Amos

I've said many times that mental intitutions are full of born again Christians. I know a young lad who was really depressed because we was afraid of a small court case against him. Somebody suggested that he needed Jesus and that pretty much was the end of him.

Infinity Lover

The majority of Americans is religious, so doesn't that in itself increase the chance of such cases coinciding with a religious background?

Vorkosigan

Certainly. But the issue is whether such a background is nuetral, negative or helpful. Like I said, certain types of social problems run in conservative religious families. I'd sure like to find some hard data on atheist families, though.

Vorkosigan

HelenM

I disagree.

Mental illness responds well to a variety of things and medication doesn't always work. Scientists at present have little understanding of mental illness. They don't even know how some of the medications which seem to work, work.

There are Christians who would tell you that they were cured of their depression through becoming a Christian. There are people here who say that being depressed and being in a Christian community was a hellish experience.

Crazy people will do crazy things. Not being a Christian won't make an ill person sane. Nontheist delusionally mentally ill people will simply have different kinds of delusions from Christians and do different crazy things. They won't carry a cross but they will do something else extreme and irrational instead.

Bobzammel can you give any evidence to back up your assertion in the original post? Can you link to any studies?

never been there - I'm sorry about your father-in-law .

Helen

Bree

I don't think that the purpose of the OP was to place the cause of mental illness on Christianity (or any other religion); i.e. Bobzammel implied that the people he was referring to were already mentally ill before they came to Christ - religion just made the problem worse.

I definately think that Christianity has a way of attracting the mentally ill. The religion offers strict guidelines, moral absolutes, and black-and-white solutions to everyone's problems. That kind of stability is very appealing to people who feel they currently have none in their lives. I suspect this is one of the reasons that so many people turn to God during really tough times in their lives (personal or otherwise) - they are deluded into feeling that all of a sudden their problems will be taken care of and they will no longer have to worry about certain things, because 'someone else' is taking care of them.

Amos

.


True, except that I think "mentally weak" would be a better choice of words and therefore they are receptive and open to receive the implied hokus pokus (i.e. with force you can breed the devil but if she is not receptive ("ill") she won't catch). Yes, but what they have to offer is not a permanent solution but a substitute for the permanence. They invoke the "angel of Light" (Lucifer) who must be flared up every day and is the Morning Star only (hence "no peace by day or by night" Rev.14:11). The true light is Mary who is both the Morning Star AND the Evening Star and therefore the Queen of Peace. If this is true it follows that they are torn between heaven and hell in the saved sinner complex and will eventually crash ("died nonetheless" in John 6:58).

They prey on the mentally weak in "two by two's," rallies, crusades, revival tents, FGBMI clubs, bible studies, and whatever else they can conspire to disrupt the peace when people are just in a valley where they are searching for destiny in their lives (their "pupa" stage or my "clearing" in their jungle of life).

The difficulty I have with you calling them "deluded" is that it places the blame on them. Such a delusion is normal and is a natural stage of metamorphosis. The villain here is the fornicator who organizes rallies to 'pop' these cocoons and set free the captives who will eventually condemn themselves to hell as a direct result of this fornication. The irony is that the evangelist knows that he is doing something but really does not know what he is doing and the tragedy is that this is a popular sport in protestant (so called) "Christianity."

The "someone else taking care of them" soon fades and this leads to manic depression when they have to start pulling their own weight and that would be equal to hell on earth.

braces_for_impact

I'm sure that religion can work for some mental conditions, perhaps mostly because it may offer someone hope. I have my doubts however, at how much training a priest/pastor/preacher, etc. receives in actual counseling techniques and diagnosis. This is what is dangerous to me. But then again, it seems absurd to me to offer such non-substantive claims as "help" to the patient, such as prayer, faith, etc...

Amos

I quite agree but if one claims to be a saved Christian why would hope be needed?

The primary aim of religion is to prevent undesired mental conditions that will eventually lead to psycho and pathological disorders. Hence there is no sickness or pain in heaven.

Undercurrent

I'd have to say that (1) scientific treatment is not nescessarily medication, and (2) Not understanding mental illness, or how the drugs work in now way hampers any scientific study from showing what drugs/techniques do work -- a study where a group of people took zoloft for depression and improved signifcantly relative to a control group is evidence for the efficacy of zoloft against depression, regardless of what causes depression and how zoloft works.

What irks me is the advocation of techniques (exorcism, chakra cleansing, trephenation, &c.) which aren't backed up by any research at all, and are used in place of scientific methods, whether the reasons are related to conservative christianity or new-ageyness or whatever.

Noone argues that atheism is a cure for mental illness. But getting away from a religious system where mental illness is thought of as "demon possession" and scientific treatment is anathaema, (which is true of quite a few conservative denominations,) will likely help.

suat kelem

Hi Amie. Perhaps I should have clarified: he refused to seek help because he had become convinced that nothing other than prayer was needed to help him