Calling religion delusional has become an increasingly popular strategy for its critics. To my ear, there's more to this than just a benign slight -- there's at least the hint of the pathological. Religion can be delusional, but to think it inherently so is to misunderstand both religion and delusion.
Having spent my entire professional career around psychologists, I'm all too aware of how clinicians cringe when diagnostic terms get tossed about willy-nilly. So let's begin with what the latest APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV-TR, p. 821) says about delusion:
A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith).
Note that the manual almost gives religion a free pass on the delusion issue, which for some might end the discussion right there. But let's assume that this is too generous and push ahead anyway.
Delusions of persecution and grandeur are two of the more common forms among those requiring psychiatric care. So if I believe I'm the king of England despite considerable evidence otherwise ("Where are my scepter and my subjects? Good God, what I am doing in South Louisiana?"), then there may be psychological trouble brewing. Maintaining my belief very likely requires convoluted explanations for why the world seems organized such that my assertions of royalty are contradicted at every turn. The mental gymnastics exact a toll, and herein lies a second critical aspect of pathological delusion: the person's ability to function effectively in the world is compromised. Delusional individuals are often highly distressed, as are those around them.
As with any psychological disorder, functional impairment is key. Perfectly normal people hold all kinds of beliefs based on partial or equivocal evidence -- the vagaries of human life make this unavoidable. So the standard for determining whether or not religious beliefs are delusional is the same as that required for any belief: is the belief contradicted by so much obvious and convincing evidence that in order to maintain it the believer becomes functionally compromised, producing suffering for themselves and those around them? In general the answer here is no, for a number of reasons.
First, religions largely traffic in beliefs that stand outside of easy evidentiary evaluation -- in other words, religious notions tend to be neither verifiable nor falsifiable. For example, most of the global religions have long-standing rituals designed to provide cleansing of the soul or forgiveness of sins. There's a far shorter history (if any at all) of rituals that protect one from bullets or other lethal projectiles. Rituals claiming to accomplish the latter are simply too easily refuted by evidence. What gets winnowed out of religions over time are those practices or notions that place too great a strain on credulity. The ideas that remain are stubbornly oblique to empirical analysis. It's very hard to prove or disprove whether a benevolent God exists, or that the universe has purpose, or that man has a spiritual as well as material nature. Whatever evidence one might raise on these questions is, at best, ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations.
Second, an important finding that has emerged over the past 20 years or so from the cognitive science of religion is that religious thinking builds quite seamlessly on our natural modes of cognition. By evolutionary design, we tend to see the world in terms of intentional, meaningful patterns. Religious thinking simply takes this mode of thought to its very logical conclusion: we're inclined to think the world is an intentionally created, meaningful place because it is. Since religious thinking comes naturally to us, it is actually the skeptical mindset that requires greater effort to consistently maintain. Which leads to an interesting hypothesis: given the relatively greater mental effort required to maintain skeptical beliefs, it should be atheistic thinking, more so than religious thinking, that is prone to slide into pathology.
Finally, since religion is a community-based enterprise, it largely discourages disengaged individualism. While this has its hazards -- lock-step conformity, tribalism, narrow-mindedness, etc. -- it does promote social integration among its members and that is generally good for psychological functioning. The religions we have with us today did not just drop from the sky, they evolved, with a primary selection criterion being how well they created trusting, cooperative groups motivated for collective action. The motivations they employ and the actions they engender may be good or bad from an outside perspective; but, by and large, being part of a tight-knit social group is psychologically beneficial for its members.
Thus, there really is a critical difference between someone worshiping Chewbacca the wookiee in his basement and someone going to church. Since most of us believe that Chewbacca is a fictional character (albeit not one without a certain hairy charm) and not a deity, the wookiee-worshiper is largely singular in his liturgical activities. He must disengage from the community, while at the same time doing a fair amount of mental work to maintain his 'wookiee-as-deity' beliefs in the face of a 'wookiee-as-Star-Wars-character' world. This may or may not be delusional, but it's at least worrisome. By contrast, religion requires engagement with a community and this typically facilitates adaptive functioning.
Religion therefore contains a host of properties that actually militate against pathological delusion: (1) its general notions and practices are not obviously contradicted by evidence, (2) it requires very little mental effort to sustain most religious notions, and (3) it encourages community integration which promotes healthy psychological functioning. Indeed, most empirical studies confirm that religious people tend to be happier and healthier, as well as financially, socially, and interpersonally more successful than their non-religious counterparts -- wholly inconsistent with the religion-as-delusion theory.
