Well, note I didn’t say “all”
Very well, add “some”.
If that is the only problem you had with my post…?
The mentally ill crack came from me. It was in response to what I would think if my son “found god”. Since he has long been a non-believer I would truly question his sanity if he suddenly veered. I suspect that the believers among you would feel the same if your child told you one day that they thought they were abducted by aliens.
I don’t think that people raised in a religious environment, and who are believers because of that, are mentally ill.
Thank you for clarifying that. I understand what you’re trying to say now.
However, I am curious—are there any circumstances under which your child could decide to become religious where you would not think he was “mentally ill”?
So I, who was raised without religious guidance and was an atheist for most of my childhood, am mentally ill because I began practicing religion? You see no way for someone to find spirituality and retain their sanity?
Just out of curiosity, what if we don’t? What you gonna do about it?
I’m not sure he’s saying that. I await his opinion on this. I do understand that if someone has been firmly fixed with one set of beliefs and suddenly changes them (whichever way that goes), then it’ll probably shock everyone around them. To call it “mentally ill” might be a little extreme, but I do know that if my mom (for instance) suddenly became an atheist, I’d be really shocked. If her transition was a gradual thing, I would be less shocked.
Well, I, for one, would consider someone who thought that to be, at worst, arrogant and assholish, at best, terribly rigid and intolerant. I can’t imagine how I could take someone who really believed that too seriously.
I don’t know, I raised my kids agnostic. Now my daughter is dating a boy who was raised Catholic who’s parents have very nearly disinherited him for his lack of belief. I would be surprised if my kids embraced religion (any organized religion), but not angry. I understand, from my own youth, the desire to make everything make sense. Turning to a Christian God is a great relief when you are scared and confused. There can be so much confort there. I think the parents need to calm down and allow the kid to grow up. Challenging them at this point may only make matters much worse.
Sacrifice a virgin white pygmy goat with a tungsten dirk so that Ktan’nyeer would open your eyes to the fearsome visiage of his truth, heathen!
Seriously: Probably just write you off as a crackpot. I mean, I don’t know of any widely respected psychiatric or psychological association that recognizes a disorder whose sole symptom is religious belief, so you’d obviously just be making up your own rules as you went along and would therefore be quite irrational–not the kind of person that’s worth having any kind of a discussion with.
I’d accept deist beliefs a lot more quickly than fundamentalist beliefs. Zagadka, yes if one of my kid’s fundamental beliefs changed overnight (and the kid was past the age where he changes his mind at a whim), then I’m going to wonder if he’s mentally ill. Now it’s possible that his change of heart could be the result of a miracle or something, but I’m going to rule out all rational explanations before looking to supernatural events for answers.
Tough question, but if someone reaches maturity without believing in god/religion and then suddenly begins to believe I would expect mental illness. This would be especially true if they heard god talking to them personally. I know this sounds harsh, but what would you think of someone who started to believe in alien abductions or pixies?
Hey, we don’t find the image of Hellfire compelling. Why would the ill-will of some anonymous internet acquaintance matter?
The very premise of this thread, though, is hostile. It basically asks atheists why they have little time for believers, and their responses invite believers to reflexively bash atheists. Were this the Pit, at least, we could dispense with this “I would consider” non-insulting-insult bullshit and just cut loose.
Alien abductions and pixies aren’t comparable to what many non-Fundamentalists believe in. A lot of people who believe in a God don’t believe that it exists in the same way that you, I, aliens, pixies, space squids, et. al. exist. God is often a much more abstract concept.
So . . . you’re saying that many former atheists (who are now religious) are actually mentally ill? I’m with Metacom on this one—that’s irrational.
I would not expect that it would matter. But not taking you seriously and a belief that some of y’all are irrational would, indeed, be what some of us would think. That’s a fact Jack. :shrug:
So that is why there were all those posts by theists calling atheists irrational, unreasonable, mentally ill, sheep, childlike, ignorant, etc.
Get drunk and let my respect for this country/society drop another notch?
Ha, joke’s on you. I’m not in your country. You’re losing respect for your own country through the words of a furriner.
The thread premise was perfect for mutual hostility. The OP may as well have asked (by way of example) if some people would feel uncomfortable if their children married someone of a different ethnicity, and why. There’s no way for anyone to try to explain their discomfort without inviting a dogpile. In this case, though, the rational people are being asked to defend why they want their children to be rational, too. Same result.
As you may or may not be aware, I am a certified, card carrying schizophrenic, and as someone with fairly personal experience in the field, as well as someone who has spent a fair portion of time in mental wards and therapy programs around others with true mental disease, I assure you, and you may or may not take me for my word on this, but religion and mental illness are very far removed. In fact, religion is frequently used as part of the therapy proccess for many mental illnesses, the least of which are not addiction and depression.
You might imagine that someone who suffers from a true mental illness may, in fact, be mildly upset about people using the term for serious and very real medical problems being bandied about in a partisan game… and you would be right.
In any event, there is a fine line between a schizophrenic hallucination of seeing god or aliens or magical pixies, and emotionally feeling a divine spirit. While you and (it seems) many other atheists believe that “finding god” means literally turning a corner and seeing a visage of the divine, you greatly misunderstand what the term means, and merely show your own inexperience with religion.
Myself and many religious people would never claim to know what god is, how it works, or anything else. We just know that there is a presence, and we know what it feels like to be in that presence. It is like being in a room with a long lost dearly loved relative. There is no physical link between the two of you, no scientific measurment or anything else, but there is, nonetheless, an experience that can best be termed metaphysical.
For some people, this comes in the form of touching god in a time of need. For others, it can be triggered by great depression - the loss of a loved one and a sudden feeling of their presence. The metaphysical can not be measured, it can not be argued off as some kind of mass schizophrenia, and it can’t be reasonably explained. It just is.
From a purely rational, logical, scientific point of view, many things that should have no effect somehow have tremendous effect. That is all I know. And I know I enjoy that feeling, I know it makes me feel at peace. If I can reach it through meditation and, yes, maybe even ritual, I will, and I do.
I don’t care if you agree with me, if you practice the same way as me, or whatever, but you can, at the very least, have the common respect to not blow it, myself, and the billions of others that feel similarly off as irrational, non-critical thinking mental patients who believe in magic pixies dancing through the air. That, sir, is your concept of religion, and, much like your (and my, and anyone’s) concept of many other things, is subject to being incorrect.
To conclude, I also do not care if you do not raise your children with any religious direction or instruction. In fact, I prefer it, that each person find their own path, if they have one. I merely point out that placing them in a cage will not result in them becoming like you in every way, and you instead should be accepting and loving of your children and your fellow man.
Which is why I added (society) after country. We are of mutual relation, I would presume.
To be perfectly fair, I did point out that one poster’s reasoning was, indeed, child-like.
Well, no offense, but I’m definitely glad a self-described “certified, card carrying schizophrenic” isn’t my kid.
There’s a major mistake on your part. We don’t put our children in cages, we’d simply be disappointed if they decided to lock themselves in cages of their own choosing.