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Faith and madness, am I too harsh?

Tim the plumber

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I watched some of a program examining the inmates of a US mental instution last night.

They were predominately schizopathic. The characteristics of this generally include an obsession with religion.

I don't know the degree to which the religion is the cause of the effect or if they simply reinforce each other.

The point i am coming to in this thread is that the denial of reality/evaision/lying I find coming from the religious is not perhaps as concious or deliberate as I presume.

The mindset that has little skepticism in dealing with the god question has the same lack of barrier to any random thought coming into their head. The man who had been speeding due to the primemister of Israel telling him to do so in his mind via telepathy has little processing ability to stop any idea from gaining a sense of being real in his head.

Similarly the guy who had problems with voices and seeing things that were not there would be hard pressed to hold out against the bombardment of ideas that the modern world throws at us all.

Perhaps the best way to reduce madness is to teach good methodology of thinking and link that with simple demanding physical tasks. I reccomend dry stone walling as the most sanity building task there is but whatever works.

Is the lack of ability for atheists like myself to communicate with the religious here because we are not addressing the basic methods of thinking or that we are in fact doing this and the religious are so deeply, either naturally or by indoctrination, in a different mental structure?
 
You're not too harsh, you're Tim.
Your OP is thought-provoking and reasonably presented.
This is just to say I'm on board.

Namaste.
 


“The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/711770-the-christian-admits-that-the-universe-is-manifold-and-even​
 
1, We science/atheist types are never 100% confident. Doubt is the nature of understanding anything and the whole basis of thinking straight is that your opinion can change given good reason to do so.

2, It takes a great deal of mental flexibility to comprehend the fact of Angle replying here for me. I am not going to be antagonistic where possible.

3, OK, Angel, how do you select the ideas you deam worthy of being believed?
 
1. Doubting religion is not what Chesterton is talking about. Do you ever doubt materialism? That's the test of doubt in this case.
2. Angle is replying to you, not for you. Antagonism is uncalled-for, as long as we both remain civil. Nothing is at stake here after all.
3. Ideas worthy of belief are ideas possessed of justification.

Let's start by acknowledging that inferring to the madness of religious belief from the religious belief of madmen is a fallacy.
 
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1, The intelligent doubt everything. That material survives this skepticism and God does not makes me an atheists.

3, Given that the challeng always posted to you of the atheist is to provide some sort of justification, evidence, of God you do not seem to be following this doctrine.
 
Has materialism in fact survived doubt in your personal experience, Tim? Will you kindly share with us an expression of this doubt that materialism has survived?

You assert that I have not provided what I consider justification for a belief in God. Is this assertion based on the evidence of my posts and threads, or is it a standard charge to level at theists? Mind you, I am fully prepared to excavated posts and threads of mine that show this assertion to be false on its face.

Now, as per the omitted line of my post above, can we get from you an acknowledgement that "inferring to the madness of religious belief from the religious belief of madmen is a fallacy"?
 

If you have managed to show some evidence that God exists that would be a first. Please show such evidence.

I believe in the physical world because everything I do in it works in a predictable, consistent manner. Every test I can do results in the reality of the world being demonstrated. Try walking through a wall. It will not go well.

Now, as per the omitted line of my post above, can we get from you an acknowledgement that "inferring to the madness of religious belief from the religious belief of madmen is a fallacy"?
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If you can show why it is a reasonable position to believe in God but not fairies.
 
My question (based on Chesterton's charge) was as to whether you, Tim, have ever personally put your materialism in doubt? Citing walls you've never been able to walk through is not responsive -- it is not doubt, but confirmation. More to the point of the question would be, for example, whether the hard problem of consciousness, which science has no answer for, has ever given rise to doubt in you concerning a thoroughgoing materialism?

Elsewhere I have offered two of my own arguments for the existence of God: one based on inference to the best explanation and the principle of sufficient reason; the other based on the meaningfulness of the world and the Semiotic Principle.

My twice-repeated request for a mutual acknowledgement has nothing at all to do with God or fairies; it involves a question of logic, a fallacy of reasoning. I repeat it here:
Can we get from you an acknowledgement that "inferring to the madness of religious belief from the religious belief of madmen is a fallacy"?

 

1, Testing implies doubt. That the world passes each test reduces the doubt.

