Religious Fundamentalism 'May Be Categorised As Mental Illness & Cured By Science'

[amuse bouche]

Posted on HuffPo UK

"Religious fundamentalism and cruelty to children may one day be treated in the same way as mental illness, a neuroscientist has speculated.

Kathleen Taylor, a research scientist at Oxford University’s Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, says strong negative beliefs could be eradicated using techniques already in the works.

--

Links between extreme faiths and mental health have been made before, with former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Dr Dinesh Bhugra, highlighting recent religious conversions being more associated with a developing psychotic mental illness."

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/30/religious-fundamentalism-categorised-mental-illness-cured-_n_3359267.html?utm_hp_ref=uk#comments

[snooper2]

1. The difference between fundies are "regular" religous folks

is that fundies really DO believe that shit.....

Literally...

Everyone else who doesn't act like a fundie but practices religion is really just doing lip service to be "one of the crowd".

So the linkage provided in the article should really make sense to folks

[el_bryanto]

3. This is the unthinking DU religious feeling right here in a nutshell - a clear example.

"Of course Decent people don't really believe in their religion - they aren't the problem." Do you understand how offensive that is? Do you care? I don't mean to single you out - many at DU clearly feel this way; but it's a pernicious stereotype that verges on bigotry.

Bryant

[snooper2]

6. sorry if the truth is offensive..

If you don't really "believe" all the stories in your holy book you probably don't really REALLY believe in the sky god.


Kind of like when you are at somebody's house for dinner or some event where a prayer is held. People don't want to be the only one not bowing their head as to not garner attention, get strange looks.

Bandwagon effect-

[el_bryanto]

8. What a childlike view of religion.

If I don't believe literally in every verse of the bible I don't believe in God? Very silly.

Bryant

[snooper2]

10. It's god's word right?

It's not silly, it's clear cut. You can't say your a christian and not believe in things like end-of-times and locusts and shit. It doesn't work like that. Over the past couple hundred years views of religion have morphed and morphed into shit like this:

"I'm a Christian but I think the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and god may have started the universe with the big bang, and those stories in the bible are just allegories and blah blah blah."

At that point you really aren't a Christian any more you are just doing some kind of faux lip service. You don't get to re-interpret your holy book so it doesn't sound so fucking ridiculous. The reason this has happened over the past couple hundred years is science has proven everything in that book to be well, bullshit.

So people were born into a faith, like the ceremonies, give it some lip service but don't REALLY believe. The fundies are the true believers.

[el_bryanto]

14. This is because you see religion as strictly a checklist of beliefs.

You imagine there's some list of beliefs that Christians must belief, and if I can't tick every box I don't really believe in any of it. A few points to educate you, my ignorant friend.

* Even within Catholicism, there have been vast debates over what various scriptures mean and how they are to be interpreted. And once you open it up to all Christianity, well, I hope it hasn't escaped your notice that we have hundreds of separate Christian Denominations throughout the west. The hypothetical real Christianity checklist that you imagine cannot possibly account for all of these variations.

* Your solution to that would be to pick the most regressive nasty version of the Biblical Checklist and hold that up as truth, and say that all Christians who don't adhere to this regressive list aren't real Christians.

* You also ignore the difference between Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy. My faith is much more concerned with what you do than what you believe. It's not a set of beliefs, it's a way to live your life, with the end goal being to become closer to God and have a relationship with the divine, while also serving my fellow men down here on earth.

You should perhaps educate yourself a bit more. Not that I'm expecting you to convert or anything, but surely arguing your position in a way that doesn't make you sound like a damn fool would be preferable.

Bryant

[snooper2]

17. I could care less about all the nuances you just brought up

Either you pretty much follow your holy book or you don't---


Did god create the oceans and flying things and crawling things or not? You don't get to just pick out the happy parts and make some kind of 21st century "new view" of religion so it doesn't sound so ridiculous. Either own it or don't....

