hypothesising just this evening that Religion (Born-again Christianity in particular, but any overly-fanatical form of Religionism) was a mental illness, and lo! I find this article :). I had also come to the conclusion that people who cannot cope with Life(tm) embrace Religionism with greater vigour than those with good coping mechanisms.
Whilst the article (and the posts) are correct in the most part, we cannot discount certain ideals just because we cannot quantify them at this time. Don't get me wrong: Religionism in all its forms irritates the crap out of me. I do, however, feel that there is something or somewhere to head off to after we pop our clogs. Logically speaking, it would be a waste to learn all of Life's lessons if it were for naught at the end.
I guess what I want to say is that we should have some mystery to Life without taking it all too seriously. If there is, there is; if there isn't, there isn't. But we must guard against Cynicism, and not discount something just because we cannot shoehorn it into a test tube.
posted: January 06, 2007 EST
wrote:
My suggestion is that you study the life of Jesus a little more closely. "God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." This is an interesting statement considering the oh so wise statements from the previous comments. Thank you for your comments you great and wise masters.
posted: July 06, 2007 EST
boomSLANG wrote:
This post has been removed by the author.
posted: July 06, 2007 EST
wrote:
As far as mental illness goes, I don't think religion initiates it. I think it stems from personality disorders caused from a lack of understanding on the part of parents early in life. As the personality disorder becomes more embedded into someone, they become more susceptable to indoctrination. Though indoctrination produces strange behavior, you have to get to the root of the problem (i.e. the personality disorder) to make a difference. It is the personality disorder that makes deconverting someone so extremely difficult.
A. F.
posted: July 19, 2007 EST
wrote:
No religion is not a mental illness. It is an insult to those of us with REAL mental health issues due to chemicals in out brains, I have OCD an depression and haven't been to church in years so how come I am mentally ill now I don't believe?
posted: August 22, 2007 EST
wrote:
If I went into my therapist and said I am going to sue who baptised me when I was a baby for my illness I would be locked in the looney bin!
posted: August 22, 2007 EST
wrote:
after all God did to u.. u r insulting him... what a shame!
posted: September 15, 2007 EST
wrote:
Stan,
It's just too bad that religion is such a socially acceptable mental illness!
I'm an "ex" who called myself Christian for 15 years. I was looking for something magic and other-worldly to make my life more interesting, for lack of any better explanation. This was at the height of the "Satanic Panic" that was going on. We had one guy where I worked who dabbled with auras and spells. He wasn't well-liked. One of the ladies in our group started getting sick. It popped into my head that the guy was "hexing" her, so I joined a local Pentecostal church and told them about it. They got really into it, falling on the floor, speaking in tongues, etc. They called me every day after work to find out what was going on, and by chance, the guy happened to leave and move on to a better-paying job. The woman went on some medication and started feeling better. But of course, the holy rollers in this church thought it was divine intervention, and I was suggestible and believed it too.
Now, there are certainly some places where you can tell a story like that and they'll be skeptical. But if I'd gone to President Bush, for example, with that story, he'd probably have encouraged me. That's scary! That people with significant influence can give total approval to what would otherwise be perceived as delusion! But it's all too common. Where's the line between "fringe" cases and stuff that goes on every day, with no one batting an eyelash?
BTW, what got me out of Christianity once and for all was the realization that nothing good (other than becoming a mom) happened to me during those 15 years, because I had sat passively by, waiting for "God" to give me blessings. I abdicated responsibility for anything in my life, and finally saw what kind of price I was paying for that. The withdrawal wasn't "cold turkey." it took place over a few years. But now I proudly call myself a Humanist. I attend a Unitarian-Universalist church, where I am surrounded by people who worship only reason. Outside the church, however, I have relatives and co-workers who are still wrapped up in this weird fairy tale, and I really feel sorry for them. What a world we live in.
posted: November 25, 2007 EST
wrote:
Perhaps someone could explain to me what a mental illness is, and why it's bad, now that we can diagnose most of the worlds population as being mentaly ill. Is it a socialy unacceptable behavior, why is that wrong or bad, and what is the "good standard" of behavior or reason that we seem to be encouraging people toward. And what is reason, who made it God, or the ground of truth? after all if we are mearly a complex of biochemical processes'brought about by chance acting upon preexistant material, at what point has right or wrong, logical or illogical become a valid classification in a world with no purpose. If I use moral distinctions of right and wrong, true or false, am I not borrowing that whole idea from religion? Somthing is or is not, it cannot be true or logical without borrowing from the mental illness of the "created purpose".
posted: January 29, 2008 EST
wrote:
religon IS the mental disorder, just lock all the church doors on sunday and see how much better the world is on monday.
posted: February 12, 2008 EST
wrote:
mary ellen you're completely right!!!!
posted: February 24, 2008 EST
wrote:
ONLY A FOOL WOULD BELEIVE IT AND THIS WORLD IS FULL OF FOOLS. THEY ARE REALLY SICK TO BELEIVE THIS. THEY ARE SICK SICK SICK. AND THEY ARE DISGUSTING. THEY JUST WANT TO SHOW TO THE REST OF US . TO HOW DUMD THEY ARE. IT MAKES IT EASY TO AVOID THEM THEN
posted: February 26, 2008 EST
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