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Interesting suggestion, and if you read and listen to Kathleen Taylor, a neurologist at Oxford University, who said, "Recent developments suggest that we will soon be able to treat religious fundamentalism and other forms of ideological beliefs potentially harmful to society as a form of mental illness.", it makes sense.
But making sense doesn't mean it will ever happen, especially with the 1st Amendment in place. But, it is a way to treat radical Islam, however, it also means that fundevangelicism is treatable.
Other comments include:
Taylor admits that the scope of what could end up being labelled "fundamentalist" is expansive. She continued: "I am not just talking about the obvious candidates like radical Islam or some of the more extreme cults. I am talking about things like the belief that it is OK to beat your children. These beliefs are very harmful but are not normally categorized as mental illness. In many ways that could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage, that really do a lot of harm."
The moral-ethical dimension arises from the predictable tendency when acting on the problem, armed with a new technology, to apply to the label "fundamentalist" only to our ideological opponents, while failing to perceive the "fundamentalism" in ourselves.
Most on here are not opposed to religious freedom, as long as it is OUR religious freedom at play. Do radical Muslims have religious freedom? Should they? How are they different from radical Christians? Or Jews? Or Hindus?
Yeah...tell the Fundie Islamist "obvious candidates" that you think their Religious beliefs and faith are a "mental disorder"...and you demand they "get treatment" to rid them of their affliction.
WOW! See how that works out for them!
They better be ready to fight to the death, to the last person...cuz that is what they are setting themselves up for, and what they will be up against. Not even a "maybe"!
That being said, how do we determine whether a mode of action is mentally destructive? It is a consensus of medical professionals? Is it a consensus of a society? Eugenics was considered modern medicine not that long ago.
Personally I think fundamentalist tendencies ARE destructive, especially to children in that situation. Adults? I really don't care what deep end they want to go to, as long as it does not effect a greater society or other individuals. So, what is the solution? Education? Partly, but that requires a population or segment of a population to want to be educated. We all know that there is some significant resistance in some elements of North American society to education that is not fundamentalist based.
Perhaps (it would never pass any legislature I can think of), it should be illegal for children to be indoctrinated and exposed to religion, and let them make their own choices after they reach the age of majority. Let those children have only a secular education, one that includes discussions of religions and all religions, including the impacts they have on various societies and cultures from a historical and current point of view, including the tenets of those religions that drive them.
That would give the young adult a basis on making a decision if they would choose to explore any particular belief.
I can't see that ever being passed anywhere.
Certain Fundamentalist tendencies may be destructive (their apocalyptic yearnings stagnate any attempt at fixing social problems in favor of a future eschaton - modern holy war being a subset of this mentality) - in the hands of the wrong people. I think it depends on the culture in which Fundamentalism is arising. Your average American or British Christian Fundamentalist isn't doing anything too crazy that requires some sort of mental treatment.
Do I think it's a mental illness? I used to think any sort of belief in a deity was mental illness, but that was my younger self desperately trying to understand why people would believe such things, and my belief that I had a duty to "save others" from the Fundamentalist trap. I've come to see that there are many reasons that people believe in strange things, many of them familial and cultural - not necessarily because the individual was presented with two data sets and erroneously chose the less logical one because of a mental illness! For many people, an irrational belief in a deity is what keeps them going, a heaven is what awaits their toil in this terrible world, a god is what keeps them moral. Is this ideal? No, of course not.
The alternative is a new ethical system, and this has been attempted by various groups with mixed results. It's still ongoing. But the problem is: who determines what is ethical, what is socially acceptable, what is moral behavior? We are humans, we make mistakes, we are biased, we are sneaky, we tell lies to win arguments, we tell lies to get elected, we tell lies to cater to a voter-base - we are not infallible. I'm not saying that a god is infallible -don't get the wrong idea (if you've read some of my posts, you've seen that I like to highlight the very human nature of deities in religious literature), or that a god exists and is some better alternative for establishing morality. Far from it. I am merely saying that humans can't be trusted to make good decisions for the most part. We've seen too many instances where we've royally f'ed up.