[amuse bouche]

24. #thingsthegodlysay

Awesome hash tag on twitter. Your post would fit right in

[snooper2]

25. LOL

I love you too!


I'll go to hell if you show me where it is on google maps

[el_bryanto]

32. Oh as a Christian of course I am required to love you

Which is why i am telling you to change your ways and stop being an ignorant bigot - you would be happier.

Bryant

[snooper2]

33. I'm sure the religous will be okay...

that's what church is for right

[REP]

43. But to say "You should love your enemies;

and to convince you of this I will now proceed to cure this gentleman of cataract" would have been, to a man of Jesus's intelligence, the proposition of an idiot.

Androcles and The Lion, Preface. G B Shaw

[piratefish08]

81. "Which is why i am telling you to change your ways and stop being an ignorant bigot" said Jesus to

nobody, ever.....

[Warren Stupidity]

39. So do you believe in a supernatural being that created the universe?

Do you believe in any of the miracles in the Old Testament, if yes, which ones?

Do you believe that your god actively intercedes in our lives and in this physical universe?

Do you believe that a dead person, known as Jesus, became not dead?

[el_bryanto]

42. Yes, some of them, yes, and yes

I will comment that you are better at this than Snooper2.

More on Miracles. What is the purpose of a Miracle? Is it God just showing off? or is it to increase faith, provide instruction, and help one build a relationship with God? I personally believe it's the latter. Which means there are two types of miracles - miracles I personally witnessed and miracles I didn't personally witness. As for those I didn't witness, if they increase my faith or teach me something about how I should act or behave, isn't that the most important part, rather than literally how they occurred?

As for miracles I personally witness, well, I can't say I've witnessed anything spectacular. I just feel that I'm less of an asshole when I try to do the right thing and try to be close to God. And that's enough of a Miracle for me.

I hope this is a satisfactory answer.

Bryant

[REP]

44. But to say "You should love your enemies;

But the deepest annoyance arising from the miracles would be the irrelevance of the issue raised by them. Jesus's teaching has nothing to do with miracles. If his mission had been simply to demonstrate a new method of restoring lost eyesight, the miracle of curing the blind would have been entirely relevant. But to say "You should love your enemies; and to convince you of this I will now proceed to cure this gentleman of cataract" would have been, to a man of Jesus's intelligence, the proposition of an idiot.

Ibid

[Warren Stupidity]

67. Jefferson, Thomas, wrote his own version of the gospels, sans miracles.

One is left with an admirable teacher. Take away the voodoo and a humanist emerges. The fairy tales were required to create a competitive religion.

[Warren Stupidity]

66. No, it is a typical waffle of an answer.

It is why snooper2 went straight to the dichotomy between "true believers" and the rest of the self identified religious.

[el_bryanto]

72. Fair enough - if you want to create a continuum of belief say that at one end

are the true believers and at the other end are the true non-believers, than I'm probably not all the way as extreme as some. The problem, in my opinion, is that Snooper2 and possibly yourself, posit a continuum, but then for your judgement impose an either or statement - either I believe all of the most extreme things Christians believe or I'm not a real Christian.

And that I disagree with.

Bryant

[IdaBriggs]

80. It is called "heresy" and the penalty *used to be* DEATH.

It wouldn't have been personal; it would have been to save everyone else from being contaminated by your lack of belief if you talked about how you didn't believe "everything as written."

It is one of the reasons that "freedom of religion" was a *MAJOR* big deal in the United States, and why control over religious institutions (which get to interpret "the truth&quot were life and death struggles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy

You might call yourself by (fill in the blank/religion of choice), and the names may have been co-opted by different folks ranging from snake handling pentecostals to the unitarians to the riverside baptists through the Roman versus Orthodox catholics and the mormons, but a quick check list into "articles of faith" might help identify the brand practiced.

To the rest of them, HERETIC or UNBELIEVER or IDIOT.

Personally, I try to have respect for all of them, especially since so many of them diverged based on personality conflicts within groups of believers. After a few years, people just assume their variant has "always" been around. Or that they can trace when their version of "the truth" became "the only way to get to heaven."