2, Science has a full and confident understanding about conciousness. You are ignorant of science there.


This is evaision. Either this is as is plain to me deliberate lying or it is something else. Is it some sort of different to straight thinking mental process where any thought you don't like the look of is simply not dealt with? Is that the extent of your mental filter of ideas?


Can we get from you an acknowledgement that "inferring to the madness of religious belief from the religious belief of madmen is a fallacy"?
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No. I think the strong correlation between the mad, religion and thinking such as you demonstrate as well as all others who I have encoutered shows that religion and delusional madness aare very strongly linked. That cause and effect are not clear or that it may simply be a mutually reinforcing loop is not relevant.

I have encountered clever people who lose all ability to reason when the god argument happens.
 

I would have to agree that clinging to weakly supported beliefs probably requires a slight degree of mental illness. And the stronger one holds to those beliefs the more they may be influenced by mental illness.

The bible tells me homosexuality is bad--slight degree of mental illness.
God told me to kill gays---strong level of mental illness.
 

Talk about evasion! You've tested your materialism by trying to walk through walls. Sure.
You are mistaken about science and the hard problem of consciousness, but I only tried to help you with an example. So far you have not offered anything from your personal experience -- from your personal experience no less -- that would contradict Chesterton's point about materialists. This is what we're mooting here, just to keep us on track.

This of yours I cannot comprehend:
Is it some sort of different to straight thinking mental process where any thought you don't like the look of is simply not dealt with? Is that the extent of your mental filter of ideas?
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I cannot understand what you're saying here, let alone what it has to do with my reminding you of the arguments I've made in this forum.
Evasion? You claimed I made no arguments; I pointed out that I have. What are you on about here?

Your inference from the religious belief of madmen to the madness of religious belief is the oldest logical fallacy in the book.
 
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You are too harsh. Faith is fantasy wish fulfillment. Most people with faith behave no differently than atheists do in their everyday lives. The default human state is that of survival in the physical world. Faith is not much different from other forms of entertainment through fantasy. Only when fantasy gets mixed up with everyday survival activity does it start to border on madness. But even then, humans are quite resilient and stubbornly retain the ability to survive.
 

The sort of concrete thinking and inability to appreciate literary symbolism on an abstract level, and taking it all as literal truth, is a prominent feature of schizophrenia. This is not only true of religious scripture, but any sort of abstract literature with metaphors and symbolism, especially things like poetry. They take it all very literally. I am in the medical field. Believe me when I tell you cannot reason with a schizophrenic. It is a very biological/chemical phenomenon. They just need medication.


That's not to say ALL religious people are like that. But many of those who insist on literal understandings of the ancient literature some call "scripture" have elements of this sort of inability at abstract thinking.
 

What little I know about your field makes me think the determination of hyperbolic literalism or delusionality by the clinician is as much art as it is science. Is this correct?
And I wonder on which side of that determination the practices of his Ghanian relatives described by philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah in this TED talk would fall.
The talk is 14 minutes, but Appiah is very charming.

 
Angel said:
What little I know about your field makes me think the determination of hyperbolic literalism or delusionality by the clinician is as much art as it is science. Is this correct?
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Even though I am in the medical field, I am not a mental health specialist. I just have some training and background in it, and deal with it as part of my work in another field. So it's not really "my field". So of course I would want you to take what I say with a grain of salt. Of course, like everything, there is an element of art in making the call, but not THAT much. Concrete thinking among schizophrenics is a very peculiar thing, and it's hard to miss when you see it.

 

I listened to Appiah. He does seem very charming and very insightful. I enjoyed it very much. One thing that exists in the DSM manual to sort out an individual's cultural beliefs from psychiatric delusions is that the belief being asserted by a psychiatric patient should NOT already exist in that person's culture. If a person has grown up with certain prevalent cultural mythologies and beliefs, anything they say based on it should not be construed as being evidence of a psychiatric illness.

