Religious fundamentalism could soon be treated as mental illness

The word "Fundamentalist" has had the accent on the "mental" element for a while now, whereas it used to be a term used with more respect for the person so described.

Personally, as a designer, fundamental principles were the backbone of my career, forgotten at my peril.
They enabled and reminded me, and when followed with understanding, were a guarantee of success.

To my mind, a person becomes the modern version of a fundamentalist, when as well as knowing what they must do, they also feel competent to tell others what they must do.

"Do unto others as you would they should do unto you", is all we need, we just have to observe it as the highest responsibility we all share, regardless of our personal faith.
Religion is no excuse for bad behaviour.

mistersmith.

reply to post by ATSmediaPRO


The first memory I have of my father was him kneeling and praying at my bedside begging God to save my life.I was in and out of conciousness and each time I came to enough to see and compute what was going on around me he was praying and offering God his life instead of mine.

I was 5 at that time and had pneumonia. He had taken me to the hospital where the doctors said there was nothing they could do to save me and sent me home to die - literally.

I did die at the age of 22 and then came back to life after a few minutes of being very dead.

My daughter on the other hand was told at a very young age she would be lucky to live to 30. Type 1 diabetes, the most severe and unstable form at that...

she got cancer next, a tumor the size of a large mans fist that they could not surgically remove. Chemo and Radiation destroyed most of her insides, she has a colostomy bag now, and a hole in her bladder that the doctors are unsure how to fix so she has to wear diapers at the age of 22 and now we find a new tumor in her stomach... more chemo and radiation and more damage to follow, if she even survives....

who is more mentally ill? One who dreams of saving what we dont have the knowledge to save and ends up only causing pain and harm which in the end does little? Or one who says I have no control, lets put it in the hands of One Who they believe does?

I want my daughter to be able to raise her two young children.... but did I want that at what cost to her? In the end, I believe its still in God's Hand and not the hands of humans.... Does that make me mentally ill that I ask my daughter to suffer on the off chance she lives? Or does it make me mentally ill that I believe its not in ours hands at all?

A belief, even put into action is every persons right to have, and not the governments. When something is malicious, then it should be put away or put to death in order to protect others.... but when they try to label a belief itself as a mental illness that is what is crazy, everyone has one, and has the right to one - even the atheist....

reply to post by ATSmediaPRO


You obviously don't get it do you!!! You probably are ignorant enough to believe that the 'police state' in America won't come after you as well..........I "really hate to say this" but someday persons such as myself will be standing by the side of the tracks laughing and clapping as the trains go rolling towards the camps with boxcars loaded to the full with idiots such as yourself who actually believe that the Gestapo "will never come after a good citizen" like me.

reply to post by ATSmediaPRO


You guys are no different...

You call fundamentalist crazy, but at the same time.. They are no different than any other person trying to hold onto what they know and believe. Who the hell are you people to take that away from them?

You're no better than the people that want to make this a mental issue. Hell, half of you guys are stating that it's a mental illness already.


pffft... Funny how the TOS says you can't discriminate, but you guys get away with it often.

Pretty pathetic if you ask me... Typical ATS.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Doesnt matter, Opinion... These guys are so deep in their anti-fundamentalism that they're fundamentalist themselves and dont even know it.

Classic case of the pot and the kettle.. Hypocrites all of them.

reply to post by bloodreviara

I do understand the danger in an idea like this but really think
about this, if someone says god told them to kill the person they
just killed we as a society don't just go, oh ok well heck you

The problem with this thread is that it doesn't take into account the fact that mental illness is mental illness with or without fundamental religion. People don't decide to go around and start killing people due to religion, they go around killing people because they hear voices in their head or they already have some kind of mental defect. People, like jihadists, who are brainwashed to the point of killing were already predisposed to being crazy.

Originally posted by bloodreviara
I do understand the danger in an idea like this but really think
about this, if someone says god told them to kill the person they
just killed we as a society don't just go, oh ok well heck you
believed so vehemently that you get a free pass

Umm.. Its reported Bush and Blair BOTH said " God" told them to bomb and invade Iraq! How many millions dead? What did " society" do? Did it impeach them? Arrest them? Diagnose them? Drug them? Label them mentally ill? Nope! " Society" did sweet f all but cheer them on and keep paying them to keep doing it!
Even if the report is wrong or a lie, why bless bombs before battle? Corp, God, Country ring any bell? The moral high ground in every war since the first has been " In Gods Name".

