Religion and Mental Health

A vicar was stabbed to death near where i live in Wales in March and convicted yesterday:

A man obsessed with the devil is to be detained indefinitely after pleading guilty to killing a vicar on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Geraint Evans, 24, of Trecynon, near Aberdare, repeatedly stabbed Father Paul Bennett on 14 March in the grounds of the town's St Fagan's Church.

news.bbc.co.uk...

The thing that confuses me about all this is that now he has been convicted, he has been labeled as mentally ill (which i am sure he was) and the vicars family have blamed the mental health services and are calling for an inquest. See here.

What i dont understand is how comes when a person says they are a satanist they are mentally ill, but when they are Christan they are not?. Im not trying to say everyone who is a Christian is mentally ill, but if you believe in Christianity then you have to accept the other side of the coin also rite?

In my opinion its the failings of the church that they could not help the man who killed the vicar surely? The problem was in his domain of work, not the mental healths.

If someone claims to be inspired by god through prayer do they class as mentally ill?
If someone claims to be inspired by Satan through prayer do they class as mentally ill?

I wonder how many characters from the bible would be instituted if they were alive today? With claims of voices in their head and prophetic dreams?

If someone does truly have communication from an angel or God in the present day, would they ever be heard? Or simply sedated?

It kinda comes across like im trying to bash Christianity here, but i mean to apply this problem of distinction between mental health and religion to all religions. Im just using Christianity as the example as that was the religion involved in the news that got me thinking.

Im interested in opinions of people from all religions and ways of though.

Gareth.


[edit on 17/10/2007 by GarethAyres]

OK, I'll add my tuppence, I think this is a somewhat taboo topic in such parts.

*puts hard-hat on*

I think some people of faith, even the likes of Mother Theresa, live more in the real-world than we might think. They take on a faith, and stick to it even against their own realisations that much of what they subscribe to is waffle and fantasy. But they see benefits socially and otherwise from maintaining their faith. Others may believe in the hope that what they believe is actually true. These people likely have an emotional need to believe there is more to life, just can't accept that life may be as inherently meaningless as it appears to be (apart from the meaning we give life). Cognitive dissonance is quite difficult to handle for some people.

Some have probably undegone some sort of psychological event, may be related to a transient epileptic or other neurobiological state (sleep paralysis), leading to an unexplained event, which is 'rationally' interpreted in mystical emotional terms.

Others might feign belief for money and power. As faith and magical thinking leads to ready consumption of snake-oil.

Some just don't know anything better. They have been well-indoctrinated and poorly educated.

In contrast, I think those who do see demons and devils in shadows, may be quite borderline delusionals. They probably have high levels of schizotypy, or are actually in the clinical bracket, or ready to cross that border. Give me a delusional Napoleon any day of the week.

Wel-indoctrinated faith is a powerful thing, and hard to overcome. From what I get from many ex-theists, is it is mainly wishful-thinking, the power of wanting to believe in something. The threat of social ejection in many of the more conservative faiths doesn't help. Faith does have positives in numerous ways, but so does morphine.

Anyway, I'm sorry if that offends anyone.

*backs out of thread slowly and carefully*

[edit on 17-10-2007 by melatonin]

I agree this is a bit of a gray area to talk about, and i hope no one gets offended by it, but lets try to stay objective and try to discuss the distinctions between religion and mental health.

Another thing i am pondering on this topic:

Can there ever be a message from god through a human in the civilized world again? Can there ever be any more prophets etc? Or will out institutions and 'procedures/protocols' result in them all being locked up and medicated along with the ill.

Gareth.

I would question whether the word 'again' should even be applied. Rather we should ask, has there ever been a true prophet through which a god-like thing would want to speak.

The most obvious way to see this is is that in the days of moses, people would believe any old stuff. You could invoke destruction of cities by god's will etc very easily. There was little real historical record. When we get to Jesus' time, historical records become firmer and more detailed, so the action of god/jesus is through making a few loaves and fish, curing a leper or two. The Romans might just have noticed if someone destroyed a city.

Destruction on the scale of the old testament just would be laughed away. So the miracles and magic becomes small time.

In the modern age, the miracles and magic is even more phantom-like. God shows his will through appearing on pancakes.

There is a clear historical evolution of god and his actions here. It also amazingly coincided with historical records and human understanding of the world. Essentially, god is an impotent thing these days. Like a small god of discworld.

I think people still try to make themselves so-called mouth-pieces of god. Joseph Smith is a recent attempt, pretty successful. Also, we have the moonies leader Sun Myung Moon, another somewhat successful attempt. A few more unsuccessful ones spring to mind - Koresh, Palingboer.

Even if there was a true prophet, I can't see how we would know. If he was doing magical stuff, he could just be an alien or trickster, if not, he might just be delusional. I'm sure an omnipotent dude would be slightly more intelligent to choose one person, in one small country, in one time.

