Some are....some aren't.
It depends upon the effect on the person.
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Religious Fundamentalism Could Soon be Treated as a Mental Illness
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
It depends upon the effect on the person.
What are you considering to be fundamentalism? I think we are talking past each other here.
PackJason
I make up facts.
If one was deluded enough to believe that crashing a plane into a building is righteous behavior, would that be considered an effect worthy of being called mental illness?
The top search result for "fundamentalism definition" is....
fun·da·men·tal·ism
ˌfəndəˈmen(t)lˌizəm/
noun
fun·da·men·tal·ism
ˌfəndəˈmen(t)lˌizəm/
noun
- a form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.
- strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline.
plural noun: fundamentalisms
- strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline.
It might or might not be.
To be at war with another country, & attack it in this fashion doesn't necessarily stem from mental illness.
PackJason
I make up facts.
Sure, but I'm not talking about war. I'm talking about murdering thousands of people in the name of your delusion. To me, a person who does such a thing cannot be considered 100% mentally competent. I'm not a psychologist though, so eff if I know.
A very bad thing. In perusing the article, the first thing I noted was the heavy emphasis on Islam. That smacks of bias to me. And second, seems to me this woman read 1984 way too many times. Thought police? What exact beliefs do they target? Beliefs of children in santa claus? Do they outlaw such things? Where does this end and who decides what beliefs are to be targeted and which are not?
Quoting dictionary definitions is hardly ever a good response. How are you using it? I've already disputed that its a legitimate form of religion. The above could be said of just basic traditionalism, which I consider markedly different than fundamentalism. Dictionaries do not define the extent of how words are used, nor the scope of what they touch into. Do you believe traditionalism is the same as fundamentalism? I don't.
They believe they're at war.
If an individual from an ordinary background did the same, I'd suspect mental illness as the root cause.
But for people from a country with a backward violent religion & culture, it could simply be an act of war.
It is when you specifically ask me what I'm "considering to be fundamentalism".
The definition I use is the only appropriate answer.
If you're using a definition which isn't to be found in a dictionary (which
is based upon popular usage), then it's best that you define it initially.
How do you define it?
A very bad thing. In perusing the article, the first thing I noted was the heavy emphasis on Islam. That smacks of bias to me. And second, seems to me this woman read 1984 way too many times. Thought police? What exact beliefs do they target? Beliefs of children in santa claus? Do they outlaw such things? Where does this end and who decides what beliefs are to be targeted and which are not?
It's the least nuanced answer, and the least informative. As I said, we appear to be talking past each other. I think you believe fundamentalism is what I define as just basic traditionalism. I don't see traditionalism as a pathology at all. I consider it a part of healthy, normal stages of growth.
Again, please read my post #87 where I very clearly define how I use the term fundamentalism.
I'll add something further here to what I said there. Fundamentalism is actually defined in a modern context. Fundamentalism did not exist prior to the rise of Modernity. It is a negative-response to Modernity in religion. As such, it itself is NOT traditionalism, but rather a "Not-This" sort of definition, like atheism in this sense is defined as "Not-Theism". It is defined, exists in contrast against something it rejects. Fundamentalism is "Anti-Modernity", not simply a pre-modern form of religion. Fundamentalism is anti-reason, anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-everything modernity. It is defined, and defines itself against something. You see the difference?
As such is not truly pre-modern, but is a distortion of traditionalism. It goes directly to what I said in post #87 which you should read, that talks about how it locks someone down against growth. Traditionalism does not do that. It's simply a structure supporting a particular stage of development, not an anti-growth structure like fundamentalism is. There is a sharp difference between the two. If you want to read something a little more in-depth about fundamentalism, here's a quick article I found from someone at Stanford university a moment ago which talks with a little more specificity than what a dictionary will every offer. http://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/how-religions-become-fundamentalist
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Yes, I get that, Windy, but I can't help but think that fundamentalism itself might also be a phenona similar to drying concrete's "self-leveling" feature in the respect that there may well be a correlation between intelligence level and a propensity for fundamentalism. In other words it is mainly those with a lower intelligence that are drawn to fundamentalist thought as they are unable to comprehend more complex systems.
Obviously, hence my given wording. The idea is simply predicated on the notion that the world will become more atheistic in nature as humanity grows its scientific knowledge base. For all we know, in 2016, in a few hundred years, scientfic breakthroughs could make religion quaint and largely obselete.