[davekriss]

50. FWIW: My position on organized religion

This from a post I made in 2004 on Urban75 (where, back then, I was a prolific poster):

Religion
=====

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Alpha
re•li•gion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-ljn)
n.

... A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Just as Chomsky says there is a "language organ" in the brain, I think there is also a "spiritual organ" -- i.e., we are perhaps preprogrammed by countless generations of natural selection to pursue spiritual "truth", "salvation", "peace", and "meaning". To deny that pursuit with "zeal or conscientious devotion" is equally an expression of that preprogrammed given in our natures, albeit in disguised form.

Joseph Campbell describes 4 major cultural functions for religion (IIRC): (i) to engender sustaining and grounding "mystical" experience in a few (the founding roots of religions), (ii) to provide order and meaning that allows a political/economic system to flourish, (iii) to establish and justify a ruling priestly class that benefits a few and maintains the general order, (iv) to function as a screening myth that keeps system-contrarian truths from the minds of the non-privileged classes. There is nothing wrong with item one; it all goes downhill with the latter three. That preprogrammed pursuit of the spiritual gets hijacked again and again for sociopolitical purposes that maintain, sustain, and benefit selfish hierarchy -- and at complete variance (usually) from the "mystical" experiences that served to found the religious order in the first place -- steers us into discussions of our natures that spill far beyond just the "religious" in us.

Having said that, my wife (Kriss) is a devout Christian. I can say unequivocally that her church (a small charismatic church) is filled with men and women of good spirit who turn to Sundays for nourishment, comfort, and community. The values and ideals upheld are positive and healing. During the rest of the week many do much community work to alleviate the suffering of others. In and of itself there is nothing negative with this at all; on the contrary, this is a beautiful thing.

If I can wax metaphorically here I think there are levels to consciousness, spheres turning slowly within spheres. Up above are the spheres of transpersonal (mystical, spiritual, revelatory) experience. Down below are the spheres of the wounded child, the detritus of our tragic personal histories. In between are the spheres of the everyday self that balances the checkbook and clocks in at work. A retreat into any one at the cost of the others is disorder, disease.

The transpersonal in flight from the weight of the everyday and from acknowledgement of our woundings can lead to imbalance and fanaticism; a retreat below can lead to depression, emotional chaos, continuance and increase of pain. And a retreat into the everyday in denial of the above/below can lead to ennui, emptiness, and meaninglessness. What's called for, and the words of the many spiritual leaders across time have called for this, is balance and integration of all spheres.

To the extent that religion orders and integrates it can be tolerated (by me). I understand that many of us are strong enough to stand alone, separate from the ordering community of religions (Tillich's the courage to stand apart vs. the courage to participate, two poles of the courage to be in a world where God can seem very absent -- the many of us fall at various points along this valid continuum). But I am also fully aware how the sensitive spheres can be hijacked for banal (even evil) purposes. And I am aware how the screening myths of religions can distract from and postpone the fight for corrective social justice and equality. On this contradiction I don't pretend to have answers, but unlike some I neither embrace naively nor reject wholly the fundamental drives that lead men and women to bond together in intended good will under the banners of various religions.

But, hey, that's just me <---- lost in Samsarra, swimming in our Ocean of Tears...

***

[Warren Stupidity]

68. That was fun to read. Thank you.

[amuse bouche]

23. Exactly right

Religion by an a la cart menu is absolutely dishonest, to say the least

[el_bryanto]

31. And again that reflects a childish and muleheaded desire not to actually understand religion nt

[Javaman]

37. okay, then explain what we are missing? nt

[el_bryanto]

38. Well I don't know what your specific arguments against religion are

In regards to this particular conversation go back up and look at #14 above.

I'm not saying that all criticism of religion is off the table or bigoted - there are certainly ways to critique and discuss religion that are genuinely beneficial. I think, though, that when you basically hold up a hypothetical list of what Christians believe or the Bible teaches and declare that everybody who fails to believe that checklist is a hypocrite or a non-believer, well, you are being willfully ignorant.

