# How do you distinguish religion from insanity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 15, 2002, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-distinguish-religion-from-insanity/98441 "2002-03-15T09:18:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-distinguish-religion-from-insanity/98441/61 "2002-03-24T23:53:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*Still too tricky; what makes you think anybody holds the absolute standard on what is and isn’t ‘there’? > What you could just as well be saying is “that you directly percieve something that I am unable to directly percieve”; who is right? \*\* Nobody holds the absolute standard. That’s why \* in practise \* we tend to go with the democratic route - if a lot of people think something exists we either accept this or suspend our judgement. Of course, it is possible that we might make an incorrect judgement about this. If we, as a society, hold enough erroneous views about the state of the world, in fact we’re _bound_ to make incorrect judgements, probably frequently. Then you get something like the Nigerian egg situation - a person could report ‘hearing voices’ in a culturally accepted fashion and the people around them would make an incorrect judgement(_) that they were sane based on their belief that such stuff does happen. (_) In my personal, possibly fallible opinion, of course…🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-distinguish-religion-from-insanity/98441/62 "2002-03-25T00:08:58Z")
I don’t really have time at the moment to go on participating in this. But I’d just like to say two things. Firstly, **MrO** I thought your first post was wonderfully well put, I don’t know why you felt the need to apologise for it in your second post. Secondly, thanks Gaudere for fixing up my formatting above. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Doctor\_Goo\_Fee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Goo_Fee)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-distinguish-religion-from-insanity/98441/63 "2002-03-25T02:29:23Z")
If an ancient Roman happened across a time machine, dialed in 2002, showed up on your doorstep and asserted in total seriousness that Zeus, et. al. were the unquestioned masters of the universe, that the reason the sun moves across the sky is because Apollo drives a flaming chariot across the heavens each day (as opposed to the earth’s circling of the sun), you might say he is insane. Similarly, if a Christian were to hop in HIS time machine and pop into the year 4004, his rants about Jesus’ ressurection, the holy trinity, and God creating the universe in seven days would probably be viewed as total claptrap-- this Christian would most likely be considered insane. “How do you distinguish religion from insanity?” wait several thousand years and it becomes clear that religion IS insane… So let’s hear it for the visionaries– Kudos to the ancient Romans who recognized polytheism as irrational… Kudos to our contemporaries who recognize monotheism as irrational… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-distinguish-religion-from-insanity/98441/64 "2002-03-25T02:36:57Z")
On the other hand, if someone’s smart enough to get their hands on, and use, a time machine, I think I’d be taking what they say pretty seriously. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-distinguish-religion-from-insanity/98441.md?page=3)