Religion Supposedly As A Form Of Mental Illness?

Are religious people that talk to God through prayer and claim to feel supernatural experiences mentally ill?

If not, why exactly?

Are some voices in the head more equal than others? Help me out here.

The family that comes together talking to an imaginary being in the sky through prayer claiming to receive revelations from such an entity are considered 'normal' but the guy that goes around everywhere claiming to be Napoleon Bonaparte is 'insane'?

Statistics show that 95% of the global population is religious in one degree to another.

Does that mean 95% of the global population is insane?

Better call the global psychiatric associations. We're going to need more pills! Pharmaceutical companies wet dream.

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It's quite elementary as to why psychiatry won't target or address religion. Being that psychiatry is an apparatus of the state to control the population where religion is just another arm of the state both ideologies despite being different are not opposed to each other in this regard.

Indeed, all of religion is a great example of delusional and mass hysteria but like psychiatry its primary message is one of obedience to the state.

So, in the name of tolerance the state addresses psychiatry not to touch or encroach upon religion.

In this hilarious precedent under psychiatry this really is a case where some hearing voices in the head are more equal than others.

As long as you're having conversations with an imaginary being known as God that tells you to obey all worldly authorities that is fine. You're declared sane.

The moment you're having conversations with imaginary beings that aren't God you shall be declared mentally insane especially if they make you a subversive or nonconformer to the state.

In the midst of all of this churches and religious organizations become tax exempt where people are encouraged to believe in imaginary beings in the sky who's message is total obedience to worldly authorities. The sole goal of psychiatry and religion is absolute total obedience to the state.

Exhibitions.

Exhibitions.

Exhibitions.

I wouldn't equate theism with mental illness; that's just a tactic used by militant atheists to malign/troll theists. First thing first, the bulk of the people who profess to be religious are, actually, not religious; they just pay lip service to a tradition that was foisted upon them by their parents, so you can take a huge slice out of that statistic pie. And for those who, genuinely, are religious, I'm willing to bet that most of them don't, really, hear divine voices. They may say things like " God spoke to me this morning ", but it's not literal. What they, really, mean is that they had feelings, intuitions, their own thoughts that they later attributed to divine origin. Are these folks delusional? Sure, but that's not, necessarily, a mental disorder in the same ball park as, say, schizophrenia.

Edit: Another thing that should be noted - many atheists are degrading spirituality/mythology in general, soiling a lush past of wisdom and culture just because they had mommy and daddy issues in regards to their Churchianity, lumping every form of spirituality in the same box as fundamentalist Christianity. This leads to the disenchantment of the universe. I think mysticism/spirituality is healthy and good in a mature, rational form.

Erik wrote:

Another thing that should be noted - many atheists are degrading spirituality/mythology in general, soiling a lush past of wisdom and culture just because they had mommy and daddy issues in regards to their Churchianity, lumping every form of spirituality in the same box as fundamentalist Christianity. This leads to the disenchantment of the universe. I think mysticism/spirituality is healthy and good in a mature, rational form.

In "The Science of Enlightenment" Shinzen Young teaches about finding a path between spirituality and progress in science. It's a very interesting program that includes meditations. I listened to it very long time ago, but I remember that in one of the chapters he talks about a friend who was diagnosed with cancer and how they worked on keeping him strong.


I think it was a set of 12 or 15 CD's; something like that. If you're interested and can't find it online, I think I still have it on my harddrives.

Erik wrote:

I wouldn't equate theism with mental illness; that's just a tactic used by militant atheists to malign/troll theists. First thing first, the bulk of the people who profess to be religious are, actually, not religious; they just pay lip service to a tradition that was foisted upon them by their parents, so you can take a huge slice out of that statistic pie. And for those who, genuinely, are religious, I'm willing to bet that most of them don't, really, hear divine voices. They may say things like " God spoke to me this morning ", but it's not literal. What they, really, mean is that they had feelings, intuitions, their own thoughts that they later attributed to divine origin. Are these folks delusional? Sure, but that's not, necessarily, a mental disorder in the same ball park as, say, schizophrenia.

Edit: Another thing that should be noted - many atheists are degrading spirituality/mythology in general, soiling a lush past of wisdom and culture just because they had mommy and daddy issues in regards to their Churchianity, lumping every form of spirituality in the same box as fundamentalist Christianity. This leads to the disenchantment of the universe. I think mysticism/spirituality is healthy and good in a mature, rational form.

The very definition of mental illness is delusional thinking.

You've just destroyed your own argument.

Actually I dislike religion because it was a historical precursor to that other annoyance we call government.

God and the state coincide. They both go hand in hand.

Laughing Man wrote:

The very definition of mental illness is delusional thinking.

What is delusional thinking?
Someone may think that working towards the ideal of equality is a worthwhile goal but he doesn't think that people are actually equal. But the thing is that ideals and reality tend to blend in most people's minds, probably because it's a shortcut and it has proven to be advantageous to buy into your own ideals as being something real.