It is interesting, for example, to look at the criteria in the DSM manual for diagnosing "Delusional Disorder". I want to draw your attention in particular to criterion #7. :

1.The patient expresses an idea or belief with unusual persistence or force.
2.That idea appears to have an undue influence on the patient's life, and the way of life is often altered to an inexplicable extent.
3.Despite his/her profound conviction, there is often a quality of secretiveness or suspicion when the patient is questioned about it.
4.The individual tends to be humorless and oversensitive, especially about the belief.
5.There is a quality of centrality: no matter how unlikely it is that these strange things are happening to him/her, the patient accepts them relatively unquestioningly.
6.An attempt to contradict the belief is likely to arouse an inappropriately strong emotional reaction, often with irritability and hostility.
7.The belief is, at the least, unlikely, and out of keeping with the patient's social, cultural, and religious background.
8.The patient is emotionally over-invested in the idea and it overwhelms other elements of their psyche.
9.The delusion, if acted out, often leads to behaviors which are abnormal and/or out of character, although perhaps understandable in the light of the delusional beliefs.
10.Individuals who know the patient observe that the belief and behavior are uncharacteristic and alien.

________________
So what does all this mean to our discussion? Well, simply that in the presence of prevalent cultural delusions, you cannot diagnose individual members of that culture with a mental illness. That's probably because if an idea or story, no matter how dysfunctional, outrageous, or outlandish, is hammered into a child's head repeatedly from the time they are at a tender and impressionable age, then it's going to be no surprise that they will continue to believe that idea when they grow up. But that doesn't make the story or idea any less dysfunctional, outrageous, or outlandish.
 
ataraxia said:
... Concrete thinking among schizophrenics is a very peculiar thing, and it's hard to miss when you see it.
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This issue you've introduced -- that of concrete thinking -- is a fruitful way to think about the theism/atheism divide, ataraxia.
I looked for an example and found this:

I don't know, but it seems to me that one might fairly view reductive physicalism or eliminative materialism in the light of concrete thinking. That's not to say that reductive physicalism or eliminative materialism is a mental disorder, but only that this way of viewing the world is a form of extreme literalism and indicative of an inability to understand abstract concepts.

For example, to suggest to a reductive physicalist or eliminative materialist that consciousness is evidence of spirit in the world, puzzled he looks for ghosts in the machine. I don't mean this archly. Gilbert Ryle, an important 20th century philosopher (who coined the phrase "ghost in the machine"), and the entire school of logical positivists that followed him, seem to have suffered from a form of concrete thinking. They looked for the literal existence of abstractions and finding none dismissed them. Unlike the patient in the example above, they looked around for eggshells and concluded the doctor was talking nonsense.
 
I'm much obliged to you for the considered and informative post, ataraxia. The DSM distinction between the cultural and the idiosyncratic seems reasonable enough on its face, although this layman must confess to a certain cognitive uneasiness before the notion that D(x) is illness in case x is an individual but not illness in case x is a group of individuals.

Note, for example, how naturally, in the post quoted above, how easily and naturally what you designate as "cultural beliefs" in your first paragraph (where you distinguish them from "psychiatric delusions" according to the DSM) become for you, in your last paragraph, "cultural delusions"; and how, while still distinguishing these "cultural delusions" from "mental illness," you quite naturally and easily represent them as "dysfunctional, outrageous, or outlandish."

Accordingly, Appiah's father, who offered whiskey and words to his ancestors in his daily drinking ritual, was either mentally disordered or socially dysfunctional. No third possibility is allowed.

I believe there is a third possibility: mentally healthy and socially functional.

Of course, this just means we differ in our views of religious belief, you and I. And so be it, I say.

Namaste.
 

Abstractions physically exist. All ideas do.
 

Well, let's take a look at the example you gave about concrete thinking:

"An inability to understand abstract concepts; extreme literalism.

Example: When his doctor used the phrase “we’re walking on eggshells,” the patient immediately looked down around his feet and appeared puzzled by the empty floor around him."

So now let's look at the definition of "religious fundamentalism":


Doesn't the definition seem to fit the example you gave?

For example, let's compare the religious notion, at least in western religion, of "arising from the dead". We often use that phrase with some poetic license in our everyday life, like "Man, I slept so well last night, I feel like I woke up this morning having arisen from the dead!"

Now we all know what that person means. It's poetic license. All they really mean is that they really had a good night's sleep. But to a schizophrenic, it might all of a sudden seem like a really fantastical, miraculous, and amazing thing. So similarly, when western religious scripture talks about holy men giving life to the dead, or arising from the dead, or giving sight to the blind, etc... could it be that these things may need to be interpreted not quite so literally and concretely as well? Between the atheist and the theist, who has the more concrete thinking here? Who is the group who, like the patient in your example looking for the eggshells under his feet, is wondering about the exact date when the dead will literally rise again, or the dead come back from the skies?
 