All of this, however, should not be taken to mean that religion can never be delusional. David Koresh and Jim Jones are probably good examples of religious leaders whose delusional beliefs about their own self-importance proved disastrous for them and their followers. Likewise, parents whose belief in faith-healing blinds them to the damage they inflict on their children by refusing standard medical care are probably tainted psychologically as well. Religious delusion is out there, but recognizing it requires us to give up the simple-minded broad-brush approach. It was Freud (who thought religion was delusion!) who said that the healthy psyche should be able to do two things: love and work. Good guideposts whenever we are in the precarious posture of judging others' beliefs.
Why Does Religion Exist? Explaining Religion and Religious Beliefs
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Ask why religion causes so many problems - God is Imaginary - 50 ...
Why Religion May Not be Hard-Wired - Sharon Begley - Newsweek.com
Do you even read the newspapers??? Religious "hazards" are what allows accidents to turn into disasters. Living in Louisanna you should realize this.
Pseudoscience is a methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status.
→ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo_science
→ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Branden
Id say HE was delusional.
1) The general notions of religion are constantly being contradicted by obvious evidence. The entire field of biology is based on evolution which directly contradicts the biblical origin of life. Physics contradicts the biblical origin of the universe. The idea of a just, loving, ever present and merciful God are counterindicated daily by life in general.
2) It requires enormous mental effort to sustain even the most basic religious notion. I'm not sure what religious tradition you are a part of but I was raised Christian and it caused me no end of grief in trying to determine what was or wasn't sinful, what God would think, etc. That was before I was aware of even rudimentary science. Trying to maintain religious faith in a world where evolution is manifestly real would be the definition of convoluted reasoning. Even among the faithful, biblical scholars spend their lives examining scriptural conundrums of which there is no lack.
3) Religion does indeed "encourage" community integration. I would like to point out that most of our current enemies such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban are essentially extremely religious organizations. I would question how helpful their community integration has been to their psychological health.
Lastly, Freud did think religion was delusional. I can't imagine why.
First time I marked a comment by you "Favorite".
1) A religion must have a supreme being.
2) This supreme being is anthropogenic, meaning that this supreme being is capable of understanding humans.
3) The supreme being can be coerced by man, by sacrifice, or prayer to do things that this supreme being would not otherwise do. In other words, God wouldn't even consider blessing America, until that first schmuck decided to put a bumper sticker on his car demanding that God to bless America.
4) This supreme being offers an immense reward for following an incomprehensible life plan, and immense suffering for failure.
If items #2 and #3 aren't delusional, then they are clearly narcissistic, which is a different DSM psychosis.
Atheists should stop generalizing all religions, if they ever hope to sound intelligent to anyone but themselves.
And that's why its not delusional, to factor in the possibility of some sort of supernatural process in creation. Because that's all we've got. When science can produce even a remote GUESS, as to the origins of all matter, then atheists can boast of their intellectual superiority to theists.
Until then, atheism is just another of the myriad of belief systems out there, only their belief system is dedicated to anti-religious bigotry and exists for the sole purpose of ridiculing and mocking the belief systems of others.
Which makes it little more than a narcissistic character disordered pathology.
Atheists do not need scientists to answer anything. What we know at any point is what we know. People claiming to know more than they can possibly know are the problem. I might have faith in religion(s) if they, at least, all came to the same conclusions.
Becuase we don't share your beliefs does not make us bigots. Bigotry would be tryingto legally disadvantage oyu becuase of your beliefs.
Which is what some religion often does to npeople whom it doesn't like, I say this as a gay man.
Besides, most relgionists do a very through job of ridiculing and mocking the belief systems of others just by their very existence. Islam is a ocmplete rejection of the very idea that believing in Jesus will save you from hell.
Atheists believe that all relgions are crap. A true believer thinks are religions but one are crap.
Most atheists may ridcule what you believe, but they would never kill you for it. Most don't care whether you believe it or not as long as you leave them alone.
Contrast THAT with the probably acts of a true believer.
"Becuase we don't share your beliefs does not make us bigots. Bigotry would be tryingto legally disadvantage oyu becuase of your beliefs."
That is not the defintion of bigotry. A bigotry is defined as, "a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices". The definition is marked by intolerance and ridicule. Yours is the definition of discrimination, not bigotry.
Simply believing something else does not make one a bigot. An atheist is not a bigot for not believing in a God, or even for believing that "all religions are crap". They become bigots when they ridicule and treat religious people like crap. The exact same statement goes for any religious person exhibiting the same behavior to another faith or to an atheist.
Most atheists will not kiII someone for what they believe, but the same is true for most religious people. At least those statements are true in the US right now. History has shown that given the right conditions NEITHER statement is true. The Stalinist Russia and the Khmer Rouge showed that atheism is open to the same misuse that religion falls into time and again. Even modern China is very discriminatory toward most religion, even when those religions are minding their own business.