But, you haven't been participating in this conversation so far, Javaman, so it's entirely possible that that isn't your point of view.

Bryant

[Javaman]

40. Frankly, I was just curious...

I weighed in because I wanted to get a perspective.

I'm, what I like to call, constitutional atheist. Believe and observe what you want and allow me to not to believe and observe what I don't want.

I find arguments about religion and not believe along the same lines a mac vs pc. no winners, no losers, just a lot of nastiness back and forth for no good reason.

Cheers!

[amuse bouche]

41. I understand all the silly, creepy nonsense

I grew up in it and have several relatives part of the cult

One is a Monsignor. I even received my first degree at a college run by Religies

"childish and muleheaded"--Call me all the names you want. It just make me laugh louder at the foolishness

I have no doubt that religion is a very serious mental illness

[el_bryanto]

45. You don't really get to complain about name calling when you start from a position

that people of faith are mentally ill.

You see if I was to say "All Atheists are uncharitable jerks" that would be an intolerant bigoted stupid thing to say. And I wouldn't say it. While I certainly know some uncharitable jerks who are atheists, I also know some atheists who are quite lovely people.

You see the distinction?

Bryant

[amuse bouche]

49. Don't care about your name calling

It only deepens your hypocrisy.

I have zero respect for the cultists and their nonsense

I used to feel sorry for them. Now I know they are sick and destructive.

I would very much like to see them gone for good. That would be delish

[HiPointDem]

52. 'a la carte'. and that comment demonstrates that your conception of religiousity is silly.

[antigone382]

22. The "Left Behind" end times mumbo jumbo was cooked up in the 1800's.

It's an interpretation of Biblical passages, and is not implicit in those passages. It was never the case in Christianity that books of religious scripture were universally looked upon as the "infallible word of God"--that this is the only "real" view of Christianity is an invention of the extreme religious right, with roots going back to the rule of Emperor Constantine circa 300 CE, who formalized and institutionalized Christianity, which had until then been a very diverse, subversive, and radically egalitarian religious group.

There is a long tradition of reading scriptures for their symbolic, metaphorical content, and this must be added to the fact that the vast majority of us are reading translations of ancient languages that require significant interpretation and adjustment of literary devices and idioms that don't have the same relevance that they did then. Context matters a great deal

For example, much of the work attributed to Paul in the New Testament (including almost all of the passages that are considered sexist and homophobic today) was actually written well after his death. However, this should not be interpreted as deceit; at the time those passages were written, it was conventional to attribute one's writing to a revered intellectual or spiritual figure who had died.

Of course everyone at the time knew that Paul couldn't have written those books because he was dead. The author(s) who invoked Paul's name did so to honor Paul and to suggest that their own writings were in the spirit of Paul's work--though to a modern scholar's eyes, they undermine many of Paul's core teachings (principally that all followers of Christianity were equal, that old hierarchies of gender and labor no longer applied, and that Christians ought to adjust their practices to whatever was culturally relevant in the communities where they lived and attempted to convert new followers). These ideas were replaced with the Hellenic philosophical values of Aristotle and others who saw clear hierarchies of men and women, masters and slaves, adults and children, etc.

Truth be told I am an atheist, but I am also a student of anthropology and the social sciences. It is my job to look at the factors of belief and social structure that have the most impact on human suffering; as such, I view religion as just another human institution with as much capacity for harm and good as humans themselves are capable of. This doesn't even touch on the universality of religious syncretism, the dynamicism of language as it applies to human experience, or how modern radical anti-theism implicitly carries on a tradition of asserting the cultural superiority of the metropole over the colonized. Quite frankly, despite the claims of radical anti-theists that science is on their side, I have yet to see very compelling or statistically verifiable evidence that religion, in all its variety and with its diverse set of adherents, has an intrinsically negative effect on human life. But I digress; the point here is that it is historically ignorant to claim that the only valid tradition, at least in the context of Judeo-Christian belief, is a fundamentalist one. This has never been the case.

