Egoinos

(Note: I know many Christians are not like this, I'm not saying all are )

OK, I was debating with some fundamentalists about religion (my hobby), and I forgot to treat them with extreme suspicion and treated them like I would anyone else for once. And in that unguarded moment I let out that I suffer from clinical depression. Big mistake. They immediately turned on me, and assumed none of my arguments were ok because of mental illness, and assumed that Satan was obviously (!) causing me to say these things. Then they used the information I had given them against me in hopes to try to take advantage of my weakness and convert me.

Grrrr. I hate it when people do that! Its incredibly dishonest, deciding to take advantage of another person and attempt to force them into belief when you know they're at a disordered mental state. And assuming that mental illness & atheism are linked (using the fact of illness to say that all atheists are mentally ill and therefore it has no intellectual validity) is also really dishonest.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? I find it generally comes from the very zealous fundamentalists, the ones who have lost all trace of feeling for others, and just want to tick off another convert in their book or whatever, and will use any means to do so. This is why I ended up presenting a very hard front to apologists, because so many of them will use any information you give them against you in an attempt to browbeat you.



(Sorry, bit of a rant, feel free to move to Elsewhere)

Bumble Bee Tuna

If it makes you feel any better, today in Psych 101 we heard a guy talking about how his schizophrenic hallucinations involved Jesus and made him a believer, so using their logic all believers believe because they are schizophrenic and hallucinate a relationship with God.

BioBeing

So is there not ONE SINGLE Christian on Prozac or Paxil? Wow! Given the apparent rate which those drugs seem to be prescribed, I would have been sure that at least one Christian, somewhere in the world, was depressed.

HelenM

Hi Egoinos,

Unfortunately, if you're diagnosed with a mental illness you not only have that to deal with but all the people who don't understand it and try to 'fix' you anyway in their own inappropriate ways.

I know that Christians often deny it's an illness. They think it will go away if you get saved or stop sinning or rebuke the devil. I believe that lifestyle changes can help a lot with depression. But that's entirely different from saying it's not an illness.

Anyway, I'm sorry that the Christians you were talking to tried to inappropriately make use of the fact that you suffer from depression. I've learned to be careful who I tell about my diagnosis. I'm fed up with people responding in weird ways. It just isn't worth it.

Helen

villainess

If it's any comfort, Christians will use any information about anything in your life to try and do this. I once had one try to use the fact that I'd had a mild case of pink-eye and then got better as an evangelism strategy.

On the other hand, I am firmly convinced that Christianity often masks mental illness in practitioners. Not that you have to be "crazy to believe that stuff" (though in my more cynical moments it's hard not to think that!) but that people who are displaying early signs of schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, etc., if their symptoms are interpreted in a religious light by those around them (and themselves,) can easily be prevented from getting treatment for quite some time. Some are accused of being possessed by demons, others are believed to be prophets, and some (like Andrea Yates) are finally diagnosed, but their beliefs militate against following the most effective course of treatment.

For an interesting discussion of how religion may absorb and grow from the experiences of the mentally ill, I recommend "Circling the Blanket for God", the last essay in Robert Sapolsky's The Trouble With Testosterone . ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...299576-0524957 ) Actually the whole book is pretty good.

- the_villainess

Proxima Centauri

Please don't tell Christian Fundies that you are psychiatrically ill. It just makes them worse.

jj

Oh, they stepped into it but good.

There are a variety of tests available, if I have not been completely misinformed, that show that depressed people are actually the MOST ACCURATE at assessing situations and probable outcomes.

So, you might reply to them "no, stupid, it's not Satan, I'm just right, and by the way, it's very unChristian of you to act as you did".

jj

I am starting to question some of the diagonses of depression. I begin to think that at least some of the characteristics of depression are actually characteristics of understanding.

Sheesh.

Oh, and Fundies will grasp at anything to support their cult beliefs, indeed.

GypsyLife

I have not been diagnosed with a mental illness, yet anyone who knows that it is somewhat rampant in my family has told me in one way or another that my stance on things such as religion are seriously skewed because of it.

My father was a devout Christian, mentally ill (clinical depression among others), and received the brunt of his Christian friends' "advice". He became convinced that his illness was a result of a separation from God and therefore his fault.

As far as Christians go, when my father was healthy he was one of the more tame, non-judgmental, well-meaning kinds. Once his illnesses had progressed, he could no longer attend church and church-sponsored social events and eventually lost all of these friends. A few of them even had the balls to show up at his funeral and talk about how well he had served the church and how obvious it was that he was filled with the holy spirit.

Go figure, huh? Would you believe that we weren't even fundies?

seebs

Oh, man. That's harsh, and totally uncalled for. Yeah, I've had similar things happen. I've seen a lot of people who insist that anyone who isn't miraculously cured didn't have strong enough faith. (As if it takes any faith at all to believe in something you *saw happen*.)

I'm very sorry you had that bad experience. I'd say it's pure bullshit. There's something really disturbing about people discounting your arguments because you're depressed; I mean, it just shows such a disconnect.