How about a big magical, talking flying rock? It could visit people and tell them what they need to know. S'pose that would take the fun out of it...

[edit on 17-10-2007 by melatonin]

I can't help but see the irony. Early on in history, people believed that magic exists. But there were a number of people who faked abilities and conned the public. Nowadays, we are supposedly wiser. But instead of seeing the fakes, we pronounce all is fake. What about the real ones? Why must they need to be labeled as delusional or liars?

Originally posted by melatonin
I would question whether the word 'again' should even be applied.

I agree, but i didnt want to make this thread a discussion where all religious people could be labeled mentally ill. I would really like to hear religious peoples view on this and how they distinguish between religion and mental illness.

I am not a member of any religion but i am not an atheist either, just to clarify that.

Gareth.

Originally posted by ShadowedRedemption
I can't help but see the irony. Early on in history, people believed that magic exists. But there were a number of people who faked abilities and conned the public. Nowadays, we are supposedly wiser. But instead of seeing the fakes, we pronounce all is fake. What about the real ones? Why must they need to be labeled as delusional or liars?

Thats just it, what if gods way (magic) of talking through a human would also be characterized as symptoms of schizophrenia?!?! How can you distinguish between the two? Thats what im confused about and want peoples opinions on.

Gareth.

Originally posted by GarethAyres
agree, but i didnt want to make this thread a discussion where all religious people could be labeled mentally ill.

I don't think most are.

We define the construct of abnormality, and religious belief doesn't come into it. In fact, by some sorts of models, non-belief could be viewed as abnormal. I think some may have high trait schizotypy, which is defintely non-clinical. And a few may be in the clinical bracket.

But the majority are far from this category. I suppose they are just carrying a religious meme. The thing here is, as I noted earlier, faith does have positive effects, so if it works for them, they will stick to it. If religious faith had obvious negative effects at the individual/group level, it would never have lasted through time.

[edit on 17-10-2007 by melatonin]

Let me give my answer through experience seeing others.

Possesion is talked about in the bible, I know ive felt possed sometimes with anger and lust.

Like Christ casting a specific 7 devils out of mary.

In our faith, we believe that once you sin, you give your will and spirit over to satan, you let him inot the soul, and he dwells with you.

Like a buddy, a voice, a freind that hangs around you either trying to get you to commit suicide or putting horrible things in your head.

I know both sides.

When I was in major sin, I could feel the attacks coming from some other world, in thoughts, in wantingt to die ect..

I actually thought I was a vampire at one point.

Now ive also felt Gods grace, which is love. Which makes you real, gives you humility and makes you not worry about anything.


Remember alot of this mental illness cannot be cured by a pill. Alot of it is spiritual and rebellion.

You cannot make people love with a pill and serve. have you ever noticed truly evil people with no love or grace or soul that seem possesed?

Now ive never been on pills myself. So I am a case that has completely changed (without) any medication.

literally a change by grace.

So you can look at it through my point completely sane. But you do have to believe in the spiritual relm./

St Gemma and st Padre pio, both stigmatist, saw satan many times, they were beaten by him and insulted.

peace.

In todays world the majority wouldn't believe a prophet of God in the way they would back in the OT times without having sent them off to see numerous physicians, and with good reason. And in todays age generally if someone claims to be inspired by Satan it would depend entirely on what it was they were exactly inspired to do. Invariably if they were advocating and commiting many unwholesome deeds then they would be sent to a padded room as there is a general consensus that those are out of cultural norms and not usually contributing good things back into society as a whole. On the otherside of things it pretty much falls the same way.

As to why God doesn't do things the way he did in the OT, it is my opinion he shouldn't have to, it is akin to the way you teach your child to walk or even ride a bike. when you start you hold the child's hand and guide their steps and as they become more proficent at it you gradually step back and watch as they begin to walk on their own.Having faith isn't the absence of doubt it is believing inspite of it.

One of the biggest problems isn't so much those having faith it is those who use that faith to create their own wealth. And that is something as old as religon itself.

Originally posted by GarethAyres

If someone claims to be inspired by god through prayer do they class as mentally ill?
If someone claims to be inspired by Satan through prayer do they class as mentally ill?

no.
if someone goes out there and commits a vicious act like murder, and then goes on to say he did it cause god told him to, yup...first class ticket to the mentally ill column.
if you go out there and murder in the name of satan, same deal.

murder someone and then when you're in the room, say it's cause you talk to jesus or did it for jesus...you'll be labelled as crazy, and rightfully so i must add.

reply to post by Boondock78


Lets take away the violence/murder factor then...

If one man in a street preaches about the love of jesus and hate of satan is that ok?
If another man in a street preaches about the love of satan and hate of jesus is that ok?