I don't have an answer. I just know that humans who take it upon themselves to strive for some utopian world are forgetting what they are: humans. Glorified animals who have robed themselves in a tattered cloak of civility, like wolves in sheeps clothing. That disguise rips all the time. We see it everywhere in the news, in our personal relationships at home and work, on the street - we are terrible creatures who think we are not what we are.
I rejected Christianity for one important reason: It was because it demanded that we humans ignore our human nature and reject our flesh and try to become INhuman: Christlike. What use is a philosophy that teaches us to be something we cannot be? It is impossible. You can dress us up all you like, but in the end we always fall back upon our animal nature. It's there underneath, whether we acknowledge it or try to suppress it. I feel the same exact way of many progressive social policies. They try to hide our nature with legislation that forces changes in social views, with the ultimate goal of controlling behavior.
Is anger a mental illness? Is violence? Is lust? Is rape? Is the desire for power? Is the domination of others? These things have helped our species dominate this planet. What are we to do with them? "Fix" them with therapy? Get rid of them through religion? Education? Whatever we do with these things, it is difficult for me to trust that humans can make the right decision to INhumanize themselves.
I don't have an answer. I just think it's a hopeless task to try to make us into something we are not. It hasn't worked before. I wonder if it will work now?
I see the OP has got his daily dose of Christian hate in today. Posts like that definitely show me that atheists want to destroy freedom of religion.
Jeff, fundamentalism isn't Christian. You do get 'Christian' fundamentalists though but they are not true Christians. Many of those people are filled with hate. Some hate gays, some hate other people having sex outside of marriage (even though some in that last group practice it themselves - often while married).
I see the OP has got his daily dose of Christian hate in today. Posts like that definitely show me that atheists want to destroy freedom of religion.
If you feel so strongly about it, critique his post - rather than complaining about it. Join the conversation. This is a forum, not a complaint box at your local supermart.
If fundamentalist religious belief is to be seen as mental illness, then why not all other forms of unreasonable belief? Are you mentally ill if you subscribe to the authenticity of astrology? Numerology? Palm readers or other psychics? If you believe that walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror will cause bad luck, do you belong in a padded cell?
Further, why draw the line at fundamentalist religion? The entire idea of strong faith in mythological explanations of the cosmos goes against normal reasoning, doesn't it? We should have equal opportunity straight jackets for all of the religious, not merely the ones which strike us as the dumbest of them all.
In short, are we to now blur the distinction between mental illness and simple stupidity?
She doesn't seem to be saying that we should force treatment on anyone. It's helpful to those of us who have had to escaped it's effects to have it recognized as not OK. She is talking about an authoritarian belief system that meets certain criteria and not just a run of the mill narcissist or otherwise disordered person. It's talking about what happens to a reasonable person once subjected to this type of influence. I look at my mom as an addict. Damage from drug use is predicable and includes a set of behaviors. Her behavior is completely understandable if you look at it through her belief system.
That link you posted from Valerie Tarico is one of my favorites Cupper. The damage caused is starting to be identified.
Those most at risk to developing Religious Trauma Syndrome include people who are raised in their religion, sheltered from the rest of the world, very sincerely and personally involved with their religion, and/or from a very controlling form of religion. The symptoms include cognitive, affective, functional, and social or cultural “dysfunctions:” everything from confusion, anxiety, panic attacks, sleep and eating disorders, and substance abuse to difficulty with decision-making and critical thinking, lack of meaning, suicidal ideation and rupture of family and social network.
To me, the key is "potentially harmful to society." Any useful implementation is going to have to document basis for belief that any individual under examination is potentially harmful by expressed attitudes and perceptions. I think the idea might be useful for people who actually make threats or join groups that are actively attempting to inflict real harm on some element of society, as in bombing abortion clinics.
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