Why one dead person is murder....one million+ entirely different despite deriving from allegedly "what God said"..is something others might be able to rationalize away ..I don't. I wont.

forrest..trees...ugh.

Ro

Originally posted by Rosha

Umm.. Bush and Blair BOTH said " God" told them to bomb and invade Iraq! Live on national TV BOTH said that. How many millions dead? What did " society" do? Did it impeach them? Arrest them? Diagnose them? Drug them? Label them mentally ill? Nope! " Society" did sweet f all but cheer them on and keep paying them to keep doing it!

Do you have a link for that? I heard Bush said it but i thought Bliar kept the fact that he was religious quiet until he left power. People tend to think religious people are strange in the UK.

Originally posted by EasyPleaseMe

Originally posted by Rosha

Umm.. Bush and Blair BOTH said " God" told them to bomb and invade Iraq! Live on national TV BOTH said that. How many millions dead? What did " society" do? Did it impeach them? Arrest them? Diagnose them? Drug them? Label them mentally ill? Nope! " Society" did sweet f all but cheer them on and keep paying them to keep doing it!

Do you have a link for that? I heard Bush said it but i thought Bliar kept the fact that he was religious quiet until he left power. People tend to think religious people are strange in the UK.

edit on 10/8/2013 by EasyPleaseMe because: (no reason given)

I just reworded my post above because I remembered there was some controversy about the note taker of the minutes where Bush said what he did... I do remember hearing Blair on the tv..it may have been after he left power I don't know..but the best source is the Independent..will go see if I can find it. Either way.." In Gods name" is the justification for all wars we've been involved in....has been since ww1..the basis of the moral high ground period.

Ro


Edit:Found a link

This one was posted to the Guardian on Blair..on common dreams:
www.commondreams.org...

reply to post by Rosha


Once again, "In God's name", has been a cover for a whole host of things that don't have anything to do with God. In every war, there's been a political agenda tied to it also.

Originally posted by daskakik
So they are saying that the right to follow "no religion" has equal protection under the First as following a religion. Only a good spin could turn that idea into one that implies that athesim is a religion.

I think the curious logic is on your part.

When there is an

EQUATING

of "A" with "B"

it is virtually always because there's a GREAT DEAL OF SIMILARITY.

- - - -

This link provides an interesting and plausible cast to the issue:

In what case did the SCOTUS rule Atheism as religion ?

askville.amazon.com/…OTUS-rule-Atheism-religion/...
Found on: Yahoo! Search

In a unanimous decision in 1961, the Supreme Court reuled that Maryland's religious test violated ... The court didn't come right out and say atheism is a religion, ...

askville.amazon.com...

- - - - -

Atheism is a Religion Says US Supreme Court
December 01, 2009 10:07 AM EST (Updated: December 01, 2009 10:44 AM EST)

www.gather.com...

The atheist was still not satisfied, so he appealed the case. When the case was brought before the higher court, it was further considered, that although the prison officials did not deem atheism a religion, perhaps it should have been considered a religion because it was a group that was "religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being." The case, therefore, was finally judged by the State Supreme Court as not being in violation of free exercise because the atheist would still be able to practice his atheism whether or not he was allowed to form the group, however, his right to establishment of that group that was religious in nature was denied, and thus a violation of his First Amendment rights. This case sets precedence that atheism is considered a religion by the United States Supreme Court.

 This ruling raises a lot of issues and some questions. One of the questions that immediately comes to mind is that if the Supreme Court has declared Atheism to be a religion, then why are atheistic philosophies like Darwinism, whether taught in science class or not, still an atheist philosophy, allowed to be propagated in schools without also the creationist aspect of religion also allowed in the curriculum? It seems to me that atheists are being allowed to establish and practice their religion in their secularist and humanist curriculum in our public schools without allowing either the establishment or free exercise of any other religion but their own. They seem to be able to do this because they claim theirs isn’t a religion, but the Supreme Court has declared that it is. What’s wrong with this picture?