[TheMadMonk]

64. Whatever Christianity may have been before Constantine, the basic outline since...

...has been generally much closer to Patriarchal Fundamentalism, than (except for a few isolated and quickly marginalised exceptions) it has ever been to Liberal Socialism.

[lindysalsagal]

61. Well said. n/t.

[KamaAina]

13. Not childlike. Childish.

"Childlike" is often a good thing.

[el_bryanto]

15. That's a fair cop. - Childlike is sometimes a good thing. nt

[Drale]

28. I swear to Cthulhu

you try and take my Chocolate Milk and/or my cartoons and I'll cut you!

[lindysalsagal]

60. Not silly at all. It's the belief in the sky god at all that's silly.

If you don't believe in santa, the easter bunny, unicorns, mermaids, or the boogieman, why do you continue to believe in someone who is omnipotent, all-knowing, and yet allows so much suffering in this world?

Burning bushes, living inside whales, living 900 years, on an on. The bible is what's silly.

[HiPointDem]

70. 'silly' is not mental illness. and the claim that it is, and needs 'cure' is fascist, which is way

worse than silly.

[demwing]

27. your truth, not mine

And you're not sorry for the egotistical attitude a bit. People who pretend to swear allegiance to the truth should not lie.

[Puzzledtraveller]

19. Thanks el_bryanto

[cordelia]

34. "Verges" on bigotry?

Thanks, Bryant.

[HiPointDem]

56. the OP does way more than verge on bigotry. it's an endorsement of nazi practices. and written

from a nazi mindset.

[rug]

53. I'm sure you have evidence for that claim. Produce it.

[SwissTony]

65. God, mate, you give us atheists a bad name n/t

[cordelia]

69. Yes, he/she certainly does. n/t

[sibelian]

73. That's completely wrong.

You may find it difficult to understand but these people are dead serious about what they believe.

[hunter]

2. There's something offensive about that, many people have mental illnesses...

... which may or may not make them dangers to themselves, but do not make them dangerous to others.

In fact, having a mental illness increases the odds a person will become the victim of sociopathic religious fundamentalists and child abusers.

If we go down that path we can confuse cause and effect.

Consider how society has previously talked about gay kids who get kicked out of the house by their parents:

One society might say "Oh, he was kicked out of the house (or he ran away from home) because he was gay" and one might say "He was kicked out of the house (or ran away from home) because his parents were fundamentalist assholes."

I think we need to maintain some separation between common mental illnesses and those that have an element of sociopathy. A mentally ill person who is cutting themselves, for example, has little in common with the religious fundamentalist who is setting off bombs in public places.

[Neoma]

5. I think it's an attempt to smear.

Saying mental illness covers SO many illnesses, but if you put plain old republican wackjobs into the term mentally ill, people can say horrible things about people with mental illnesses with no sense that it's wrong to say that and that it means many other things.

Not like they don't do that already...but it might allow more people to do the same.

[lindysalsagal]

62. Agreed. Identification with powerful deities is a compensation for insecurity.

Not entirely sure if that crosses the line into mental illness, or not.

I personally know 2 emotionally fractured men who are perfectly sane, functional, and healthy. They identify with main-stream catholicism because it empowers them, and that is the overriding deficiency in their personality: They're both afraid. Afraid of everything: Other people, their parents, change, ambiguity, and anything outside of their daily routine.

Sitting in the pew every sunday, and believing that they have an edge with god allows them to be ambulatory insecurity cases. Without that magic card in their pocket, they'd both be incapacitated with fear, 24/7.

The trouble is, they prop up an industry that can do much harm in the world, even though the 2 of them would never hurt a flea.