I think you will find one preacher will be tolerated and one will be locked up and subjected to medial care, not religious care.

Gareth.

Both are ok and covered in the freedom of religon as to the man preaching the love of Satan, yes the average person on the street would look at him as being mentally ill on the grounds that he is outside of the cultural norms, but does not necessarily put him in a padded cell for it.

Man people need an excuse for everything...

First of all I can bet that in that 24 year olds life time something traumatic happened to him maybe his whole life has been garbage, maybe he listened to the wrong music had no acceptance from his parents sat alone to long by himself dwelling on his crappy life and one day decided to snap maybe the catholic priest molested him at a young age or maybe he simply had a chemical imbalance that triggered it all.

The mental thing is only an excuse just like the medicine called ritalin for children bad parents give that to their kids...

I was reading in depth on the issues linked with religion and metal health recently, and several have commented they would like to explore this area of thought by looking at various histories, thoughts, and publications on the topic. There are believers and non-believers for various concepts of religion, and these issues appear to cause problems for individuals and the world.

In seeing if ATS had a prior history for the theme of religion and metal illness, I ran a search and this theme came up for a person killing a Vicar in England. It was not said what the particular upset for the person killing the Vicar was about, but there are other killings involving religion that do speak to the deeper issues. This established subject appears to have become worse in other researching the Internet and involves all kinds of episodes to even parents killing their kids over bibical stories and beliefs linked to god.

So, I going to give this theme a little bump up to current times and invite some civil research into this theme again. It will obviously apply to Christianity, to Islam and other areas of religion. Certainly, everyone has heard all manner of perjoratives tossed from Infadels to Athiest over these beliefs. Even the issues of why Buddhist Monks set themselves on fire in Vietnam speaks to suicide. Many parts of religion are considered untrue and fantasy by one religion to the next and from other varied viewpoints. Does taking religion too seriously cause issues linked to mental health problems is a question and it appears there is an abundance of information that speak to serious issues. Also, it appears religion is a magnet for the mentally ill in many episodes.

I'll toss out a few examples, as I research the area of interest. I think it will be very eye opening to see the odd problems that appear connected with religious beliefs.

www.deism.com...

The false claims made by the various "revealed" religions, especially when introduced at an early age, cause much mental anguish and pain to individuals which then has a great potential to have a negative effect on society in general. For example, the case of Andrea Yates who murdered her five little children because she thought Satan had possessed her and was soon going to possess her children. In her twisted Bible based mind, if she murdered her children before "the age of accountability" they would all go to heaven. She thought she'd be executed for the murders and Satan would die with her.

In a similar case which stinks of the Bible story of God telling Abraham to kill his son, Deanna Laney murdered two of her little boys by stoning them to death and then severely handicapped her third little boy. She did this because she thought God wanted her to do it to "prove her complete and unconditional faith in Him." Of course, God never told Abraham or Mrs. Laney or anyone else to murder their children!

www.thecheers.org...

I would like to propose that religious beliefs be placed in the DSM as a category of mental illness for the following reasons:

(1) Hallucinations - the person has invisible friends who (s)he insists are real, and to whom (s)he speaks daily, even though nobody can actually see or hear
these friends.

(2) Delusions - the patient believes that the invisible friends have magical powers to make them rich, cure cancer, bring about world peace, and will do so eventually if asked.

(3) Denial/Inability to learn - though the requests for world peace remain unanswered, even after hundreds of years, the patients persist with the praying behaviour, each time expecting different results.

(4) Inability to distinguish fantasy from reality - the beliefs are contingent upon ancient mythology being accepted as historical fact.

(5) Paranoia - the belief that anyone who does not share their supernatural concept of reality is "evil," "the devil," "an agent of Satan".

(6) Emotional abuse - ­ religious concepts such as sin, hell, cause feelings of guilt, shame, fear, and other types of emotional "baggage" which can scar the
psyche for life.

(7) Violence - many patients insist that others should share in their delusions, even to the extent of using violence.

So, these will do to renew the topic, but there is a huge number of articles on this subject that do cause concern.

One recalls the Heaven's Gate group that all commited suicide, the Jim Jones group in Ghiana, not to mention all the Catholic Priests that thought it was perfectly time to have sex with Choir Boys and the higher church helped to protect these issues from being found out.

Did these serious issues arise from religion setting the stage for mental illness problems, the loss for a moral compass, and often loss of reality itself ?

A few more insights appear from this article below. Some issues are does religion attract Mental Illness issues thinking god is going to cure them or via the church trying to help them along. Or does the church present conflincting ideas and too often fantasy themes, that set up issues linked with Personality Disorder and worse problems. It appears a serious delimma.

www.examiner.com...

Mental illness and religion: Why some people become fanatics

Fanaticalness plays a key role with depression and bipolar disorder. This is a fact. I have had so many patients who were trying to convert me to their religion, to save me, that I have lost count. They become so obsessed with religion that to the outside world it looks very scary, but to them it seems as normal as brushing your teeth.

