Religion And Mental Delusion

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Why is it that when some people fervently believe in ghosts or when they follow commanding ‘voices in their head’, these people are treated as delusional, crazy or even psychopathic? These people are given medical treatment and brain-chemical balancing drugs in order to manage their mental illness. Yet when people profess the most intense beliefs in certain other things no one has ever really seen, such as demons, Allah, God, angels, heaven, hell, and so on, these people are treated with the greatest of reverence and social respect and even made into leaders and wise gurus who become rich from the donations of their faithful followers!

What is the difference here? The fantasies and delusions are equally foolish whether it’s the belief and obedience to a psychotic voice in the head or an imaginary deity residing in some magical place no one can see. Religious beliefs should be placed in the same class as mental sickness or any other serious psychological disorder that degrades the quality of life and the individual's ability to deal with reality.

One of the fundamental (but understandable) flaws with modern psychology is its assumption that sanity is defined using the mental character of the majority as a benchmark. But this standard isn’t really objective, it’s subjective and merely based on a relational comparison that is used incorrectly to define an aberrant standard for mental health. Just because many people believe in something that doesn’t make it valid, and just because a lie is repeated a billion times that doesn’t make it any more truthful than it was to begin with!

http://www.counterorder.com/belief.html

I think you have a lot to learn. You're making the assumption that religious belief is necessarily false. I can show you how you are mistaken.


phenomenal graffiti

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:

I can show you how you are mistaken.


phenomenal graffiti

That's why Buddha stayed on Earth. Sucker.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:

I think you have a lot to learn. You're making the assumption that religious belief is necessarily false. I can show you how you are mistaken.


phenomenal graffiti

Go ahead friend. I love nothing more than a challenge to my own beliefs.

I'll await your lengthy post.

Fool:

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Go ahead friend. I love nothing more than a challenge to my own beliefs. Smile

I'll await your lengthy post.

Very well.

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What is the difference here? The fantasies and delusions are equally foolish whether it’s the belief and obedience to a psychotic voice in the head or an imaginary deity residing in some magical place no one can see. Religious beliefs should be placed in the same class as mental sickness or any other serious psychological disorder that degrades the quality of life and the individual's ability to deal with reality.

"Reality", for all we know, is only the first-person subjective experience of a single conscious observer. There are two levels to one reality: consciousness and the external world--the world that existed before there was such a thing as cerebral cortices (assumed responsible for the existence of consciousness).

Naive realism is the view that the things that we perceive are things-in-themselves, rather than virtual patterns that (supposedly) overlay the "real world" beyond. We do not experience the external world, yet we have faith that it somehow mimics the contents of visual perception (visual perception, incidentally, is the only aspect of conscious having a counterpart in the external world, if the e.w. indeed mimics the contents of visual consciousness).

One must have faith to believe in the existence of God and other religious claims, but this does not prevent the truth of such things from having actual existence outside the virtual reality or 'virtual deprivation chamber' that is our consciousness. Religious belief, then, differentiates from psychosis (for the most part) in that it does not claim the visual appearance of things that are "not really there"; it claims the existence of things that may exist beyond the veil. These things cannot be ruled out as obviously false.

Mental illness, on the other hand, consists of either personality disorder (accurate visual and intellectual view of "reality' but abnormal emotional perception and volitional reaction to others, oneself, and the environment) or psychosis (perception that views objects, persons, and things that are not a part of the consensus reality of the perceptions of everyone else--such as is the case with delusions, hallucinations, etc.). Religious belief, on the other hand, is merely faith in what lies beyond the virtual reality of consciousness (to a fault: the jury is out for those who claim to "see God" or "hear voices") no different, say, than belief or faith in the appearance and behavior of the external world or the existence of other universes.

Nuff said (for now)

PG

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"Reality", for all we know, is only the first-person subjective experience of a single conscious observer. There are two levels to one reality: consciousness and the external world--the world that existed before there was such a thing as cerebral cortices (assumed responsible for the existence of consciousness).

Naive realism is the view that the things that we perceive are things-in-themselves, rather than virtual patterns that (supposedly) overlay the "real world" beyond. We do not experience the external world, yet we have faith that it somehow mimics the contents of visual perception (visual perception, incidentally, is the only aspect of conscious having a counterpart in the external world, if the e.w. indeed mimics the contents of visual consciousness).

I'm already aware of all those things.

Faith however is merely telling oneself that I have no evidence for what I believe in but because it makes me feel safe, secure, and all fuzzy inside I'm going to believe in it anyways.

Imagine a man who says he has faith in himself that he is the actual Napoleon Bonaparte.

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One must have faith to believe in the existence of God and other religious claims, but this does not prevent the truth of such things from having actual existence outside the virtual reality or 'virtual deprivation chamber' that is our consciousness. Religious belief, then, differentiates from psychosis (for the most part) in that it does not claim the visual appearance of things that are "not really there"; it claims the existence of things that may exist beyond the veil. These things cannot be ruled out as obviously false.

