(YouTube sucks. This will come in two parts due to length restrictions.)

I'll follow your points and then state my overall message. The last portion of this e-mail should perhaps be read first, in order to set the tone. I'll leave that up to you. Thank you for your time and consideration. If I'm wrong in anything, I hope to be proven so and understand my error.

Also, I don't mean to exclude Kelly, though I focus my words toward Brian. Hi, Kelly.

41: claims there is a flaw in our logic that we aren't cherry picking DSM.
-My point was that while I understood that you were attempting to get resources, you ended up trusting a seriously flawed source, Wikipedia, and didn't go to the DSM, which would have been easy and simply the right thing to do.

1:01 Captain Obvious to the scene to tell us that the DSM IV is the current DSM.
-The point was that it is obvious, and yet you were still using it as some sort of appeal to authority. Sorry, reading the DSM 3 doesn't increase your authority on the specific subject in question.

2:00-3:20 Doesn't think we respect people by telling them what we think their problems are and what we would call those problems if we are being honest with ourselves. We respectfully disagree.
-You missed my point. Telling someone about what their problem entails is necessary, but if one just came out with the diagnostic term and label is obviously going to put them off and harm your ability to do your job. You are essentially taking this (self-admitted) blanket term and throwing it at people, and certainly not in an understanding manner. (And so that I'm not misinterpreted, I do mean that you should do it with understanding, not that you should be wussy about it.)

3:30-4:30 You say I said I didn't understand why cultural significance has anything to do with psychology yet you can hear Kelly state perfectly exactly the case that you make.
-My point, which is elaborated on in the other videos, is that "normative" is an extremely important aspect of psychology. I don't disagree that it wouldn't be statistically rare if an individual theist lived in a solely atheistic society, but there are other aspects of "normative" to be included. I pointed this out because it didn't seem that you understood why "normal" (in terms of statistical rarity or otherwise) was important. If I misunderstood, I apologize.

4:32 "I understand where you are coming from with this" And now I feel like I've just wasted my time responding.
-Partly you did. It'd be best to hear my whole argument out at once before you respond. What I understood was that you believed that if it was an individual theist in an atheistic society, it wouldn't be stat rare/cult unexpected, and that you believe that will (hopefully) be the case in the future.

 (Part 2)
5:10 He admits the definition varies depending on where you go to online. He is also not using the DSM, and seems to completely invalidate the weak argument he made at the 41 second mark. He attributes the variance to lack of updated pages. Funny that our entire argument is that theism is not listed in the DSM and it should be listed in future updates.
-I'm using an updated source that only elaborates on the criteria used for the DSM-IV-TR, which invalidates nothing of my argument. I used this source because it illustrates the concepts better and is, again, an updated source. (I don't know if you realize, but the DSM-IV has had several revisions, itself. My text is a recent source.)

It's not "funny" that your argument is that it isn't in the DSM. For it to even BE in the DSM, you should be using the DSM definitions of disorder and delusion.

6:10 claims there are 3 indicators of disorder and that theism only fits one. Yet I have a list that I think theism tends to fit up to all of these indicators depending on the person inflicted.
-You completely ignored the criteria. This is important because they were the criteria for a Mental Disorder, of which delusion is a Subset. For a person to be Delusional, they must First meet the criteria for a mental disorder.

What you used are aspects of a prototype, which alone is not significant enough.

7:45 agrees that some Christians hold a dysfunction, at the bare minimum. He just doesn't want it applied to all theism. While I agree that there are some theists that are less delusional (as already stated) to some degree all theists are deluding themselves into believing in a god. If I had to concede 10% of the theistic population to have the other 90% of theism listed in the DSM-V, I would be ok with that.
-These are your Main problems. You Believe, without research (or apparently in-depth thought and proofs) that all theists delude themselves to some degree. Furthermore, you're willing to sacrifice people who may not or Do Not belong to the category for the sake of the ends. What if you did the same with any other serious mental disorder? Seriously, Brian. That's creating discrimination, to apply penalties (which a label is) to undeserving individuals.

It makes the most sense to develop a disorder type that sets specific criteria that only truly delusional and abnormal (dysfunctional, distressed, and statistically rare{which these people May actually be, with a limited definition range}) individuals meet.

8:20 points out that he's telling us something we already know, he probably doesn't realize he did this throughout the entire video.
-I was only referring to the fact that there are theists who don't apply crazy logic to justify their belief or god, and therefore wasn't going to go into an in-depth explanation of that.
And here you're getting condescending.

9:40 Seems to miss the point again, that we don't want the field of psychology to fall prey to an argumentum ad populum fallacy, and that theism most often carries with it many other indicators of what we would classify as grandiose delusional disorder.
-I agree that psychology shouldn't fall to the fallacy, and that statistically rare/culturally unexpected shouldn't be applied in all cases, but that doesn't invalidate it for all consideration of abnormality. It is precisely Because I agree with you that it shouldn't be the concern in this case that my next videos argue against your idea on the other aspects of abnormality.

I also disagree that individuals who have a grandiose delusional disorder who are non-religious are less dangerous than those with religious belief. Both are equally dangerous due to the definition of the disorder.

He called his video, part 1, so if I have time I'll address the next one when I see it, and I have time.
-I look forward to it. I hope that I was clearer in my other videos and that you start to understand my points for revisiting what I believed you understood. I want us to be working on the same argument with the same conceptions in consideration.

I also apologize for any typos. ~_~

 

 ________________________________ 

I tend to get so locked up in refuting that I forget to praise. For example, I only focused on it seeming that you mentioned reading the DSM 3 as an appeal to authority, rather than also addressing that you were "called out", so to say, on having no understanding of psychology and were defending yourself.

For that, I apologize.

I understand and appreciate that your intent is to help society by removing delusions (which would be a mental disorder, which would entail self-harmful distress and dysfunction, and stigmas resulting from rarity), and heal individuals. What we disagree on is which (or how many) individuals need help.

You guys have also been under a lot of recent stress, and I thank you for not exploding at your critics, which would be understandable to do. Moreover, you were kind in asking me to link to your response in my video description (even if you weren't always so kind in said response).

My response to say that I'd do so once you responded to the entire argument came off to me as condescending once I had read it, so I deleted it and included the link in my descrip. I want to point out my reason for that initial statement, which is that I didn't want people to misunderstand me by reading your response before they viewed the other parts, and also because I didn't want your misunderstanding to be attacked, especially since my lack of clarity either entailed or lent to that misunderstanding.

I also want to apologize, because of some of the parts in my videos also seemed to be snarky. That wasn't my intention. I wanted to exaggerate the situation a little bit to make my point.

Thanks again for the response, which you didn't even need to do in the first place, and, again, for your time and consideration. I think I'll stop spamming your inbox now.