When someone comes to the point where they believe it is morally acceptable to kill people I am comfortable calling that a mental illness. Whether or not this illness has a religious flavour or not.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Religious Fundamentalism Could Soon be Treated as a Mental Illness
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
While I agree that fundamentalism is a pathological disorder of the mind and should probably be categorized as such, I also agree that to the layperson, or those who have political aspirations who manipulate the masses' ignorance, could abuse the term to attack anyone they oppose ideologically. That of course can happen now with just about anything, misusing categories to attack other for self-interested political gains. I think when it comes to fundamentalist thought, it demonstrates a pretty specific pattern of how the mind functions, not what the objects of its beliefs are however. Two people can believe in the same things, magic as in your example, but how the person believes about it, how they integrate or fail to integrate in healthy ways is what is considered fundamentalist thought as opposed to simply holding a system of symbolic beliefs. In other words it's not the beliefs but the dysfunctional ways in which those beliefs are held which makes someone fundamentalist.
This is why it can, and should be said, that fundamentalism exists in atheistic beliefs as well. I have met more than my share of fundamentalist atheists, who simply switched their fundamentalist minds' religious beliefs to beliefs in secular systems, replacing the authority of the Bible with the authority of Science, held by them with the same gravity as the Word of God was to them as a religious believer. It's still fundamentalism regardless of what the object of belief is. They have the "truth" and others believe in lies, are "lost" or deceived, and so forth. The exact same thing they said of the "non-believers" when they were in their religious cults. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy, in other words. The illness is not what is believed in, but the manner in which it is held and the results in the person's life; extreme black and white thinking; intolerance of others; incapable of empathy, incapable of holding multiple points of views, fixations with beliefs and allergies towards others, and so forth.
Last edited:
Thief
Rogue Theologian
as long as ...do unto others as you would have it done unto you.....
remains in word and deed
no problem
Speech of the dogmatic sort can be awkward.
more so if the rendition turns about like a self supporting paradox....
People thought John was crazy.....wearing camel hair and eating wild honey
and would I let such a man hold my head under water?
nope
I like how the author casts such a wide partisan net for candidate beliefs needing therapy......
Yet she doesn't apply this same standard to socialist regimes (eg, USSR, N Korea).
The impression I get is that she has a particular personal orientation, & views others as mentally ill.
To label religious fundamentalism as a mental illness would likely rile the many tens of millions of fundies in the country.
Quite a fight this would become, as they resist their being clinically labelled as loons.
But perhaps such provocation is merely good PR for book sales.
She confuses an economic system (capitalism) with government's violent foreign adventurism policy (a modern day version of manifest destiny perhaps).
Yet she doesn't apply this same standard to socialist regimes (eg, USSR, N Korea).
The impression I get is that she has a particular personal orientation, & views others as mentally ill.
To label religious fundamentalism as a mental illness would likely rile the many tens of millions of fundies in the country.
Quite a fight this would become, as they resist their being clinically labelled as loons.
But perhaps such provocation is merely good PR for book sales.
That's not what defines fundamentalism. Pat Robertson is a fundamentalist, yet he believes the earth is not a mere 6000 years old.
Everyone believes in something loopy.
If it isn't a religion, it's some failed economic system (eg, socialism), or other craziness (eg, OJ was innocent, Libertarians matter).
From discussions with shrinks (my tenants), I learn that the real issue is whether the illusion/delusion interferes with their life.
So I've no problem hiring a real estate broker who believes the Earth is only 6000 years old.
He's happy, successful, & does a good job for me.
To expose anything unhealthy thing which people do as a sickness will upset them, like calling them an alcoholic, for instance. Let the conversation begin, I say!
Have a pathological dysfunction and being called a "loon" is not the same thing. Would you say someone with cancer is a "fruitcake"? Fundamentalism is a disease. Let's call it that and start to deal with it as such.
There's just no good argument yet presented that fundamentalism should be treated as a clinical disorder.
Such conversations only frighten &/or offend our faithful brethren & sistren (sistern?).
I don't see religion & cancer as being even remotely similar....no matter how tempted I am to have fun with the comparison.
PackJason
I make up facts.
Yeah, I was being facetious. I don't think that YEC's are literally crazy ... but I sure don't understand their train of thought.
Diagnosis of mental illness is, to my knowledge, based on whether or not the behaviors a person exhibits are standing in the way of them living a healthy, productive life (aka, are significantly disruptive to that person's life). I see nothing about fundamentalism that cannot be covered in pre-existing mental health diagnostics. Furthermore, fundamentalist thinking transcends religion, and to target allegedly fundamentalist religions or religious expression is basically engaging in a witch hunt.
I believe there is plenty of good reason to call fundamentalism a disorder. It's a conclusion I reached some time ago in my dealings with it, and my own personal experience in such a system. There are solid reasons to call it a pathology.