I quess I have become like teflon when others are ranting and raving about religion. It just slides right off my psyche. I think this is why I rarely discuss my religion. It's private and sacred to me. I find comfort in it and it's simply between me and my God. Period.

Bipolar patients are usually the worst when it comes to delusional ideas and beliefs. They will argue, fight and drive you insane to get a point across. They don't realize how fanatical they sound. They are also the easiest to be converted to a new religion. I can never figure out how various religions can sense a vulnerabilty in someone and use it to their advantage, to make them join their sect. I've seen this happen time and time again.

The problem is, that most people who are suffering from bipolar disorder have a very hard time focusing. Their mind is always going in a million directions. So what seems like a good idea today, may actually be discarded as time goes by. Their obsessions change from day to day.

Or could it be that since churches tend to appeal to persons with problems like schizophrenia as long as it is presented as a religion?

Certainly as science and religion discover plods along more and more are finding there are exaggerations and faked up things place in the Biblical Narratives, which means religion belief can depart from reality.

An Example:

www.psychologytoday.com...

The evolutionary biologist and renowned atheist Richard Dawkins has lucidly pointed out that many religious beliefs would constitute signs of mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia) if these were not cloaked in the drapes of divinity. Take a supernatural belief rooted in religious doctrine, and call it divine "fact" X. If it is part of a person's religious narrative, it constitutes a belief that must be respected (and for one particular religion, one should not even criticize openly any of its belief system...no I am not referring to the Amish). However, if an individual held the same belief X, without it being part of a religious narrative, the individual holding this belief would be met with derision (if not concern for his/her mental wellbeing).

I would push Dawkins's argument further. Take a given divine "fact" X held by members of some religion. Most individuals who are not part of the religion in question will typically view the belief as outlandish. Hence, a belief that would otherwise be considered a sign of mental illness is perfectly "logical" when it applies to one's religion.

When the Church wanted to kill Gallileo were they crazy or was Gallileo?

These are the type problems that one gets into when the discussion is on religion, beliefs, and faith---because for much there is only suppositions with abundant problems with mistraslations, embellished metaphor that is taken as literal.

A limited viewing of a book that tells of the process for religion on the brain and how many times that causes huge internal logic battles for the mind. This is a book pre-view, so only about half is provided but enough to suggest the issues presented.

books.google.com...=onepage&q&f=false

atheismandme.com...

This same unhealthy conditioning can be seen in the concept of original sin and Satan. Children are taught they are inherently sinful and that Satan may tempt them into sin. They are taught to feel shame for existing at the same time as learning to externalise it onto this mythical demonic figure. This makes it very difficult for children to learn self-awareness and personal responsibility. I frequently speak to Christians suffering from guilt for enjoying supernatural novels and having a sex drive (even when it is not acted upon.) The other side of this is that they may then attribute genuinely negative behaviour to having been tempted by Satan and seek forgiveness from Christ without ever addressing the real cause of their behaviour and learning from it. An example of this is a young woman I spoke to who has a drug abuse problem – in her attempts to resist Satan through prayer and bible reading she never recognises her own emotional problems which stem from her childhood and never gets any stronger or more able to fight her addictions.

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Does this teach children how to treat their fellow man and make good life decisions? Statistics from the world’s most Christian country, the USA, suggest not. 99.8% of prison inmates are theists and more than 80% of them Christian. (1) A recent in-depth study shows that religiosity is linked to poor societal health. (2) Teen pregnancy is highest in states with the most evangelical Christians. (3) Divorce rates are highest among evangelical Christians. (4)

In addition to general social problems connected to Christianity, there is a whole gamut of mental illnesses related to religion. Hyper-religiosity is now a recognised mental illness – an obsession with religion to the detriment of the rest of the individual’s needs. (5) Religious scrupulosity – an anxiety disorder in which people agonise over their every action, concerned that they may have been committing a sin, until they can no longer live a normal life is a form of anxiety disorder for which psychiatrists are increasingly consulted. (6)

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‘What is the difference between General OCD and religious OCD? I would define the differentiating factor thus: A sufferer of general OCD is usually aware of the inappropriateness and strangeness of their actions, as well as their unreasonable nature but continues to engage in such actions because of the overwhelming mental anxiety brought about by the mental obsessions. A sufferer of religious OCD is generally not aware of the inappropriateness and strangeness of their actions, nor their unreasonable nature, instead believing such actions are at the core of their right relationship with God.(7)

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(1) holysmoke.org...

(2) www.skeptic.com...

(3) www.livescience.com...

(4) www.divorce.com...

(5) www.rspearson.com...

(6) www.anxietyandstress.com...

(7) www.ocddave.com...