Religious Beliefs Are Not a Mental Illness
I’ve been meaning to write this for some time. I’ve heard the banter from both sides, especially in forums, that atheism is a mental illness or that christianity is a mental illness. Both sides are wrong, religious beliefs are not mental illnesses. There are two types of claims that I have stumbled across and heard: first is that X belief causes mental illness, and second that X belief is a mental illness.
The first one is something that I ran across on Conservapedia, where they attempt to link depression and other mental illnesses to atheism. They attempt to link it to Nietzsche’s later insanity to his atheist beliefs. Similar ideas are bantered about by atheists. A quick troll through some forums came up with similar questions of whether “delusional” religious beliefs can cause mental illness. The common thread that I’ve pieced together is that both sides think that the other is suffering from some delusion and that delusion precipitates the development of a mental illness. This is just wrong headed, holding a belief despite evidence to the contrary does not cause a disease in the brain.
The second one is that atheism/theism is a mental illness. One argument is that religious beliefs produce mentally ill behaviors. People think that God is talking to them, that there are OCD like behaviors in rituals, and that they hold delusional beliefs. The opposite is said for atheists, where it is assumed that they too hold delusional beliefs and will not give them up in the face of evidence. Conservapedia also attempts to link higher rates of suicide to atheism. So essentially, both sides think that the other is deluded ergo mentally ill.
It was also suggested on youtube that one might describe religion as a mental illness without a mental abnormality, rather there are cognitive or behavioral attributes that are similar to mental illness. That is, they act as though they were mentally ill because they have delusional beliefs. I’ll talk a little later about this, but I believe that this type of discussion is based on the mistake between a sincerely held belief and a delusional belief. I’ll talk a little more about it below.
So at the core of both sides arguing, there is this notion of delusion. So what is a delusion disorder? The DSM-IV TSR lists 6 different types of delusional disorders.
- Erotomanic: delusion that another person is in love with the individual, quite frequently a famous person. The individual may breach the law as he/she tries to obsessively make contact with the desired person.
- Grandiose: delusion of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity or believes himself/herself to be a famous person, claiming the actual person is an impostor or an impersonator.
- Jealous: delusion that the individual’s sexual partner is unfaithful when it is untrue. The patient may follow the partner, check text messages, emails, phone calls etc. in an attempt to find “evidence” of the infidelity.
- Persecutory: the belief that the person (or someone to whom the person is close) is being malevolently treated in some way. The patient may believe that he/she has been drugged, spied-on, harassed and so on and may seek “justice” by making police reports, taking court action or even acting violently.
- Somatic: delusions that the person has some physical defect or general medical condition
- Mixed: delusions with characteristics of more than one of the above types but with no one theme predominating.
None of these obviously fits religion or atheism. One might be religious and believe that they are unreasonably persecuted, but that’s because of a mental illness in addition to a religion. The bare fact of it is that modern psychiatry does not recognize either atheism or theism as a mental illness. But what about delusions in general. Do religious beliefs count as delusions?
Delusions were defined by Karl Jaspers as a belief with three criteria:
- Certainty
- Incorrigibility to evidence to the contrary
- Impossibility of falsity of belief
Religious beliefs and atheist beliefs do not seem to fit this mold very well at all. Extremists might fit, but I’m concerned with religion in general and what it demands. Atheists rarely hold their view to be incorrigible to evidence or impossibility of their belief being false. That’s a generalization that I make anecdotally, but if one heads on over to the Friendly Atheist, you’ll find many atheists that do not hold their belief with certainty. So a sizable chunk of atheists are not delusional.
Now what about the counter part, theism and the demands of faith. One might find that faith requires one to believe without evidence, but that is almost never the case for most theists. Speaking from when I used to be a Christian, I didn’t believe blindly, I had the Bible for my evidence. And I think that it’s a fair description of most theists that they believe what they believe based upon some religious text to serve as evidence. Furthermore, I rarely find theists that hold their beliefs with absolute certainty. That’s the role of faith, that one doesn’t have certainty in one’s position. Faith fills in the gap that evidence leaves. One can criticize the ability for faith to make this inductive leap, but that doesn’t change the fact that in reality, very few people who believe in a deity believe with absolute certainty. Rather, it might be said that there was a bad inference made, but that’s a question for philosophy of science and epistemology, not of psychiatry and delusions.
