Religion is caused by mental illness
Posted by: AsteroidMiner on Sep 30, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/100822
Religion is caused by any one or more of about half a dozen mental illnesses. The truth about religion can be found in these books:
"The Neuropsychological bases of god beliefs" Dr. Michael A. Persinger MD, psychiatrist 1987 "Religious people are just like my temporal lobe patients"
"The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind" Julian Jaynes Professor, Harvard University 1976 "Religious people are just like schizophrenic patients"
"The Psychiatric Interview in Clinical Practice" Roger A. MacKinnon, M.D., Robert Michels, M.D. W. B. Saunders Co. 1971 "Religiosity is a common symptom [of] schizophrenic patients"
"The God delusion" by Richard Dawkins. "Religion is caused by a kind of computer virus that infects the living computer, the human brain."
"The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer, 2004 "Morality and Ethics are now in the jurisdiction of Science and greatly improved thereby."
Many books in the new science called "Sociobiology": Morals and ethics are instinctive and they evolved.
"God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger. Scientific proof that god does not exist.
"The God Part of the Brain" by Matthew Alper 1996. "The USA is anomolusly religious because many early founder groups were religiously insane and fleeing prosecution in Europe. Religion is a genetic disorder."
"The Accidental Mind" by David J. Linden, 2007 Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Religion is caused by the extreme klugeyness of the "designed" by evolution brain. In particular, the narrative creation system cannot be turned off. It generates false narratives that are believed by the generating person. This is seen in experiments done in the laboratory. This book has the best explanation of resistance to evolution: "There has also been an assumption that if one accepts the idea that life developed without divine intervention, it necessarily follows that all aspects of religious thought must be rejected. Those who take this line of argument to extremes argue that when religious thought is rejected moral and social codes will degenerate and "the law of the jungle" will be all that is left. It is imagined by religious fundamentalists that those who do not share their particular religious faith are incapable of leading moral lives." These suppositions are not true many times over. Linden later mentions that the creationists [intelligent design advocates] are exactly 180 degrees wrong rather than just a little wrong. Being exactly wrong, they are unable to unlearn their error. See Sociobiology or Sciobio.
"Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism" edited by Petto & Godfrey, 2007. The ID and creationist crowd are trying to do away with science. They see science as a "godless religion." Science is a process, not a religion.
"Manufacturing Belief" by Lewis Wolpert http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/05/15/lewis_wolpert
"The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris
"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon", by Daniel Dennett Let's do scientific research on religion and find out what causes it.
"Origins of the Modern Mind" by Merlin Donald 1991 "So what did you expect from a brain that is based on the Chimpanzee brain?"Atheism, A Case Against God" by George Smith
"God is not Great; how religion poisons everything" by Christopher Hitchens, 2007
Hello Remy,
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! Too bad we can't discuss this one for a couple of hours in a pub in the spirit of Shaw and Chesterton. Absent that ideal setting, though, here's another point of view to substitute for my pint:
Over a century ago, the Indian youth who would later become renowned as Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna is he were not simply mad. Ramakrishna answered along these lines:
"My boy, this entire world is a gigantic lunatic asylum. In this asylum some are mad after name and fame; others are mad after women, or gold. Some are mad after power. I too am mad: I am mad after God. But I think after all that my madness is the best."
Thank you Craig for your comment. I too would like to comment on this subject. I have understood religion more clearly thru a scientifical way of thinking. To understand our existence, we must realize how our perceptions misrepresent reality. They allow us to survive and function, but do not reflect what is really "out there." The notion that matter and time are illusions is both startling and fascinating. If we saw reality, we would see nothing, since the universe is only energy and information. Even more incredible is the leading theory on the origin of the universe, which asserts that it began from a dimensionless point. During the last several decades, leading scientists have concluded that our world is both mental and spiritual.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest you read Leo Kim's book, "Healing the Rift" as it explores all of this in great depth.
Yes, I find that some of the paradoxical concepts of quantum physics tend to converge with aspects of higher theology--all of which suggests that any apparent conflict between religion and science is likely a conflict between half-baked religious variants and pseudo-scientific dogmatism. Regarding the latter subject, I recommend Charles Fort, who saw the tendency of scientists to substitute themselves for priests, pontificating in lab coats (the new priestly garb) past their range of competence into realms of new absolutes and substitute dogmas. Oh yes has humanity ever progressed...directly into the Kali Yuga.
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