Bingo. That’s exactly my point. I wonder how many people who define religion as a “sickness,” “mental illness” or “brain defect” would really want some 80% of Americans to have the right to at least APPLY for SSDI, even in theory!!
Hi @SherlockHolmes,
I can only pop in for a moment… Sorry to seem thick but I’m still a bit confused:
the relevance of the various statisticsYou mean like the number of people on the planet who have a religion, and the number of Protestant denominations...? Those are estimates that are widely available, but do vary somewhat according to the precice source. On Quora, writers often provide citations ... Is that expected here? But I'm not sure these would count; they are often used, broad generalities.
the references to other writersDid I reference any writers? I know I mentioned a couple of famous cult leaders, as well as Martin Luther King and Mr Rogers (Mr Roger's Neighborhood, a children's TV show) ...I thought these were fairly well known...
Your post includes nine questions, and makes a host of claims that may or may not be trueI ask 7 or 8 questions, which are meant as rhetorical devices for the reader to contemplate
I have about 8 bullet points, where I make a claim (that if religion were a mental illness, THEN X would have to be true) based on my own experience with psychology, religion, society, etc. I am presenting my opinions in several sentences below each point. This is coming out of my head…
So ??
I’m sorry, but I am running late. Can you ask me some specific questions?
Definitely a couple of heroes of mine: MLK,Jr and Mr Rogers. MLK gets the credit he deserves, I think, but Mr. Rogers, maybe not. He was something.
Does it make sense to think of religion as a meme that exists by exploiting some of the same mental flaws that some mental illnesses are caused by?
This would mean that religion is not a mental illness, but because it exists due to aspects of the human mind that also lead to mental illness, it can appear as one. Also, mental illness can use the ideas of a religion to make it seem as though the religion and the mental illness are one and the same.
It’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet, so maybe this doesn’t make sense. I’ll reread this later and apologize if it’s gibberish.
Well Tim, if you haven’t watched “Mr. Rogers and Me,” check it out:
http://www.misterrogersandme.comBenjamin Wagner first met “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” creator and star, Fred Rogers, at Rogers’ summer home on Nantucket, Massachusetts. His mother rented the cottage next door, so Mister Rogers really was his neighbor.
On the afternoon of their first meeting, “America’s Favorite Neighbor” asked the young journalist about his job as an MTV News producer. Wagner felt exposed and a tiny-bit embarrassed, a PBS mind in a jump-cut, sound-bit MTV world.
Mister Rogers said warmly, “I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.”
Later, Rogers told Wagner, ‘Spread the message, Benjamin.”
After Rogers’ death in 2003, Wagner and his brother, Christofer, set out to meet some of Mister Rogers’ neighbors to find out more about the man himself, what he meant by “deep and simple,” and with whom in our junk food culture those values endure.
The brothers’ travels led them to Durham, North Carolina, where Mister Rogers’ friend, mystic, activist and author of “Deep & Simple,” Bo Lozoff, shared three core tenets of a deeper life. …
…
In the end, the brothers come to know more than just the man and his luminous legacy. Their deeply-personal journey explores the roots of Mister Rogers’ values, unmasks the forces acting against depth and simplicity, and helps them to develop the means to lead deeper, simpler lives.
The 80-minute feature premiered at The Nantucket Film Festival in 2010, and went on to screen at dozens of other festivals, including The Heartland Film Festival (where it won a “Crystal Heart Award”), The Flagstaff Film Festival (where it claimed “Best Documentary Feature”), and The Paley Center For Media’s DocFest.
Heck, I could see Xian benefiting from this little documentary also.
π, even without your coffee, seems to me you’re thinking pretty clearly.
The whole question seems like a set up to me.
It easy to turn anything into a mental illness, when one gets to obsessed with it and excludes all else from their awareness.
I think there’s a impulse and need for faith in something bigger than one’s self and longer lasting than one’s life - to imply that is mental illness seems a shallow over-reaction to the disgust so many religions inspire in us who haven’t drank that particular koolaid.
π, even without your coffee, seems to me you’re thinking pretty clearly.I just got the name. Not sure there is enough coffee in the world to keep my brain from showing its age.
Also
Good luck with the article Tee
Citizens & @TimB
I want to be clear about why I included Fred Rogers in my post.
For anyone not familiar, or who was too young to understand the significance: Rogers had a children’s TV show on public television from 1968-2001. It was aimed at VERY young children (preschool to 1st grade).
Although very simple and understated, Rogers’ work with children was absolutely revolutionary. He taught children it was okay to have ANY feelings, even anger, and to verbalize it, at a time when children were discouraged for feeling angry or punished for it.