If such a thing is outside our consciousness how could we ever come to know it?

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These things cannot be ruled out as obviously false.

They can if you have no way of knowing such things to begin with.

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Mental illness, on the other hand, consists of either personality disorder (accurate visual and intellectual view of "reality' but abnormal emotional perception and volitional reaction to others, oneself, and the environment) or

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psychosis (perception that views objects, persons, and things that are not a part of the consensus reality of the perceptions of everyone else--such as is the case with delusions, hallucinations, etc.).

You mean somthing like god, right?

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(to a fault: the jury is out for those who claim to "see God" or "hear voices")

Is the jury really out?

Faith is a very monotheist concept, most stressed in Christianity. In other religions and with many mystics and other experts even within the Christian tradition EXPERIENCE is the basis of belief. Most atheists harp on the idea of faith, but this faith is a concept only linked with one subset of believers.

Further, a determinist, like The Fool, is engaging in a rather ironic activity. In determinism ALL BELIEF is based on faith. One has no control and no objectivity if all one's beliefs are inevitable and compelling.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:

PG

I want the xxx or atleast R version myself.

Ivan wrote:

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:

PG

I want the xxx or atleast R version myself.

Let's go with triple XXX as it is much dirtier.

Fool:

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Faith however is merely telling oneself that I have no evidence for what I believe in but because it makes me feel safe, secure, and all fuzzy inside I'm going to believe in it anyways.

Faith is also defined by Ned Wright in his Cosmology Tuturial comments on Science and Religion as:

Most religious beliefs are matters of faith: a belief held in the absence of evidence or even despite contrary evidence.

Wright, Ned: Science Is Based On Experience: Cosmology and Religion, http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo-religion.html

Wright's definition of faith is not exhausted by religious belief, there's a lot of faith in atheism as well.

1. There's faith that the contents of consciousness mimic the appearance and behavior of the external world.

2. There's faith that other people are conscious and are not automotons behaving as though they were conscious.

3. There's faith that trial-and-error combinations of blind atoms happened to stumble upon self-replicating cells, brains, and eventually consciousness (or that there are such things as 'external world' atoms, given that we only experience a virtual world)

4. And so on.

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If such a thing is outside our consciousness how could we ever come to know it?

It isn't just God and religious beings existing outside our consciousness: the 'real world' also exists outside our consciousness: this means that brains, people, cars, planets, galaxies, and so on exist also outside our consciousness: we only experience a virtual reality 'copy' of such things. Thus we cannot come to know that brains, people, cars, planets, etc. really exist.

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These things cannot be ruled out as obviously false.

They can if you have no way of knowing such things to begin with.

Sure, they can be "ruled out" in one's mind as obviously false, but they cannot honestly be ruled out as objectively false simply because we have no way of knowing such things. They can exist nevertheless beyond the wall of our experience. Our direct knowledge is not an infallible catalogue of all existing things, and it is rather silly and presumptious to think so. If psychophysicalism (the mind/body connection) is true, we are limited to only those experiences of which the brain is capable. It is going a step beyond logic to assert that the 3-pound mass of flesh at the top of our spinal cords has a monopoly on the whole set of real things.

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psychosis (perception that views objects, persons, and things that are not a part of the consensus reality of the perceptions of everyone else--such as is the case with delusions, hallucinations, etc.).

You mean somthing like god, right?

Sure, God is only a hallucination or a delusion if one believes that the gamut of existing things is exhausted to the catalogue of virtual things (as we only perceive a virtual world, not the real world) generated by neurons. But to believe this requires more faith than that needed to believe in God.

Phenomenal Graffiti

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:

Fool:

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Faith however is merely telling oneself that I have no evidence for what I believe in but because it makes me feel safe, secure, and all fuzzy inside I'm going to believe in it anyways.

Faith is also defined by Ned Wright in his Cosmology Tuturial comments on Science and Religion as:

Most religious beliefs are matters of faith: a belief held in the absence of evidence or even despite contrary evidence.

Wright, Ned: Science Is Based On Experience: Cosmology and Religion, http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo-religion.html

Wright's definition of faith is not exhausted by religious belief, there's a lot of faith in atheism as well.

1. There's faith that the contents of consciousness mimic the appearance and behavior of the external world.

2. There's faith that other people are conscious and are not automotons behaving as though they were conscious.

3. There's faith that trial-and-error combinations of blind atoms happened to stumble upon self-replicating cells, brains, and eventually consciousness (or that there are such things as 'external world' atoms, given that we only experience a virtual world)

4. And so on.

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If such a thing is outside our consciousness how could we ever come to know it?

It isn't just God and religious beings existing outside our consciousness: the 'real world' also exists outside our consciousness: this means that brains, people, cars, planets, galaxies, and so on exist also outside our consciousness: we only experience a virtual reality 'copy' of such things. Thus we cannot come to know that brains, people, cars, planets, etc. really exist.

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These things cannot be ruled out as obviously false.

They can if you have no way of knowing such things to begin with.

