Mental Health, Mormonism and Delusion (Update)

[_Hades]

What I have gotten from this thread so far is that if you have a reason to believe crazy, like religious indoctrination, brainwashing, or upbringing, then you are not delusional. What if you run onto information that challenges your crazy beliefs and you stick your fingers in your ears and loudly recite, "la la la la la la", so you don't hear what you are hearing. Then you come up with crazy apologetics for what you did hear so that you can continue to have your crazy beliefs. Do you then cross over into the land of delusion or do you stay in the land of crazy beliefs with reason?

[Guest]

Doctor,

It's clear that your participation in this thread has been entirely due to your personal anger/offense that anyone would suggest that certain Mormon beliefs ought to be labled "delusional," and yet as you now admit, you yourself think that certain LDS beliefs are "wack."

I think precision in how we hold beliefs is important and should be important to others.

I think cartoonish categorizations of others' and entire movements' beliefs is ridiculous and counterproductive towards obtaining proper truth and perspective.

So, then, your response is to offer up a cartoonish parody of your own, in which you make rather blase jokes about atheists committing suicide?

[_mikwut]

DrW,

I already provided you that in my first post. You can utilize the criteria from another worldview that is accepted by the group against one that isn't for any view. You position also doesn't differentiate how beliefs or views are acquired.

Contrary to your previous post I have stated several reasons. Your OP can't distinguish between false, fanciful or derived from deception notions of belief and psychiatric definitions that the belief is pathological. We all end up pathological.

I think atheists are wrong. From my perspective atheists persist in a false belief regarding the self (non spiritual and touched by a basic belief in a higher power or creator) or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary (basic perceptions and intuitions); All of your checked criteria are then met as well. That is why my first post is satirical because everything is met but I don't believe you or other atheists are delusional. So your OP is merely rhetorical and trivial. It also says something about your ability to perceive and respect differing positions, views and grand theories other than your own.

We all overvalue certain ideas we hold - but that doesn't make them delusional but your presentation doesn't differentiate or appreciate that in any way. Additionally, you want to remove the technical use of the DSM but ignore that utilizing the DSM emphasizes that personal beliefs should be evaluated with great respect towards the complexity of cultural and religious differences and their acquisition. Many cultures have widely accepted beliefs that may be considered delusional in other cultures but we wouldn't utilize your descriptors. And not only because that wouldn't be polite or for political correctness, but because we would appreciate that they were acquired in the normal culturally formed way and not because someone is a nutjob.

So I think you need to state how the criteria doesn't apply to you before your challenge is removed from mere triviality it seems to be.

my regards, mikwut

[_mikwut]

Doctor,

So, then, your response is to offer up a cartoonish parody of your own, in which you make rather blase jokes about atheists committing suicide?

As satire, your familiar right good doctor?

mikwut

[_Doctor Scratch]

Doctor,

So, then, your response is to offer up a cartoonish parody of your own, in which you make rather blase jokes about atheists committing suicide?

As satire, your familiar right good doctor?

mikwut

What does this have to do with precision?

[_mikwut]

Doctor,

I don't believe my satirical post is precise towards atheists. I think that obvious and clearly stated by myself who made the post. That was the illustrative purpose to make the point that the OP is not precise and is in fact a distortion. I think that is obvious. So, your statement

So, then, your response is to offer up a cartoonish parody of your own, in which you make rather blase jokes about atheists committing suicide

is the further distorting response. It also isn't that interesting to me. How this schlick of yours hasn't become an old worn out tire yet is beyond me. You think I'm angry and distorting I think you are distoring. Both those positions are quite clear without further back and forth so have the last word.

regards, mikwut

[_Doctor Scratch]

I don't think you're "distorting," Mikwut. I think you were offended by the premises of the OP and your response was to hammer out a satirical, "See what it's like??" kind of response. If you sincerely cared about precision, then why not zero in more specifically on what's wrong with the premises--sort of like what EA did?

[_emilysmith]

The first definition from a Googling...

An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality.

This is Mormons. It is that simple. They do not hold to what is generally accepted as reality.

The problem you have is that, the more broad (or narrow) your sampling of culture, the more the "accepted reality" changes.

So, how do we measure what is true that applies cross-culturally? Empiricism. The problem with empiricism is that it, essentially, proves everyone wrong. It has no friends amongst people who are desperately clinging to their culture. Atheists are not immune, but, certainly, they are more inoculated.

If you want to know the truth about your own personal delusions, then you are going to have to transcend your own personal culture. In order to do that, you need to be psychologically vulnerable in ways that people are not usually comfortable with. In reality, this is why people have such trouble with learning about their own delusions; people aren't normally interested in the truth, wherever it may lead them. People are more interested in being comfortable and unchallenged.

We all have blind spots in our perception and I'm not just talking about sight, taste, touch and smell. Our unconscious processes work behind the scenes to make us act and it is only afterwards that we apply rationality to it. We do this using the lens of our own personal culture. It is the same way we apply context to our dreams. We wake up, view our experience through the lens, then change the details so it makes more sense to us. Everyone does it. Even while it is happening, we are trying to build a cohesive reality out of random neuronal firings.

If you are going to try to defend against Mormons being delusional, you can't win. No one can win, because we all maintain delusions that help us operate better in a culture with a primitive way of thinking. Whatever you would like to think about your capacity for reason, you are still an animal with instincts that control your behavior on an unconscious level. We all participate in the great competition for resources and mates, and whatever you think you are doing, that is what your true motivations are all about. It is even why you think the world works the way you think it works. And, of course, you are wrong about that.

Everyone is wrong. Everyone is delusional.

I think it is safe to say that Mormons are farther down the spectrum than most groups, but not as far down as paranoid schizophrenics. Why? Because they cling to beliefs that are clearly made up fantasy.

[_DrW]

Neuroscientist Says Religious Fundamentalism Could Be Treated As A Mental Illness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/3 ... ostpopular

Guess I am not the only one who sees the practice of a fundamentalist religion as a sign or symptom of a mental disorder.

[_ControlFreak]

Neuroscientist Says Religious Fundamentalism Could Be Treated As A Mental Illness

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/3 ... ostpopular

Guess I am not the only one who sees the practice of a fundamentalist religion as a sign or symptom of a mental disorder.

Interesting thread and interesting article.

One thing I would say, is that it seems a little inaccurate to call religious fundamentalism or religious delusions a mental "disorder" or "illness". That makes it sound like it is something uncommon and flawed in the individual that has the disorder.

It seems more like a general vulnerability that we all have the potential to fall victim to. We generally don't call obesity a "disorder" or an "illness", but rather a medical "condition" or "state". Everyone is subject to becoming obese; you just have to eat too much crap. Some people become obese rather easily, while others seem to be able to eat all the crap they want. But in the end, anyone can become obese.

I see religious delusions that same way. Everyone is subject to it, but some people have consumed a lot more crap and/or exercised their logic and free thinking muscles a lot less. Some people can stomache a whole lot of religious crap without becoming obese. Some people only need a little to pack it on.

If we can come up with the mental equivalent of gastric bypass surgery to help those in a deluded condition, that would be awesome. Of course, the whole problem with delusion is that you have a hard time convincing the sick individual that they need medical attention...

We have campaigns to stop parents from feeding their kids crap all the time and getting more exercise. Maybe it's time to campaign for parents to stop indoctrinating their children's minds with religious BS and encourage them to practice reason and free thinking for at least 30min a day?