Obvious missing diagnosis?

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Given the delusional nature of religious views, should they be classified as a mental disorder/group of disorders? It seems to me to be a resounding and obvious Yes. What are your thoughts?

In order to stay sane we need a coherent view of the world. Religion is that view adapted to living in the Bronze Age. However, we no longer live in the Bronze Age. Something more abstract and scientific is called for.

ruveyn

Regarding religion as some form of psychosis seems like a pseudoscientific belief to me.

It is more of a habit and an error than it is a psychosis. Most people are not critical thinkers. Most people tend to follow in the paths that their parents walking.

ruveyn

That sounds like a far more reasonable viewpoint than the implication that religion should have its own entry in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

ETA: If the ability to demonstrate critical thinking was the final arbiter in deciding whether or not we're suffering a mental illness, I don't think we'd be able to build psychiatric hospitals fast enough to keep up with the "demand," so to speak.

Last edited by CoMF on 17 Mar 2012, 4:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, I would consider that discrimination. People can't choose their beliefs, any more than somebody can choose to be gay.

Well, a large majority of the world's population has a religious faith of some sort.

So if anything not believing in God should be a mental disorder, since the purpose of the DSM is to classify deviations from the norm.

An exerpt from Wiki


Doesn't say anything about the "norm" or even any "majority".

If the world gets overrun with zombies carrying the T virus, we don't suddenly start calling the zombies healthy and the 1% non infected group sick.

By that argument, surely the ability to feel pain should also be classified as a mental disorder.

After all, it causes a 'significant increased risk of suffering' and in many people's cases, 'present distress'.

The vast majority of people suffer from this unfortunate condition. Only a few people do not.

However, feeling pain prevents greater suffering by informing the conscious mind of when the body is being harmed, injured or abused. IIRC, those who cannot feel pain have to be constantly careful that they haven't accidentally afflicted themselves with some catastrophic injury that will cripple them for the rest of their lives.

Spirituality of some sort has been with humans since the mesolithic period as far as science can tell. I think it is part of us that in some form is always with us. Even some religions like buddhism dont have a belief in a diety but there still is a belief in the spiritual workings of the universe.

It is not a form of insanity itself...although some people can have mental illness and religious beliefs are part of the theme of that person's illness, religion is not the illness itself.

Personally, I have experienced many miracles and spiritual encounters that were later verified by history...it would take me more faith not to believe in spirituality than to accept what I have experienced.

Jojo

I had to vote "Other" because to me, there's a difference between faith and believing religious doctrine, and I agree with what Jojo wrote, "It is not a form of insanity itself..."

No that would be stupid, following a religion is a choice...having a mental illness and/or disorder is not.

i think that most religious people would say that atheists are deluded, using the exact same definition.

I was in a psychology class once where the textbook brought up this subject. There was some sort of anthropological group and a psychologist or psychiatrist who were studying a tribe, and I remember this being in a village in Africa, though I could be mistaken. There was a local older woman in this community who would throw fits and was ostracized because of it. The psyhologist asked the man who was his guide, "What's wrong with her?" To which the man answered, "She's crazy," so the psychologist asked why, and he said, "Because she thinks she hears voices and talks to the dead, and she killed somebody's goat," so the psychologist said, "But you do those things as part of your religion." To this the man explained, "Yes, but she does them at the wrong times."

In other words, sanity itself is culturally defined, and current diagnostic criteria state that if something could be explained by ones beliefs or customs as part of that person's society, then we don't consider it to be delusional.

The flip side of that is to consider that scene from 12 Monkeys, where he explains how if someone back in the day had told people about germs, he would have been considered crazy, but today if a man said, "I don't believe in germs," then he's mentally ill. So if somebody showed up saying he was Zeus, we could probably assume he was schizophrenic, but if he hurled lightning bolts, it would change some people's minds.

Of course they can, I started off Lutheran and later I chose to be an atheist. The real question is, when does religious faith go from being "faith" to "psychosis", I'd say that happens the second you start seeing Jesus or hearing God speak to you. I have a relative who claims that she's seen countless religious visions and regularly speaks to God (and he answers back) in which case I'd say she qualifies for a psychosis. Your beliefs tend to be formed by how you were raised, hence why most people who "go looking" end up finding the majority religion in their country/area.

However, I couldn't give a crap what someone believes as long as they keep it to themselves. I don't argue with religious people about religion unless they want the values given by their religion to be compulsory for everyone. IE we can't have stem-cell research because Jesus thinks its to close to cloning or we can't have freedom of speech because Allah says that you aren't allowed to be blasphemous towards him.

Your religion should be treated as masturbation, its fine to engage in the activity, however don't do it in public and definitely not in front of children.

I mean, you rarely hear of an Amish person with doubts who ends up finding Zen Buddhism or someone who grew up in the middle of Mecca changing his mind from Allah to Hinduism.