And that brings me to the difference between what I’ve experienced as delusions and my previously held religious beliefs. My religious beliefs were sincerely held beliefs, but they were not incorrigible (as evidenced by my deconversion to atheism). I was sure about the beliefs being true, but only in the way that one believes that the sun will rise tomorrow. Faith acted as a sort of induction that resulted in belief much like regularities in nature provide the ground for induction to the existence of things like atoms.
My psychotic delusions are of a different beast. They do interpret evidence into a confabulated belief that resists any other evidence and instead reinterprets the evidence as supporting the delusion. But I can also recognize my delusion as a delusion and yet still not be able to shake it. That cognitive dissonance is something that I could not experience while holding religious beliefs. So the phenomenology in my experience is quite different. And there’s also a sort of ineffable difference between when I have a delusion and what my religious beliefs were. I can’t quite put it into words, but when one has experienced delusions, one can really point out that they are phenomenologically different from religious beliefs.
So that’s me throwing my hat into the ring of religion versus atheism. I think that neither qualifies as a mental illness and that it is an affront to the reality of mental illness to use the term so loosely. In general, it gets my blood boiling to hear the term mental illness used so cavalierly. Mental illness is a disease in the brain. Simply holding a sincere belief concerning atheism or theism and stubbornly refusing to change it does not count as a mental illness or a delusion.
And now I’m going to nap, either the zyprexa or the lithium is making me sleepy.
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Posted on November 12, 2011, in Atheism and tagged Atheism, belief, christianity, delusion, faith, mental illness, religion, theism. Bookmark the permalink. 9 Comments.
Interesting read. Personally, I’ve never thought that mental illness led to belief or disbelief, although I’ve often thought that pre-existing illness often exhibits itself in a more zealous approach to belief/disbelief. As for Conservapedia, heh – that’s the last place I would look for a “Christian perspective” on anything =)
Hi James. I think this is a useful dose of common sense to be added to the usual mudslinging between religion and atheism. I never take any notice of Conservapaedia, but seeing that on my atheist days (currently Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, subject to change without notice, terms and conditions apply) I’m inclined to be particularly scathing about the “delusional” nature of religious belief, it’s something I’ll try to take onboard.
Well said. If only more psychiatrists would read their literature appropriately and then educate themselves about religion and culture before identifying those who are merely practicing their religious or cultural beliefs as Religiouse or bizarre or delusional. Certainly there are occasions where people have delusions that have themes from these backgrounds, but with a little effort one could clarify whether or not the person was deviating from usual practices or practicing something new that was different from any basic tenet held without some kind of decision being made to adopt a certain faith or lifestyle. Mental health practitioners who fail to recognise these things are negligent in my opinion and invalidate part of the person’s self.
I remember a person who once said to me that something that he noticed when he spoke to me was that I encouraged him to include his beliefs in his coping strategies and self talk. He told me that this was so relieving not to have to guard part of himself, because if he mentioned anything to do with his faith when seeing his psychiatrist, his psychiatrist would pick up his pen and start writing. Whether or not the psychiatrist was seeing these as symptoms – he was never getting the whole picture of how this guy was doing because he was always editing his thoughts when being interviewed in case his psychiatrist would think he was psychotic because of his religion – so lots could have been missed. It is possible that the reason that the psychiatrist thought that he was not well if he talked about religion was because the only time he heard about it was when the guy was too unwell to edit his thoughts – but the reason is irrelevant in many ways. The fact is that his actions had meant that this guy couldn’t trust his doctor enough to assess his health properly – because when he did become unwell his religious thoughts changed – had his doctor been familiar with his usual beliefs, he would have been able to see when the distorted ones were entering. There were only a couple of workers that he trusted not to view his religion as illness. Sometimes I wonder whether it would be worth – for people who have a usual faith that they follow or particular cultural practices that may be interpreted as delusional – the person having a statement of what they do believe and what their practices are that they give their doctors and case workers to educate them and also if they are aware of what changes occur when they’re not well telling them this also and informing them that these things are not part of their religion. That way the workers know a bit better what they should respond to in what way and are a bit better educated if others from similar groups come into their contact.
I find what you say about your experiences to be an interesting way to disprove the idea that both atheism and religious belief are delusional. I can see where you’re coming from .