= = = = =


IN the case of atheism . . .

It has a list of the SAME factors OTHER RELIGIONS HAVE:

1. It is a statement and related behaviors about COSMOLOGY
2. It is a statement and related behaviors about deity/-ies
3. It is a statement and related behaviors about the consequences of #2 above in terms of relating to fellow man.
4. It is a statement and related behaviors about the consequences of #2 above in terms of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
5. It is a statement and related behaviors about the consequences of #2 above in terms of cultural responsibilities.
6. It is a statement of emotionally energetic VALUES and related behaviors more or less exactly as OTHER RELIGIONS ARE.
7. It is a statement about eternal consequences and related behaviors just as OTHER RELIGIONS ARE.
8. It is a statement about the major issues of life and related behaviors just as OTHER RELIGIONS ARE.

[color=6699FF]if it
WALKS, QUACKS, WADDLES, FLIES, FLOATS, LAYS EGGS, EATS DUCKWEED, HAS DUCK "DNA," . . . LIKE A DUCK . . . IT'S HIGHLY LIKELY THAT IT'S A DUCK.

As I've noted . . . when I was working on my PhD Dissertation . . . the Atheist Journal that I received from Madelyn M O'Hare (sp?) [color=CC9966]read EXACTLY LIKE A PENTECOSTAL CHRISTIAN JOURNAL with merely a few key words and phrases changed.

I realize that the atheists have a VERY VESTED INTEREST in denying the RELIGIOUS NATURE of ATHEISM.

And . . . [color=6699FF]actually, DENIAL is a KEY ASPECT of much mental illness.
.

Great another way to impede gun rights.

Everyone says mental illness should be an automatic disqualification for gun ownership, even something as small as depression or folks who are OCD, now they want to ban guns for the religious.

Reading through - I realize that the OP as well as most respondents here in this thread do not understand the origins of this 'psychiatric' tactic under discussion. Hint - think of what's really behind the stratagem of "anti-semitism" - think of the stratagem that guides laws regarding "hate-crimes" - think about who controls all of this type legislation in both Houses of Congress as well as throughout the government and in the culture at large. Think AIPAC, ADL, SPLC, and of so many other Zionist controlled PAC's and various groups masquerading as"civil rights organizations" - in a word think Zionism.

I don't have the space here in this post to even delve into the Zionist control of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve - the IRS and many other agencies that have been re-designed from their original intentions in order to bring create chaos and to bring general harm to the American people. That's a topic for a separate thread of its own.

But I shall continue with the present discussion: ... ... ... They (the Zionist's) are in control of the entire nation all the way from the Judicial system to the MSM, and on through the rest of our society, and they surely are in control the psychiatric community generally, hence the writing and frequent up-dating of the so-called psychiatric "Manuals" that are used to determine and to evaluate the alleged 'condition' of persons as to their respective mental states from everything to an appearance before the courts to application for gun registration and the list goes on and on and on.

These Talmudic Zionist's have as their primary mission - at the very top of their nefarious agenda - to destroy Christianity in American and in the world. They want to destroy our culture and our American (traditionally Christian influenced) way of life, and because of the cowardice and the 'weakness' of the average American

I don't think it really matters. They're coming to a point where they're going to control our mind (re: our thoughts) by proxy .But again, it won't matter. Look at AI. They're creating ever smarter machines and smarter software. Machine and humans are going to blend together. A human and machine hybrid world. That's what we're approaching like a train going downhill.

Let me just say that there might be "stable" people out there reading these and/or reading other posts and reassuringly thinking how great it's to be normal, but let me warn you, there're other forces outside yourself that're slowly coalescing and they threaten what it's to be human. This includes everything that's human, all of our flaws and all of our virtues. It's all in the crosshairs in this game. It's evolution. It doesn't have to knock or warn you. It comes when you're asleep.

Nothing stays the same. Nobody is safe, unless they embrace change so much that they lose their own identity. Sometimes I think that death is the only way we retain our identity.

And the reaosn it doesn't matter what they do with our minds or how much they control them is that there're countless other forces out there pushing us down a predetermined road. To me, there's no stopping it. We're like a boulder tumbling down a steep hill. Only time can stop it.