Sure, they can be "ruled out" in one's mind as obviously false, but they cannot honestly be ruled out as objectively false simply because we have no way of knowing such things. They can exist nevertheless beyond the wall of our experience. Our direct knowledge is not an infallible catalogue of all existing things, and it is rather silly and presumptious to think so. If psychophysicalism (the mind/body connection) is true, we are limited to only those experiences of which the brain is capable. It is going a step beyond logic to assert that the 3-pound mass of flesh at the top of our spinal cords has a monopoly on the whole set of real things.

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psychosis (perception that views objects, persons, and things that are not a part of the consensus reality of the perceptions of everyone else--such as is the case with delusions, hallucinations, etc.).

You mean somthing like god, right?

Sure, God is only a hallucination or a delusion if one believes that the gamut of existing things is exhausted to the catalogue of virtual things (as we only perceive a virtual world, not the real world) generated by neurons. But to believe this requires more faith than that needed to believe in God.

Phenomenal Graffiti

If one cannot expirience somthing outside of their consciousness how can one know that there is somthing outside of their consciousness to begin with? Are we merely just asserting somthing because we want to believe in it?

Or are we just guessing?

"Well I'm guessing there is somthing outside my consciousness even though I have no definative evidence and therefore I'm going to believe in it by calling it god where later on I'm going to create temples in worshipping it."

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Wright's definition of faith is not exhausted by religious belief, there's a lot of faith in atheism as well.

1. There's faith that the contents of consciousness mimic the appearance and behavior of the external world.

The external world is observable. God is not.

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2. There's faith that other people are conscious and are not automotons behaving as though they were conscious.

I'm a hardcore determinist. Your talking to a guy who looks at our entire species as automotons and puppets.

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3. There's faith that trial-and-error combinations of blind atoms happened to stumble upon self-replicating cells, brains, and eventually consciousness (or that there are such things as 'external world' atoms, given that we only experience a virtual world)

There are a whole bunch of uncertainties. Can't argue with that.

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It isn't just God and religious beings existing outside our consciousness: the 'real world' also exists outside our consciousness: this means that brains, people, cars, planets, galaxies, and so on exist also outside our consciousness: we only experience a virtual reality 'copy' of such things. Thus we cannot come to know that brains, people, cars, planets, etc. really exist.

Those things are observable. God is not.

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Sure, they can be "ruled out" in one's mind as obviously false, but they cannot honestly be ruled out as objectively false simply because we have no way of knowing such things.

If I don't expirience somthing it does not exist.

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They can exist nevertheless beyond the wall of our experience.

You would have no way of knowing.

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Our direct knowledge is not an infallible catalogue of all existing things,

Never said it was.

Fool:

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If one cannot expirience somthing outside of their consciousness how can one know that there is somthing outside of their consciousness to begin with? Are we merely just asserting somthing because we want to believe in it?

Or are we just guessing?

"Well I'm guessing there is somthing outside my consciousness even though I have no definative evidence and therefore I'm going to believe in it by calling it god where later on I'm going to create temples in worshipping it."

That's the entire point. If something exists outside consciousness we have no way of knowing that it is truly there. This is where faith comes in. Belief in God can indeed exist "out of thin air" in the way you described, but for the most part it is derived from the intuition of a teleology in nature---as well as one coming to believe that it takes more faith the believe that the world we experience emerged by accident than through the actions of a greater Intelligence. Go figure.

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The external world is observable. God is not.

False. This is the fallacy of naive realism. The external world is not observable because we do not experience the external world: we experience only a subjective virtual reality that we believe is a representation of the external world. This is the nature of consciousness. Evidence for this is in the fact of sleep and death. There presumably exists "something else" that continues to exist in the absence of consciousness, and that presumably exists if there were no consciousness at all If this weren't true, then does this mean that nothing existed before cerebral cortices?.

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I'm a hardcore determinist. Your talking to a guy who looks at our entire species as automotons and puppets.

Good. I'm a determinist as well, with a theological twist.

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It isn't just God and religious beings existing outside our consciousness: the 'real world' also exists outside our consciousness: this means that brains, people, cars, planets, galaxies, and so on exist also outside our consciousness: we only experience a virtual reality 'copy' of such things. Thus we cannot come to know that brains, people, cars, planets, etc. really exist.

Those things are observable. God is not.

Sure, but "those things" are only 'virtual' entities. Their external world counterparts cannot be known to truly exist.

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If I don't expirience somthing it does not exist.

How convenient. I wonder how your mind happens to possess the superpower of infallible knowledge of what exists and what does not based solely on whether or not you perceive it. One wonders how the brain is bestowed with such metaphysical power.

By your logic, the consciousness of other people does not exist.

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They can exist nevertheless beyond the wall of our experience.

You would have no way of knowing.

So what? Just because I have no way of knowing that something exists beyond my consciousness does not mean and does not prevent it from existing nevertheless. At the end of the day, belief in God depends upon the possibility of extra-conscious existence.


Good discussion, btw.

J.