That said, I’ve never actually hear anyone say that either atheism or religion is caused by mental illness. I must live under a rock, I suppose. However, I *have* had people tell me that my mental issues are caused by me not believing in God enough. That makes my blood boil. In fact, I think I’ll go write about it now . . . Thanks for the inspiration. I’ll give you credit for it.
Or not . . . turns out I’m having a hard time articulating what I want to say. If I ever do write about it, my comment will apply.
Ditto to what you wrote. My only problem with those of a particular brand of religion is when they say I (or you) will go to hell if we don’t follow their set of beliefs. I’ve also blogged on this topic after my response to someone on this site was deleted when I disagreed with his/her approach. I will add one more thought: my son, after becoming very ill, became religious to the point that he talks about nothing else. Of course, some people who have never had a MI can do the same thing. Still regarding my son, I have to wonder.
What I’ve heard is that those who are inclined towards religious beliefs tend to be more prone to epilepsy. But this mainly applies to voodoo and other types of religions where a person becomes possessed.
http://www.epilepsy.com/articles/ar_1063674018
And what about the people who are mentally ill and claim to be religious leaders? Of course that doesn’t have to do with religion, it has to do with the mentally ill. But that probably has a big impact on how we view the religious.
I have a friend who is Hellenic. She honestly and truly believes in the Greek pantheon. She doesn’t tell many people because they’d see her as crazy. Is she really? I don’t think so, not at all.
On the other hand, another friend told her parents about a panic attack I had once. Her parent’s responses were, “Does she have religion? Because those without religion tend to be mentally ill and have more anxiety since they don’t know what to follow or think.”
Very interesting post!
There is a man here in Seattle who is (supposedly, I don’t know for sure) working on making a documentary about how different religions perceive and respond to mental illness , but I’ve never heard of anyone actually suggesting religion (or not) is a mental illness. I was a little shocked to read that in your post, and I’ll admit I felt a bit disgusted at the notion. I commend your method of proof, but I didn’t even have to get that far to know those accusations aren’t true.
I have met several people who claim to have had experiences communicating with God. Were they during delusional manic episodes? Probably (because those specific people are bipolar), but that has made no difference to their spiritual beliefs. Honestly what they believe in doesn’t effect me, so I don’t care much either way, but I can see how people might generalize a single instance like that into a sweeping, ridiculous claim.
In my own experience I’ve never had what I would consider a spiritual delusion, but I have had epiphanies that blossomed out of delusion (that I still let shape my life anyway).
Interesting post, I had a similar concept on my blog “to-do” list so I’m glad to have gotten your perspective!
I love this post! This is absolutely fantastic!
Faith is the core to every religion. Faith is no delusion. We have faith in everyday things. We have faith that things will turn around, even with contrary evidence. We have faith that our loved ones will continue to stay with us and care for us throughout our lives. Faith is an intregal part of our existence, atheistic or otherwise. If that is delusional, then we all suffer from it.
I was raised as an Episcopalian. I find evidence in everyday life that there is a higher power. I’ll go into it more later if anyone is interested enough. I have decided based on the physical evidence that the historical Messiah Jesus never existed. I have embraced a spirituality closer to Judaism based on the teachings of the Old Testament in Christianity. But, it is still a spirituality without name.
Am I delusional because I see beyond the physical world? I don’t think so. I don’t claim to speak with the powers that be. I don’t claim to even fully understand it. Just call it a hunch.
The rate of “mental illness” in reference to atheism may be accounted by the level of intelligence. We’ve had this conversation in many other posts. Intelligence and mental illness seem to have some correlation. Suicides are higher among people of higher intellect, not only those with mental illness. The pressure of living an exceptional life with all knowledge and awareness of events surrounding a person is immense.
I won’t lie. I have had moments where I’ve considered what is after life. I have been stopped because I was afraid. I was afraid that there would be divine judgement. I took a life, even if it was my own. But, I was also afraid that there would simply be nothing. If there is nothing, then I have to do everything I can to make this life count. I wouldn’t be more convinced to proceed with suicide.
In fact, it would be entirely the opposite. I don’t believe in second chances, anyway. Whatever happens after death, I will no longer exist here. I will be the sum of my limited experiences and would have missed the human experience in it’s entirety. What a loss.