Mental Health, Mormonism and Delusion (Update)

[_maklelan]

Maklelan,
Think about what you have just said here.

Why haven't you thought about a single thing you've said here?

You have acknowledged, and rightly so, that the mother in this case was delusional,

I said it's likely, and that's based on the idea that she felt somehow commanded to do this.

due to the fact that she believed, literally, that her two young sons would enter the Celestial Kingdom if they were to die before the age of eight.

How can this be considered a delusional belief when held by a young mother who had the will to act upon it, and not a delusional belief when held by those who do not?

That belief alone is not what compelled her to murder her children. Millions and millions of Latter-day Saints manage to espouse that belief without murdering their children. Whatever drove her to do it was not that belief alone. Stop misrepresenting things just so you can push your ignorant bigotry.

[_maklelan]

Well, my friend, we will just have to disagree on this, I guess.

Do you disagree that you altered the DSM's definition of this particular disorder?

If I state that I am not claiming a diagnosis, on what evidence do you claim that I am?

The fact that you quite explicitly and clearly asserted a diagnosis and then challenged everyone else to prove you wrong.

[_Samantabhadra]

If one does not believe in God, then experience and knowledge gained from life experience becomes all the more important and valuable.

While my active LDS friends are sitting bored to death in meetings, I am reading, or biking or sailing or flying. I certainly experience more of the real world on Sunday than they do. And since I do not believe that wisdom or knowledge that can come from the scriptures is severely limited as is the sage advice and teachings that can come from a inward looking geriatric leadership, I will take real world experience to pew experience any day.

With respect, I don't think you mean the same thing that I do when I say "experience." What I meant is that atheists, most atheists (which may or may not include you), tend to believe that their experience is reducible to electrochemical interactions in their brains, and that what they perceive is simply identical to what is "out there" in the world. So, from my perspective, they give short shrift to the more complex reality that cognition is not reducible to material interactions, and that "what we perceive" is fundamentally different from "what [if anything] is 'out there.'" In other words, atheists tend to assume there is a 1:1 correspondence between perceptual acts and what it is that those perceptual acts are supposed to be representing to consciousness, despite the fact that we have known for some time that's not really how perception works, at any level, from photon reception to higher cognitive processing. Theists, by contrast, tend to have a much stronger understanding that what they perceive is not necessarily real, and that what is real is not necessarily perceptible to the physical senses.

[_DrW]

Well, my friend, we will just have to disagree on this, I guess.

Do you disagree that you altered the DSM's definition of this particular disorder?

If I state that I am not claiming a diagnosis, on what evidence do you claim that I am?

The fact that you quite explicitly and clearly asserted a diagnosis and then challenged everyone else to prove you wrong.

What part of the statement in the OP that "-religion, in general, is normally given a pass in terms of defining delusional beliefs." do you not understand?

[_maklelan]

What part of the statement in the OP that religion, in general, is normally given a pass in terms of defining delusional beliefs do you not understand?

That doesn't address my question, it just makes an impotent attempt to insist that you appropriately qualified your definition when you clearly did not.

Once again, do you admit that you altered the DSM's definition in order to make it applicable? A simple yes or no will do. Continued refusal to acknowledge a quite clearly and easily established fact doesn't really do you any rhetorical favors.

[_DrW]

If one does not believe in God, then experience and knowledge gained from life experience becomes all the more important and valuable.

While my active LDS friends are sitting bored to death in meetings, I am reading, or biking or sailing or flying. I certainly experience more of the real world on Sunday than they do. And since I do not believe that wisdom or knowledge that can come from the scriptures is severely limited as is the sage advice and teachings that can come from a inward looking geriatric leadership, I will take real world experience to pew experience any day.

With respect, I don't think you mean the same thing that I do when I say "experience." What I meant is that atheists, most atheists (which may or may not include you), tend to believe that their experience is reducible to electrochemical interactions in their brains, and that what they perceive is simply identical to what is "out there" in the world. So, from my perspective, they give short shrift to the more complex reality that cognition is not reducible to material interactions, and that "what we perceive" is fundamentally different from "what [if anything] is 'out there.'" In other words, atheists tend to assume there is a 1:1 correspondence between perceptual acts and what it is that those perceptual acts are supposed to be representing to consciousness, despite the fact that we have known for some time that's not really how perception works, at any level, from photon reception to higher cognitive processing. Theists, by contrast, tend to have a much stronger understanding that what they perceive is not necessarily real, and that what is real is not necessarily perceptible to the physical senses.

