Fundamentalism Could Be Treated As A Mental Illness

[_Quasimodo]

Interesting point of view.

“Someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology -- we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance," Taylor said. “In many ways it could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/kathleen-taylor-religious-fundamentalism-mental-illness_n_3365896.html

[_ludwigm]

She is deadly wrong.
This type of mental illnesses can not be cured. Euthanasia would work.


Sometimes:
The operation was a success, but a patient is dead.

See exmormons who join to other cults (churches/sects ... choose the right).

Moderators! From this point on, this is to move terrestrial...

[_ldsfaqs]

The problem with this is "who's fundamentalism" is actually the mental illness?
Further, "radicalism" which is really what they are talking about, not fundamentalism is the actual problem.
Even more so, what if the "normal" have actually become the abnormal/fundamental and then it takes so-called "fundamentalism" or as it should be called radicalism to correct and normalize society?

Liberals think conservatives are mentally/morally ill.
Conservatives think liberals are mentally/morally ill.
Atheists think the Religious are mentally/sometimes morally ill.
The Religious think Atheists are mentally/sometimes morally ill.
Anti-mormons think Mormons are ill.
Mormons think anti-mormons are ill.
etc. etc.

Man liberals, you prove every day that it is YOUR ideologies which lead to the evils of this world. The slippery slopes you people go down in everything!

[_Darth J]

Doesn't cognition have to actually occur before there can be a cognitive disorder?

[_MeDotOrg]

Interesting point of view.

“Someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology -- we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance," Taylor said. “In many ways it could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/kathleen-taylor-religious-fundamentalism-mental-illness_n_3365896.html

Years ago I read a book called The True Believer - discussing the personality type of those who are soldiers of Christ or Allah or Marxism or Fascism - belief systems that welcome a totality of commitment. An oldie but a goodie - recommended.

Nevertheless, I'm always a little nervous about psychologists naming passionate belief systems as syndromes that can and should be 'cured'. It reminds me of 'curing' homosexuality. Many Psychologists are not above the social prejudices of their culture.

Every religion started as cult. A cult is a shared system of belief. Because a small number of people believe something doesn't automatically preclude it from being a healthy belief system. To the extent that people view the word 'cult' as pejorative, it is not then necessarily an accurate label.

I believe the world is always becoming more terrible and more wonderful. Because man's technological capacity is always advancing, man is capable of using that technology in terrible and wonderful ways. With human population growing rapidly, technology is being wielded by more and more people, which further amplifies its effects. Technology renders a society more complex and interconnected than ever, and the rate of change is accelerating.

We all want something constant in a world where the rate of change is accelerating. The faster the rate of change, the more desperate is the need for a constant. We want a belief system that makes sense of it all, that explains it all.

It can be a frightening world. As Bob Dylan wrote "May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift." Humanity is is a constant process of destroying the familiar to create something new, and then trembles at the result. I believe that this is what Hindus called the God Shiva. Mankind constantly re-invents different Myths to explain this process. Old religions will die out, new ones will take their place.

[_Gadianton]

This is interesting because I totally disagree with Taylor. Ok, there's the obvious point that people should be allowed to believe what they want no matter how stupid or evil, but a more interesting point to me is distinguishing between truly brainwashed cultists and willful ignorance. We take at face value what other people say they believe and what we say we believe but I don't think belief content is that simple. I don't know how accurate and to what degree of granularity lie detector tests work, but supposing there's a gold standard here, I'd love to see how many fundamentalists actually believe half the stuff they and we attribute them to believing. I include here Taylor's alleged belief that he thinks fundamentalism is an example of or similar to mental illness. Much can be discounted as effect or as extremely superficial belief and subject to change the next day. That's why I've said in the past I'd love to see the General Authorities bear specific testimony, or answer questions about what they "know" to be true, under a lie detector test.

But it's not just prejudice or need to score points that fuels many alleged beliefs, it could be ego, insecurity, a need to be different, or whatever. So before we start treating people as mentally ill for their beliefs, we ought to be very sure what they really believe in the first place.

[_EAllusion]

I'm along with Gad here. I think most of the beliefs we associate with fundamentalism are wide, but not deep. Approximately half of the United States thinks the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Holy Christ! you might say, and I would agree. But I strongly suspect most of those people don't have any deep commitment to that belief and rather hold onto it because it is what they learned from social networks they trust and because it forms a part of their cultural identity. But they probably haven't thought about it much and don't particularly care about it. It's a half-hearted, if wrong, answer to a test-question for them. It's probably a much smaller core of people who have given that belief any degree of thought and feel intellectually and emotionally committed to it in a strong way. I suspect the rest are just going with the flow. It's the people outside of that core that can be persuaded to think differently so long as they don't feel like their identity is being criticized.

As far as describing fundamentalism as a mental disorder to be potentially cured, I find that misguided and vaguely frightening. The desire to "cure" wrong beliefs is often strong in people, like fundamentalists, who hold deeply wrong beliefs.

[_Droopy]

Interesting point of view.

“Someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology -- we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance," Taylor said. “In many ways it could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage."

By this argument, virtually everyone carrying a voter registration card with "Democrat" displayed as the party of preference should be in therapy.

[_ludwigm]

Every time Droopy meets with something doesn't fit to his skimpy worldview, he shouts "leftist" or "democrat".

One can't miss it as the main symptom of that illness mentioned in the OP...

by the way
the word democrat has different meaning in every language, which are not US English.

[_ldsfaqs]

Ludwig....

Recognizing good and evil, right and wrong, and the ideologies they stem from is not some "mental disorder".

One could say you're the mentally disturbed because you call good evil and evil good.