emotional

See? There are fundies on both sides of the fence!

Charlie

Yes this is a strong, straight to the point, very touchy thread!
I do not think all religionists should be admitted, or have remedial surgery. Everyone should have the freedom to believe or not believe (as long as they don't use their beliefs to cause harm in any way to others).

However, I do see religious people believing the unbelievable. And this is a form of psychological delusion. And this is fascinating to me! You are obviously very intelligent. I even admit that you may be smarter than myself. So why is it that you choose to have a "belief"? The very word belief, is your first clue that it may not be true? I have been told that you must have faith in the Lord, that you must "believe". I agree. You must have faith and belief because there is no truth, evidence, reality. If there was, then we would not have to believe anymore, because we would then all know it (God) to be real. So what fascinates me is how religious people can take a belief, turn it into their truth, and accept it as reality?
Sincerely,
Charlie

dangin

While I believe that medication could alter people's ability to experience the things religion does in their brains, and I also believe that there are those whose religiosity takes them to levels of behavior and belief that is in need of pharmaceutical intervention, this thread was started to be funny and to provoke. I turned up the volume intentionally on my statements (like the brain surgery one) because its funny (IMO) and because I knew it would draw a response.

But seriously, when you consider that you don't "see" the world, your eyes focus the light that bounces off of objects. This light is focused and transmitted into our nervous system where it is interpretted by our brains. The physical world does not exist as we see it. We see it the way a binocular mammal, with color receptivity, our spectra of visible light, and our brain style interprets the world.

The same is true of God. If god doesn't exist we are experiencing our interpretation of what we believe to be god in our brains. If god does exist, we are still not experiencing god. We are experiencing our interpretation of god in our brains.

Our brains are tricksters, consistent tricksters but tricksters nonetheless. And it is completely ordinary that the chemistry of our brains, when it comes to faith, can be manipulated, altered, or radically changed. Just like every other process of these organs.

Shake

Wouldn't it be fun to get some of these pills and slip them into communion wine, or the coffee/punch at the coffee hour following the services at churches? Or to serve such spiked drinks to guests at your house? Hell, throw a few into your pool, since people always end up ingest some pool water anyway!

Slip them into the punch at the next retirement/baby/x years of service party at your job!

dangin

I don't think there would be "instant atheist" pills. More like zyban (sp) for smokers. You take zyban and you can smoke all you want, but the nicotine receptors in your brain don't absorb nicotine, so you get the burning throat, the crappy taste, and none of the drug. You quit smoking very soon after that because it has nothing to give you.

If there was a pill that did the same thing, so that it would block one's receptivity to the body's response to a good sermon, to spiritual music, to any mythic connectedness with anything else. It would block the bodies ability to "feel" religion.

It would be interesting what such a drug would do to secular people. It would probably dull the spiritual aspects of pets (the connectedness you feel when bonding with an animal) and of nature in general. It might dim our reactions to the arts, poetry, great novels. Who knows. But if there is a "religion" center in the brain it can be messed with.

Seems like god wouldn't allow we lowly monkeys to fuck with the core wiring like that. . . seems to imply that the "soul" or our "spiritual" connection to god is just so much more chemical/electrical response. As if we didn't already know that.

Calzaer

Aren't mental ilnesses determined by measuring their deviation from the social norm and/or consensus reality?

In America, the de facto consensus reality is that a god exists. 82% of North America believes that it's the Christian God (adherents.com, I believe, but it's been a couple years since I actually looked that number up). Thus, the people who are technically "delusional" and outside the social norm are the atheists.

There's no such thing as a mentally ill society. Mental illness is defined by society; the people who don't conform to a society's beliefs are the mentally ill ones.

Not saying anything about my personal feelings, just trying to piont out that theists can't possibly be "mentally ill" in our society. If anything, they're the baseline and it's the NONtheists who are "mentally ill", as defined by their departure from this culture's consensus reality.

dangin

I see what you are saying. But at the same time, faith (which is far more a part of religion that atheism) is defined exactly the same as delusion. Faith is belief in the unknowable and unprovable. If you know something or can prove it then it is knowledge, not faith.

So even with their majority numbers, xians (and all religious folks) are still the ones who are better compared to the delusional.

Another way to look at it is that in a mental institution the majority of that population is suffering mental issues of some sort. The minority are the staff, but they can't be said to be the insane ones just because they are fewer in number.

emotional

Tell me there's no Evil Atheist Conspiracy...

dangin

Well there's not, but now that you mention it, it might not be a bad idea. . .

Calzaer

Perhaps, but that institution is still contained in the country that set it up. Unless America is alone in its overwhelming number of theists, the analogy doesn't particularly apply. The de facto consensus of the WORLD is that God exists. Atheists are a very small minority that exhibit some sort of "religious experience inhibititor" in their brains. Unless human culture changes radically in the next few years, the LACK of ability to have religious experiences, much like the lack of ability to have empathy, is the illness. There will much more likely be a drug produced that can cure YOU than a drug produced that will cure the other 5.9 billion people on earth.

And how would you like that, eh? The government puts this new "experience religion" drug in the water supply like flouride, and now you're being forced to be religious by your own brain chemicals just like the rest of us "normal" people. Pretty scary, huh?