I'm aware that some think so, but I've never found their arguments to be particularly persuasive. For instance, it's a bit of a stretch to say "it functions the same way". I certainly don't use my atheism in the same way that others use their religious beliefs. The comparrison is well beyond absurd. though the desperation to claim so is understandable.
Which doesn't actually help so many flavors of religious thinking. They themselves are hypnotised by the beauty of their prose.
It's the definition I use.
It's comprehensive.
Nothing need be added.
"Traditionalism" is different from "fundamentalism".
OK, I read it.
(I skipped it earlier because it wasn't a post to me.)
It appears that you're addressing a subset of fundamentalism.
I see (I think) what you're saying, but this is not a case for treating it as mental illness.
You're still not making your case.
Well, I know I've heard of this correlation between IQ and fundamentalism before. It's obviously not the case with some individuals however, as I myself became part of one of these fundi groups when I was young. I have a fairly high IQ, if you can't tell.
It was perhaps my IQ that is what led to me seeing though what was being taught, which I do believe is true to a point, but I think goes a whole lot deeper than IQ. I would say EQ, or emotional quotient plays a much stronger role in it, as well as what I would call SQ or one's spiritual quotient. I have said this before but will repeat it here, that fundamentalism as a whole is a system held together through fear. Therefore, EQ and SQ has a lot more of a role in someone holding oneself in such a system. It preys upon the vulnerable through fear. People who are insecure, who need to be told "do this, don't do that and you'll be ok", find such systems attractive. Again, as I've recently laid out, that fundamentalism is different than simply pre-modern traditionalism. Fundamentalism is by definition anti-modernity, and is held together through fear. It keeps you in place, horribly afraid to leave the fold lest you be devoured by the devil and sent to a flaming hell, should you deviate in thoughts and beliefs. I thought of this quote from Conrad Hyers that touches on this:
The literal imagination is univocal. Words mean one thing, and one thing only. They don’t bristle with meanings and possibilities; they are bald, clean-shaven. Literal clarity and simplicity, to be sure, offer a kind of security in a world (or Bible) where otherwise issues seem incorrigibly complex, ambiguous and muddy. But it is a false security, a temporary bastion, maintained by dogmatism and misguided loyalty. Literalism pays a high price for the hope of having firm and unbreakable handles attached to reality. The result is to move in the opposite direction from religious symbolism, emptying symbols of their amplitude of meaning and power, reducing the cosmic dance to a calibrated discussion.
What is being expressed above touches on this response to the complexity which modernity, and most certainly postmodernity exposes. This desire for things to be simple severs the mind's, and the heart's reach. What is attractive for those who have a low threshold for finding their own path, to walk the path alone, is to have everything spelled out in "black and white" for you. And this is as true of secular as well as religious thought. Fundamentalism is more than just a pre-modern view of the world, it's an active rejection of knowledge and increased perspectives, deliberately cutting oneself off from them at the price of a self-lobotomy.
I hold a different vision which sees that we move beyond both atheism and theism as terms of understanding the world, where those terms are enveloped into a truly nondual understanding. Religion is simply a developmental structure, which at a certain point one must move beyond. I certainly don't think science is the key to this however, as it itself is simply a support structure, not the eye into ultimate truth. It has it's role to be sure, as does religion, but ultimate truth transcends our religions and our sciences, which simply serve as structure to help translate our existential experience of reality. And, it is that understanding of them as structures which makes me realize that fundamentalism does not act that way at all, as support structures, but rather as something which stands in enmity against growth.
I'll try to explain it a slightly different way. Like the term "spirituality", which I see as best understood as "that which deals with matters of one's ultimate concern", one's "religious" views is that which deals with the same thing; how one holds ultimate reality in themselves. That can be anything. Materialism could be someone's religion. Nature could be someone's religion. Atheism could be someone's religion as well, if they hold that ultimate reality without any form of God is where they find a connection to themselves and the world.
Yes, of course this is true. But it is equally as true as those who think science in its models of the universe tell the true nature of it.
Again, both science and religion are simply nothing more than metaphors, patterns mapped out upon the stars with which we try to relate ourselves down here upon them, to grasp and to hold for a moment an understanding through them. But reality is in fact beyond these, all of these.