What degree of blending both, the ideal and the real, constitutes then an illness? An individual may be called healthy because he successfully reproduced but on a larger scale, a larger time scale in particular, what is healthy in the short run might prove disastrous in the long run.

Anfang wrote:

Laughing Man wrote:

The very definition of mental illness is delusional thinking.

What is delusional thinking?
Someone may think that working towards the ideal of equality is a worthwhile goal but he doesn't think that people are actually equal. But the thing is that ideals and reality tend to blend in most people's minds, probably because it's a shortcut and it has proven to be advantageous to buy into your own ideals as being something real.

What degree of blending both, the ideal and the real, constitutes then an illness? An individual may be called healthy because he successfully reproduced but on a larger scale, a larger time scale in particular, what is healthy in the short run might prove disastrous in the long run.

I don't even believe in the concepts of psychiatry or mental illness as alluded to in another thread.

I just created this thread as a sort of posed question for the sake of consistency as to why psychiatry itself doesn't treat religion or the belief in God as a mental illness being that such beliefs meets all their criteria of the definition not that I believe in any of that stuff myself.  

LaughingMan wrote:

The very definition of mental illness is delusional thinking.

Well, no. Everyone one has some kind of delusional thinking, about themselves if nothing else. Insanity is a floppy, lay term, but what it refers to are people who are so fucked up they can't manage to work, clean themselves, hold down a job AND generally have thinking that does not match the mainstream in significant, global ways. You're thinking is delusional on this subject, but this doesn't mean you are insane.

LaughingMan wrote:

Erik wrote:

I wouldn't equate theism with mental illness; that's just a tactic used by militant atheists to malign/troll theists. First thing first, the bulk of the people who profess to be religious are, actually, not religious; they just pay lip service to a tradition that was foisted upon them by their parents, so you can take a huge slice out of that statistic pie. And for those who, genuinely, are religious, I'm willing to bet that most of them don't, really, hear divine voices. They may say things like " God spoke to me this morning ", but it's not literal. What they, really, mean is that they had feelings, intuitions, their own thoughts that they later attributed to divine origin. Are these folks delusional? Sure, but that's not, necessarily, a mental disorder in the same ball park as, say, schizophrenia.

Edit: Another thing that should be noted - many atheists are degrading spirituality/mythology in general, soiling a lush past of wisdom and culture just because they had mommy and daddy issues in regards to their Churchianity, lumping every form of spirituality in the same box as fundamentalist Christianity. This leads to the disenchantment of the universe. I think mysticism/spirituality is healthy and good in a mature, rational form.

The very definition of mental illness is delusional thinking.

You've just destroyed your own argument.

Actually I dislike religion because it was a historical precursor to that other annoyance we call government.

God and the state coincide. They both go hand in hand.

No, not really; you were trying to paint theists out to be psychotic, psychotic like a schizophrenic, in other words, bat-shit insane. This, of course, is not true for the most part, though some theists are, pretty, fu#%ed up. Delusional thinking doesn't mean, necessarily, psychotic. One could be delusional about the weather; that it's going to rain later on when, in fact, it will most likely be sunny. One could be delusional about boxing, that they are going to knock out their opponent in the 7th round when, most likely, they will win by decision as the other opponent has an iron chin. As prior mentioned, we all have our minuscule delusional tendencies.

Government and politics is religion and the catholic church, minus god.

Just take "God" out of the equation, and you move from the church into the state.

Has religion - Abrahamism - been a source of good in the world, or has it been another source of power struggles, mass manipulation, and slaughter?
Look into your history books.
How many slaughters and genocides were motivated by religious motives?
How many were killed when they refused to be saved....converted?
How many men of reason suffered because they challenged religious dogma?

Where is this "good god", who is described as an authoritarian tyrant, making billions suffer because he loves humanity?

It's a pick-your-poison battle.

Do you want the psychotic Leftists who support LGBTQ+ globohomo and teaching your 5-year-old to suck dicks...

Or do you want the psychotic Rightists who believe Christ was physically resurrected, Christcucks??


I would go with the Rightists, because when shit hits the fan, I'd rather be on the side that supports biological family (Nature) rather than the extremists who believe Nurture over Nature.

I prefer Naturalism, even when the Christcucks infiltrate governmental institutions.

If you try to hold Rightist values, living among the Left, your life will be an exercise of tip-toeing through minefields, forever at risk to be put on the chopping-block if the Leftists find out what you really believe and think.  1984?  No thanks.


I believe this is how Constantine eventually was pushed into Christianity, by the way.

Every war needs canon fodder...so yeah, right-wing lunatics are preferable to those pushing sexual dysmorphia and degeneracy.
I don't think I can stand being in the presence of a paedophiles and transsexuals...but I can take Abrahamic bovines all day long.