Here is your error. I did not say, nor is anyone saying, that "religion" is a pathology. I said fundamentalism is. Religion and fundamentalism are two different things. You can and do have fundamentalist atheists, environmentalists, politics, and so forth. Fundamentalism is a pathological thought pattern. You have healthy belief patterns, religious or secular, and unhealthy ones. The fundamentalist mind is an unhealthy one. It has nothing to do with what is believed in, but in how the belief functions. Fundamentalist thought patterns are outside of healthy thought patterns, and as such they are dysfunctional and pathological.
Exactly. But when you become a danger to yourself and others because of a particular "loopy belief" then that is a serious mental illness. When someone believes the neighbour's dog told them to kill we call that person insane. But if they think God told them to kill we call them a radical fundamentalist.
Last edited:
I say the pathology lies not in fundamentalism in general, but rather when a person's fundamentalism interferes significantly with their life.
The latter is a subset of the former.
I never said that you said that.
Yes, this is what I inferred.
Indeed.
Every atheist is a fundamentalist, ie, we all adhere to our singular belief....or rather disbelief in gods.
What you're really addressing is unhealthy obsession & delusions.
I agree with your intelligent & insightful post.
(How could I not?)
The latter is symptomatic of fundamentalism. Here's a twist people often miss. People with the fundamentalist "disease" are attracted to systems of belief which fit with it. It's the same thing with people who suffer from schizophrenia finding certain forms of religious beliefs attractive to them. It mirrors the way they think. It's not the beliefs that make someone fundamentalists. They're minds are that way to begin with and are in fact not helped at all in these fundamentalist systems. They are kept ill within them.
I had equated fundamentalism with cancer, to which you responded, "I don't see religion & cancer as being even remotely similar." You replaced my word choice of fundamentalism with your word choice of religion. It sounded like you equated the two as one and same to me.
This is completely untrue. You clearly do not understand what I, or that article is talking about referring to fundamentalism then if you think it can be reduced down to holding a single belief. Religious fundamentalists all believe in God, but so does your average mainstream believer. But HOW those beliefs are held are radically different from each other. It is not the "single belief" that makes someone a fundamentalist. Not all atheists are fundamentalist in the same way not all believers are.
It's a lot more than that. It has to do with extreme black and white thinking, an incapacity for empathy, inability to take multiple perspectives, narcissistic focuses, and so forth. Fundamentalism is when something goes wrong developmentally and becomes a pathological pattern, crippling the person from otherwise healthy integration: psychologically, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and so forth. It closes the person off, isolates them, cripples them, and so forth. It does the opposite of helping them grow.
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
The only thing I would change here, Windy, is that I would replace "fundamentalism" with the word "fanaticism". Fanaticism is never a good thing wherever it rears its ugly head and though fundamentalism is the mother of fanaticism it can be relatively benign in and of itself.
In regards to the OP, if someone were to do a search on RF I've already said once or twice that religious thought will eventually be considered a mental disorder. (I'm think a few hundred years down the road though.)
I'm not entirely sure I'd equate fundamentalism with fanaticism. I tend to think fanaticism would be more symptomatic, a response to the fundamentalist mind. I'm not sure everyone who has a fundamentalist mind responds with fanaticism, wanting to wage war on the unbelievers, shoving their beliefs down others' throats, and so forth. Many fundamentalists may be reserved, but still just as dysfunctional in how they hold their beliefs and the effects it has on their lives as a result.
Here again I'm seeing someone equating fundamentalism as religion itself. The two are not the same, and "religious thought" in reality is indicative of a whole lot more than simply belief in the supernatural. Atheism can be and is held by many as a type of "religious thought", in the way it functions as core belief regarding the nature of ultimate reality. It can be held with as much "truth" as belief in God is. It functions the same way.
But regarding religious thought being considered a mental disorder, I completely disagree with this for the reasons stated. If you mean belief in the supernatural being considered a mental disorder, I would still disagree. The symbols of religions and science are ALL metaphors to describe ultimate reality. And to say the choice in metaphor, the way one patterns the transcendent in one's mind is what constitutes mental health versus disease... well, that's a problem in and of itself. I like how Charles Tart might describe this as "consensus trance". Anytime a metaphor becomes a descriptor of reality you are yourself falling into a delusion of thought.
One thing I notice about the article is that it fails to actually define fundamentalism. That is problematic.
It also caught me off-guard when the article claimed "From the perspective of the Western mind, for instance, the tendency to equate "fundamentalism" exclusively with radical Islamism is too tempting." Really? When I hear "fundamentalism" the first thing I think of are elements of Christian traditions.
It also caught me off-guard when the article claimed "From the perspective of the Western mind, for instance, the tendency to equate "fundamentalism" exclusively with radical Islamism is too tempting." Really? When I hear "fundamentalism" the first thing I think of are elements of Christian traditions.
I caught that myself, but I do tend to agree with her. Most Christians who are fundamentalists think they are not the same as these radical Muslims are. The label that is given to them can't be worn by themselves because they are "right", and the Muslims are "wrong", whereas in reality they are simply competitors of themselves doing the same thing. This is also why people resist calling any form of atheism fundamentalist. They don't want to be equated with those whom they think are 'nuts', even though they are doing the same thing themselves, just flying a different flag, but a flag nonetheless.