Clearly it does. From that Stanford article,
A conclusion from what I have argued so far would seem to be that fundamentalist thinking, whether religious or otherwise, has always existed, even while it has been accompanied by ways of thinking that undermine it or criticize it from within. This conclusion, however, contradicts some recent work in the history of religions that suggests that fundamentalism, contrary to how it is often perceived in popular culture and the media, is a profoundly modern phenomenon.
The dictionary is not a philosophical treatise, and any understanding of things like this of necessity must go beyond dictionary definitions. Dictionaries are not the Word of God, by any stretch of the imagination. For a true understanding of these things, you have to go to the specialists themselves.
So you are equating traditional religion with fundamentalism. I reject that view as valid, for the many stated reasons I have offered.
In what ways is it to be considered healthy? I haven't really heard that argument being made yet. How does it help people? Furthermore, why do people who leave it often need some form of therapy to recover from it, if it's healthy?
Quite the contrary, I think I'm making it quite well. If you conflate fundamentalism as traditional pre-modern religion, then what I'm saying doesn't make sense. However, I'm make a clear distinction between the two.
Demonslayer
Well-Known Member
To me, violence as an end result is incidental to the topic of mental illness. Mental illness doesn't always lead to violence and violence doesn't only stem from mental illness.
If I think the neighbor's dog is wearing an invisible top hat and monocle and talking to me in a voice that sounds like Thurston Howell the Third, no matter whether the dog is telling me to give flowers to my mother on Mother's Day, or to spray sulfuric acid in my mother's face for Mother's Day. I'm batchit crazy either way.
To the religious/mental heath issue, the main thing for me is how much of the person's life is spent feeling that God is in control of everything. There is a very strong correlation between mental health issues and perception of an "outside locus of control." People who think someone/something is always watching them and some outside force is controlling people's behaviors, actions and fate, are very frequently found to have some sort of mental instability. You slip on the ice, and instead of saying "I slipped on the ice" you start wondering if a demon pushed you, if God is angry because you spanked your monkey the night before, etc.
That kind of fractured thinking, to me, is the crux of determining if someone has religious related mental illness, regardless of whether the outcome is violent or not.
I don't think you can categorically call all fundamentalists pathological. There are degrees to fundamentalism. If someone is using religion as a board sword to enact violence or harming themselves or others, sure. But if someone is merely adhering to their sacred text vehemently, holding those beliefs as dear to them and believing in them so strongly they have no other beliefs nor can they be reasoned with, BUT, their beliefs harm no one. What is wrong with that? The world is full of fundamentalists. Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Falwell, etc. These men may not be to your liking but do they harm anyone? OTOH, people like Phelps or that moron in Florida who wanted to burn all Qu'rans, yes, then I could see your point. But there is a great deal of danger is simply calling all people who are religious fundamentalists as pathological.
Wu Wei
ursus senum severiorum and ex-Bisy Backson
fundamentalism
fun·da·men·tal·ism
(fŭn′də-mĕn′tl-ĭz′əm)
n.
1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
2.
a. often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.
b. Adherence to the theology of this movement.
Delusion (DSM-5)
Delusions are fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. Their content may include a variety of themes (e.g. persecutory, referential, somatic, religious, grandiose).[…] Delusions are deemed bizarre if they are clearly implausible and not understandable to same-culture peers and do not derive from ordinary life experiences. […] The distinction between a delusion and a strongly held idea is sometimes difficult to make and depends in part on the degree of conviction with which the belief is held despite clear or reasonable contradictory evidence regarding its veracity.
fun·da·men·tal·ism
(fŭn′də-mĕn′tl-ĭz′əm)
n.
1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
2.
a. often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.
b. Adherence to the theology of this movement.
Delusion (DSM-5)
Delusions are fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. Their content may include a variety of themes (e.g. persecutory, referential, somatic, religious, grandiose).[…] Delusions are deemed bizarre if they are clearly implausible and not understandable to same-culture peers and do not derive from ordinary life experiences. […] The distinction between a delusion and a strongly held idea is sometimes difficult to make and depends in part on the degree of conviction with which the belief is held despite clear or reasonable contradictory evidence regarding its veracity.
I largely agree.
But the question posed to me was about a violent act & mental illness.
I've had my suspicions about you....but I held my tongue.
By that line of thought, all religious people are mentally ill, including pantheists (who might think it's only the others who are bonkers).
I don't see this as useful.
I say mental illness is when a condition manifests as dysfunction.
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