Fair enough. Well put.

I note that there is a great deal more evidence in support of the atheist position, as you stated it, then there is in support of the theist position as you stated it.

And given that it is possible to show that many (if not all) of the perceptions claimed as evidence for God and a spiritual world can be induced by administration of chemicals or electromagnetic fields to the brain, I would think that the theists would have second thoughts about their belief that these perceptions reflecting some kind of external reality.

[_DrW]

What part of the statement in the OP that religion, in general, is normally given a pass in terms of defining delusional beliefs do you not understand?

That doesn't address my question, it just makes an impotent attempt to insist that you appropriately qualified your definition when you clearly did not.

Once again, do you admit that you altered the DSM's definition in order to make it applicable? A simple yes or no will do. Continued refusal to acknowledge a quite clearly and easily established fact doesn't really do you any rhetorical favors.

The diagnostic criteria in the OP were copied and pasted directly from DSM-V.

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=145
___________________________________
Here they are again:

Delusional Disorder

A. Delusions of at least 1 month’s duration.

B. Criterion A for Schizophrenia has never been met.

Note: Tactile and olfactory hallucinations may be present in Delusional Disorder if they are related to the delusional theme.

C. Apart from the impact of the delusion(s) or its ramifications, functioning is not markedly impaired and behavior is not obviously odd or bizarre.

D. If mood episodes have occurred concurrently with delusions, their total duration has been brief relative to the duration of the delusional periods.

E. The disturbance is not better accounted for by another mental disorder such as body dysmorphic disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder.

F. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition.

Specify type (the following types are assigned based on the predominant delusional theme):

Erotomanic Type: delusions that another person, usually of higher status, is in love with the individual

Grandiose Type: delusions of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity, or special relationship to a deity or famous person

Jealous Type: delusions that the individual’s sexual partner is unfaithful

Persecutory Type: delusions that the person (or someone to whom the person is close) is being malevolently treated in some way

Somatic Type: delusions that the person has some general medical condition

Mixed Type: delusions characteristic of more than one of the above types but no one theme predominates
____________________

Also, please note the Thread Title:

Mental Health, Mormonism and the Definition of Delusion

The word "Diagnosis" is not in the title. The word "Definition" is.

[Guest]

Fair enough. Well put.

I note that there is a great deal more evidence in support of the atheist position, as you stated it, then there is in support of the theist position as you stated it.

And given that it is possible to show that many (if not all) of the perceptions claimed as evidence for God and a spiritual world can be induced by administration of chemicals or electromagnetic fields to the brain, I would think that the theists would have second thoughts about their belief that these perceptions reflecting some kind of external reality.

DrW,

I don't really have too much of a problem with anything you're saying here. The main reason I entered this discussion was to try to provide an answer to the question posed by several people, of how a theist might "diagnose" an atheist. But in general, I think you're 100% right that a TBM must necessarily be delusional in order to accept e.g. the claimed provenance of the Book of Abraham. This delusion would be expected to also manifest in certain kinds of defensive and/or antisocial behavior, which is also common, so another checkmark there.

[_maklelan]

The definition in the OP was copied and pasted directly from DSM-V.

You're manipulating things again. You quoted the fourth edition, and you've since edited it to quote the fifth edition. Of course, there is no fifth edition yet. What you tracked down was a proposed revision. Irrespective of the proposed revision, your definition still simply doesn't apply.

[_maklelan]

Also, please note the Thread Title:

Mental Health, Mormonism and the Definition of Delusion

The word "Diagnosis" is not in the title. The word "Definition" is.

So if I start a thread entitled "Definition of a Duck" and then point out that something walks like a duck and looks like a duck, and then I challenge everyone to prove that that thing is not a duck, am I really not identifying the thing as a duck? This is just an absolutely abominable attempt to equivocate.