[Ohio Joe]

4. Being able to cure the fundies would solve a lot of the worlds ills

I'm all for it

[BrotherIvan]

7. The first step is ostracizing all fundamentalists from national debate.

Making them mainstream and then insisting their whacko opinions be included in the public debate is what is tearing the country apart. It used to be that extreme religions were treated with disdain or at the very least distaste. But now they are the standard-bearers for all religious people and if I were one of them, I would surely want to take that back. They do not represent the in intent of their respective religions in any way, and in many cases are in direct contradiction to its main tenets. Only people from inside the religion can fix that problem.

[amuse bouche]

9. They claim to cure Fundies and child molestors

A 2fer.

I love it

[Dragonfli]

11. Fundies believe Gay is a disease to be cured and some are insane but

Many bigots and prejudiced people use extreme faith to justify their ignorance; very undesirable but not the same as being crazy.

I see it more as an issue of ignorance to be treated with education. Fundamentalism seeks to take absurd myths as literal fact, very bad idea leading to all sorts of nasty evil behavior and fundamentally stupid behavior (like denial of scientific evidence of climate change).

I don't know how to stop fundy ignorance and bigotry, but attempting to cure them of it like a mental disease makes as little sense to me as when they try to treat homosexuality as a disease to be treated, neither is likely to work as they are both based on a false premise

[Zoeisright]

12. Absolutely.

There is no other case in which claiming to hear voices that no one else can hear is considered sane. In addition, promoting religion is child abuse. Telling a child that unless they obey certain rules they will be tortured for all eternity is abuse.

[el_bryanto]

16. What is your solution to this abuse?

Taking children away from their parents? Sterilization?

Bryant

[AsahinaKimi]

20. I like this title.

It makes sense to me.

[Puzzledtraveller]

21. Fanatacism/fundamentalism may be linked to some mental illness?

I have read material on this before. It is not exclusive to religious, or overt religious zealotry but claiming that it is exclusive to such would be dishonest IMO.

[ErikJ]

26. 2000 religions on earth-which one to choose?

Never could understand why I or anybody has to follow the religion where you were born. Religion is a cultural dependent thing.

[lindysalsagal]

63. Correct. Try being catholic in Iran. Saudi Arabia. Pakistan.

"Believers" don't believe, they follow. Not the same thing.

Fundie people ignore the fact that had they been born in a different culture, they would absolutely hate people who believe as they do.

It's all where you popped out, not which "god" is right.

And since the beginning of time, human beings have been using this excuse to hurt and kill each other.

So, plenty of reasons why religion is bad. No shortage of reasons.

[amuse bouche]

76. Exactly

One of the worst things about religion, is it takes away the desire for thinking


It's all done for the sheep

[Progressive dog]

29. Do they have a pill yet--

It seems to me that Religious Fundamentalism is near the norm in some Islamic countries and in at least the "Christian" United States. Isn't there a fundamentalist political party in the USA, one that actually wins elections?
I don't think science is going to cure this.

[kimbutgar]

30. Michelle Bachman is a good example of someone who is messed up with religious fundamentalism

I heard today she was normal until she was 14 and her uber liberal Father who she adored left the family and then she embraced Christian Fundamentalism because now God was her Father. This hurt early in her life caused her to go off the deep end and marry a man with questionable sexuality.

[felix_numinous]

35. EXTREME is the key word here

--it does not give license to ridicule and dismiss all faiths as being unbalanced. Extremism has given birth, not to it's direct opposite, which would be love, tolerance, compassion and understanding, but to extremist agnosticism--which from where I sit sounds the same as someone forcing some crazy religion on me. I don't like ANYONE telling me what to believe or NOT to believe--it pisses me off-- I am way too rebellious.

I was raised by a scientist mathematician father, who went to church. My mother was very religious. Like countless other people in the field of science, teaching, health and research, somehow they could weave the two worldviews together. God makes science. There you have it--and they taught me: "To thine own self be true' and 'Know thyself' They knew that WHATEVER I chose to believe, as an adult (up to a certain age I had to go to church....) was my choice and they RESPECTED it. Oh--and they were Republicans too.