His show touched very simply on issues like divorce, death, fear of nuclear war (this was the Cold War era), the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, and racism, when these things were not discussed with children.
His was the first American TV show to include an African-American man as a regular character, and in 1969 during race riots and a heat wave, he and “Officer Clemmons” “took a dip in the backyard pool” (image here: Mr Rogers Racism Mr Rogers Racism - Album on Imgur) THIS WAS A HUGE THING. Blacks were still barred from many public pools, and there were still people literally AFRAID to share pool water with a “negro.”
Rogers was ALSO an ordained Presbyterian minister, and friends and family say he WAS very religious, and that his faith was part of his daily life, and the reason WHY he did the show. He spoke expressly of his faith as he died. Yet in all those years of programming, he never once spoke of Christ on the program, or any religious views whatsoever, other than to say “God loves you just the way you are.”
His message, in fact, flew AGAINST Conservative Christian religious norms. Many American Christians were aghast at his acceptance of blacks. That actor, BTW, François Clemmons, was not just black but queer as a 3-dollar bill, and while Rogers never referred to sexuality per se, Rogers would tell him and other “gay” (effeminate, gentle, “different” characters) God loved them just the way they were.
Rogers also occasionally spoke to adults publically, and it was clear he was extraordinarily intelligent, well-read and thoughtful.
I could go on and on, but the whole point was that I included him with MLK Jr as an example of people who had the so-called “mental illness” of religion, yet were compelled by that “illness” to do good things. (Which in this context, always seem to be liberal things!)
I still have huge issues with even liberal Christian theology, but that is a different point.
For anyone who is a fan, I can’t recommend the full-length 2018 documentary film, "Won’t You Be My Neighbor. I literally wept through the whole thing.
Hi Citizens,
To clarify the reason for my OP, the question isn’t something I am pondering. The idea that religion is a mental illness is a really common claim among some atheists including Richard Dawkins, and there are memes, bumper stickers, posters, pins and T-shirts with the slogan RELIGION IS A MENTAL ILLNESS. It is often said in atheist forums online. So that’s what all this is about.
Yeah, what you’re saying makes some sense…
Thank you! I need to finish it today. If it gets in, I’ll share it!
Hopefully that documentary is on Netflix. I grew up in the country with only 2.5 channels (the 0.5 channel was fuzzy and we very rarely watched it). Mr. Rogers wasn’t on, but we had Mr. Dressup and The Friendly Giant, who I think were maybe a bit like him.
I used to think religion was a mental illness until this morning. On my way to work I was thinking about it some more and came up with the idea that they’re different but related and partially overlapping. There’s no research or science backing it up, just what makes sense to me at the moment. Feel free to educate me if you disagree.
Damn!! I have tried rewriting, re-pasting, cutting into pieces, plain text etc, and it WILL NOT take my reply to Mike. There is nothing spammy or offensive in it. I am very frustrated and can not spend more time. Bottom line, Mike, you’re just incorrect about some things. Sigh
T.B.P., I saw your post when I posted my last one. It had “1/4” on it because it was the first of four, right?
Odd that it was there for me to see then disappeared.
Yup. That was the 1st of 4 parts of my comment, and it was there. So then I posted the second part, and it did not show up. So I tried to paste it to the already-exising one, and then THAT disappeared. It is simple text, which I have reworded several times now. I give up.
My posts are disposable, so if I spend 5 or 10 minutes typing one out and it disappears because I’m a klutz who bumps the wrong key, the loss is minimal.
But if you’re crafting something with substance, make sure it’s done in a word processor so it’s not gone when the you or the forum mistakenly lose it.
"I give up."That is one of the two options. Not the correct one though.
LOL! Actually I’m on Android. And I did (and usually do) type everything into a text app, then paste it. But even that was a problem, and since a lot of it had formatting, between that and rewording to beat the AI, etc… trust me. I wasted a long time.
Oh yeah, beware - if you edit,
you stand a good chance of loosing your comment all together,
even though is has gone out, might even show up in email for folks who’ve hit notify but be gone from the board forever..
Best not to worry about typos and such - add fresh new comment for corrections.
Of course other times, edit works fine. When you can think of it >>> copy before hitting SUBMIT.
Copy and paste into word docs if you really like what you’ve written.
When all gets lost anyways, know that we feel your pain.
Dr. Darell Ray is a former evangelical minister. He is now a renowned psychologist. His book The God Virus was instrumental in my transition from devout Christian to Athiest. The book is a great resource for this topic forum.