pretty recent. it's Michael's protest against Trump being anti mussie. So we're all muslims now!

                 I am far to unreligious to agree with THAT sentiment.  But we are ALL human beings with equal right to dignity and respect up until we as individuals prove we are NOT worthy of dignity and respect. I can agree with Juis' Charlie and Juis' Parisianne I  do stand up for free speach and the right to feel safe and secure in one's own home/city. but asking me to make a pretense of belonging to a religion because of a racist dickhead's free speach right, is one step too far. 

an unfortunate episode in RRS's history, since the existence of mental disorders is about as axiomatic as the existence of god.

for simply believing in god or being religious in any degree to ever be classified as a "mental disorder," it would have to become socially aberrant, and that's just for starters. "mental disorders" are at root social disorders.

depression is still a social problem, even if only from the point of view of the subject. depression is an emotional alienation of the subject from society (and often from himself as well) which primarily manifests as severe melancholia. what we would call "mental disorders" rarely manifest as antisocial behavior.


as for "reality" and "fiction," i'm sure you realize how tenuous those terms are when we talk about the mind. we are constantly rearranging and remaking the world around us, not to mention the often drastic alterations of our memories. besides, there is one key fact to remember: to the religious, his religion is not fiction. he doesn't have to employ cognative dissonance to ignore its contradictions with the data around him: he simply ignores those data. (kinda reminds you of someone...) it's only those like kent hovind, who actively try to bring religious myths into line with scientific data, who start having to employ more and more mental gymnastics. most believers don't bother.


i agree psychology is pretty much bullshit. i have a little more respect for psychiatry because, even though it's founded on the principles of psychology, it at least comes to its solutions empirically, and it does get results. the problem with psychiatry is whether or not those results are worth the price. my sister suffers from ADD and clinical depression (diagnosed as an adult), and psychiatric drugs have made her life much more bearable. luckily, she's one of those who doesn't have to make a choice between enduring her symptoms and walking around in a fog.

Um phychology and psychiatry are not bullshit. They explain why people with depression can function well in society. I agree there is "no normal" just the observable but that doesn't make what we observe a healthy way to live. Now while you are rightfully blasting deities and the idea of religons being a disconnect between reality and fiction in the brain, do yourself a favor instead of being the brat you have been, try understanding why religion SHOULD be called poison. It is precisely because it is a disconnect that it leads humans to horrible logic and even to horrible acts. It is no different than knowing you cant get rid of a voclano, but you should not mistake the "functioning depressed person" as the dormant volcano as always staying dormant "fuctional". 

Depression happens like tornados happen like cancer happens. Religion and deity claims happen in much the same way. Natural does not mean good or even that you can rid the world of it, it merely means we observe it, just like depression, just like tornados. You accept them as flaws in order to manage them better. 

No, depression is a state in which hormonal and chemical imbalances disrupt the processes of the brain. Any social impact is secondary, and society rarely has any impact on the depression itself. It is one of the few areas in psychiatry that has been studied sufficiently to be able to successfully treat patients with medication. It is by no means as well understood and fixable as say a broken bone, but it is slowly getting better.

I don't know what the likelyhood of someone some day coming up with a cure for theism is, nor what the consequences of using it would be. But it isn't outside the realm of possibility to say religious belief may be a symptom of a mental disorder.

Unlike Schrodingers cat, the world doesn't require us to observe and record and study for it to keep doing what it is doing. There is a hard line between what is and what might be. Anyone who sufficiently disconnects from what is, so far as to even reject it, to embrace what might be is legitimately handicapped.
Parents let their children die, people kill each other, policies of oppression are instituted, epidemics rage out of control, and religious-like thinking is the primary cause. No single mainstream religion past or present can claim more or less responsibility than any other, and indeed many non-religious people can be guilty of the same things. But when you look at those people, they are identical in every way to the hardened theists except they don't believe in god, per se. Maybe they believe in magic, or ghosts, or ressurection, or aliens abducting them and sticking probes in their ass. The fundamental psychological state is the same.
There is a range of behaviour. On one end of the spectrum you have the majority who mostly just do what they are told and what is expected of them to fit in. They don't think about it much and it doesn't impact their core decision making.
In the middle you have people who think about it a fair bit, and in minor decision making you can observe various choices directly influenced by belief. Though core decision making is still generally rooted in reality, and these people aren't likely to risk their lives and livelihoods on their beliefs.
On the other end of the spectrum you have people who literally live as if their beliefs were real, and can be considered delusional. All their decision making is based on their beliefs. They will cheerfully kill their enemies and allow themselves and their friends to lose everything and die in the cause of their beliefs.

I agree. Most people who believe in religion aren't necessarily so out there as to be classified as mentally disabled. But as there is mild and severe depression, so too would it make sense that if religious belief is a symptom of a mental disorder then that disorder would have mild and severe cases associated with it. Millions of people live with mild depression and never even become aware of it because they never see a psychiatrist or end up institutionalised.

A lot of psychology is bull shit, but a lot of it is awesome too. The whole reason we know how fallible our memories are is thanks to psychology. The biggest problem in the field is that it attempts to define normal in an evolving species, much like grammar nazi's attempt to preserve language even though language evolves. It then uses that caricature of normalcy to define disorders. As the baseline is a flawed concept, so too must the results be questionable.