So I'm retired, basically. I will resist until my last dying breath, but I can't stop it. Call me a coward or say I'm a quiter, I don't care really. This evolution game is exhausting. No matter how much we try to justify what it's to be human, people in the future will disregard and smash our thinking. That's how convinced they will be that our definition doesn't work and needed adjustments.

reply to post by Guenter

I have always been convinced that any religion is a form of mental illness.

Sort of the same way I've always been convinced psychology is a form of mental illness or at the very least a pseudoscience (how's phrenology working out for you?).

So much for freedom of religion, eh?

reply to post by jonnywhite


All well and good - BUT please keep in mind that you were 'named' from the beginning of time - by Christ. My post is about the true enemies of Christ - enemies of the Resurrection..............your salvation is in Him and in no other.

Be careful when you speak of "evolution" because if you are considering as legitimate - even for one second - the heretical nonsense that is Darwinism - beware - for your very soul is in danger of being lost forever.!!!

Mental health regarding religion is really not about believing the religion.

The mental health issue is about those who actually think that they are the same person whose words they are speaking.

reply to post by FuocoFuente


Uhhhhhhhhh . . . mostly no.

There are Jews who are Jews by DNA only and not by beliefs and Godly practices in worship of Yahweh.

They are Satanists. They seek Israel's ultimate destruction regardless of how they may have helped her formation. God is able to use even His enemies . . . and even to use Israel's enemies in behalf of fulfilling HIS promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

John Warwick Montgomery wrote a book decades ago--called something like:

THE JEWS, THE BIBLE AND THE SUPERNATURAL.

He outlined how the Children of Promise become super evil when they fail to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

But the blokes you are pointing to have nothing to do with Zion as the home, mountain, focus of God Almighty. They are His enemies, too.

They believe that with satan and the purported ET (fallen angel) critters, they will be able to defeat even Almighty God at Armageddon. They are deluded.

God WILL have them in derision.

However, much bloodshed will occur at their hands. And the trashing of Christianity--particularly Pentecostals and fundamentalists is a key part of their plan. They KNOW that the battle is primarily spiritual and they seek to cut off their main spiritual enemies.

They fail to sufficiently appreciate that they more the authentic church of Christ and God is persecuted, the MORE POWERFUL spiritually it becomes.

I strongly believe that very young children will declare something in Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah--e.g. that the earth swallow up a general and his whole army--and it will become instantly so in the coming years.

The persecutions and deaths of authentic Christians will become common in the looming persecutions that many on ATS seem on the edge of their seats ready to cheer on.

However . . . GOD WILL HAVE THE LAST LAUGH.

Originally posted by Dryson
Mental health regarding religion is really not about believing the religion.

The mental health issue is about those who actually think that they are the same person whose words they are speaking.

From the OP's link, some quotes:

........
Taylor admits that the scope of what could end up being labelled "fundamentalist" is expansive. She continued: "I am not just talking about the obvious candidates like radical Islam or some of the more extreme cults. I am talking about things like the belief that it is OK to beat your children. These beliefs are very harmful but are not normally categorized as mental illness. In many ways that could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage, that really do a lot of harm."
............
On a much larger and potentially more fruitful scale is the recognition that the entire domain of religious beliefs, political convictions, patriotic nationalist fervor are in themselves powerful platforms for nurturing "Us vs Them" paranoid delusional fantasies which work out destructively in a 9/11 attack or a Hiroshima/Nagasaki orgy of mass destruction.

What we perceive from our perspective as our legitimate self-defensive reaction to the psychosis of the enemy, is from the perspective of the same enemy our equally malignant psychotic self-obsession.
..............
Read more: www.digitaljournal.com...

So what it means is beliefs become mental illness if it does harm to society. That seeem like a curious and particular definition to me, if it can include such things as spanking your children. Just think of all the things fundamentalist parents might do inadvertently to their children.

More broadly, this is about strong idealism that can lead to things that harm others or harm society. This isn't just about religion, as the OP implied. It's much more inclusive than that.

What's harm? That's what gets me...

reply to post by BO XIAN


I can totally understand that my friend, no worries.

I figured it must've been lost in translation somewhere

I too get weary of the bashing of various groups for no other reason than it's the popular band wagon of the month.

~Tenth