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Doesn't the definition seem to fit the example you gave?
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Yes, but.

Remember my application of the definition to logical positivism? The definition seems to fit that entire school of philosophy, including Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap, and other renowned philosophers of the 20th century, who defied 2000 years of philosophy in their rejection of metaphysics as nonsense, as per criterion #7 in the DMS.

But what does this apparent fit between a DSM criterion for diagnosing a delusional disorder and a school of philosophy amount to?
Nothing at all, I'd say. It is an amusing, perhaps even a thought-provoking extrapolation, but it is in the end fallacious to conclude that logical positivists suffered from a delusional disorder, or even that logical positivists were given to concrete thinking as defined in the DSM. I could make the case, but it would be for amusement, or polemics.

Pretty much the same goes for literalism in Biblical exegesis. Calling it concrete thinking or trying to associate Biblical literalism with delusional disorder is amusing and lends itself to polemics, but in the end it is a fallacious extrapolation.

Biblical exegesis involves too broad a field of differing approaches, running across a spectrum from literalism to the allegorical. In the context of biblical exegesis literalism is just not comparable to looking around for the eggshells of a metaphor. It is one of the ways the Bible is interpreted.
Is "rising from the dead" in the Bible to be taken as a metaphor, an allegory, or literally? The answer depends on what school of exegesis is responding to the question.

Besides, even in the field of psychology concrete thinking is one criterion among many criteria making up a whole picture.
To pick out one criterion from a DSM profile for the purpose of disparagement outside the clinical universe of discourse is just polemics, it seems to me.

As to the fallacious reasoning involved here, informally it is an association fallacy. You know, Hitler was a fan of Wagner and Nietzsche. Angel is a fan of Wagner and Nietsche. Angel is a Nazi.

In formal logic, this is a fallacy of undistributed middle, reasoning to an identity from a shared property or predicate.

All S are P.
Angel is P.
Therefore Angel is S.

So, yes, but.


Erratum: I should like to correct an error of mine in an earlier post. I said that the logical positivists followed Ryle in time; it was the other way around.
 
It seems to me like the religious are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They are looking for those literal eggshells under their feet, but then when we, like the logical positivists, point out that there are no literal eggshells, they accuse us of concrete thinking and not being able to take literary devices like symbolism and parables abstractly. You guys have to decide which it's going to be. You can't try to force concrete policy decisions in the real world of facts based on very concrete literal readings of ancient scriptures and literature, and then, when we object, to accuse us of not being able to take things abstractly. I enjoy a good poem with lots of symbolism or piece of literature as much as the next guy. But I can make the distinction between the world of art and literature the real world I must operate in. They are different realms. You cannot mix the two.

Who does this? Well, take for example, this guy below. He got himself elected to congress saying this stuff, and then get to serve on the House Science committee to boot, like this:


So here, he is not acknowledging that concrete scientific facts and abstract religious poetic language are entirely different realms and not to be mixed. He is not acknowledging that it is apples and oranges. He is putting them both in the same realm, the concrete realm, and telling us how the poetic abstract language of Biblical literature should be the basis for concrete decision making in the real world of facts. He is looking hard for the eggshells under his feet, and walking around the room as if those eggshells are actually there, rather than just a figure of speech or poetic license.

You can see how we might be concerned about someone like this trying to make decisions for us.

And he is not alone, of course. I am sure you know of many other such examples. I am sure you know of the Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions for their critically ill children because of something they have read in their scriptural literature, and are trying to apply such literature to the concrete world of science and facts. I am sure you have heard things like this:


If the religious promise to keep the poetic and abstract out of the world of real facts and decisions in the real world, I would have no problem with their abstract stories. They are beautiful. I love reading the Bible as a work of literature, much as I love reading Dante's Divine Comedy or Homer's Iliad. But I am still not going to go operating in the real world as if Sea God Poseidon is really on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans. That's just an inability to separate the abstract from the real world, in the same way the Schizophrenic is looking for the literal eggshells under his feet just because of a figure of speech the doctor used.
 
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