I was taught tolerance, and too often this is not what I am seeing on this board, it saddens me. Liberalism to me includes tolerance, it is ignorant as hell to insult people's sacred beliefs--THIS is divisive, and as we know--is the main cause of WAR.

I am against cults, FORCING ANY BELIEF onto others--because it bypasses people's FREE WILL. I believe in the separation of church and state, and every other institution. But I think that there has to be other safeguards against cults--that use brainwashing and mind control methods to take people's FREE WILL away.

Thinking you should force beliefs onto others (and then carrying that out on vulnerable people) is absolutely a mental illness, it is PROJECTION--which is a childlike lack of imagination, thinking that the WHOLE WORLD should be just like you. You can FORCE people, program them, ridicule them into silence or declare that it is THEY who are mentally ill--but let us distinguish what is disease and what is diversity.

[Anymouse]

46. So . . .

. . . did you pick your faith through reason and evidence presented by your scientist father and religious mother, (evidence of God making science?) or did you choose to be a Hindu or Buddhist because you were "raised that way?"

Religions views are an artifact of where one is born, not generally a fact of reason. Thus, your fundamental beliefs (not Fundamentalist beliefs) are forced on you, by your parents and community.

There have been tens of thousands of gods and goddesses throughout the history of humans: did you arrive at the particular one(s) you believe through reason, or through inculcation?

[felix_numinous]

48. delete

[rug]

54. Where did you get your political views?

[HiPointDem]

58. all our beliefs, thoughts and material practices, not to mention the "I" who "thinks" and "reasons,"

are products of where and when we're born and live.

did you arrive at the use of a fork through reason?

did you arrive at your belief in the superiority of 'reason' through 'reason'?

Your 'reasoning' "I" and the way it 'reasons' are also products of a place and time and way of life.

[HiPointDem]

36. wow, orwellian.

[The Straight Story]

51. Sad thing is people will cheer it on if it helps them with their hatred

Scientists say 'gay is a mental disease' and those who didn't like gays ate it up.

Years later they are like 'oops, our bad'

Now they want to apply this to a group some on the left hate and suddenly we trust these same science folks.


Guess you could say that is a form of religion itself.

[HiPointDem]

57. surprisingly, i agree with you. i think it's just the mirror image of fundies who think gays or

non-believers should be 're-educated'/sterilized/stoned/etc.

same mindset.

[amuse bouche]

75. Comparing being Gay to religion is absurd

Being gay is real

[Le Taz Hot]

47. For years, the Espoused One

has claimed that religious fundamentalism is the STD of mental illness. Turns out he was right all along.

[liberal_at_heart]

55. if the other thread about fundamentalism was locked so should this one.

[Hekate]

59. Cured by a dystopian science fiction scenario, you mean

Just as the decision about who should be called a heretic and who should be burned at the stake for being different and thinking in a nonconforming manner, the burning question is this:

Who diagnoses? Who decides?

[HiPointDem]

71. +1000. the 'cure' is no different from the disease.

[amuse bouche]

74. Admitting religion is a disease

is a great first step

[HiPointDem]

77. it may be a socially transmitted disease, but it's not a mental illness. but then, life is also a

socially transmitted disease.

i presume you don't want to cure it.

[amuse bouche]

78. "life is also a socially transmitted disease"

Moronic bullshit

"it may be a socially transmitted disease, but it's not a mental illness"-- Disagree.

It triggers something in many, to do things, no rational human would ever consider

[HiPointDem]

79. yes, well. having read your comments, i don't much care if you agree. rational humans have

done terrible things. including scientists. very terrible things.

[amuse bouche]

82. "yes, well. having read your comments, i don't much care if you agree"

Back attcha

[HiPointDem]

83. oh, i had no doubt

[LostOne4Ever]

84. At one time

Didn't they try to declare people who were gay to be mentally ill back in the past?

This reminds me too much of that and of people getting kidnapped by their own families because they joined a small religious sect which the family calls a cult.

I see this as being a very very dangerous road to go down.