emotional

Please, please, folks, I have to disagree with your premise here about theism as a psychosis. No, theism is not insane, in fact it can be quite logical if only you buy into its founding presuppositions; theism is simply primitive, that's all.

Theism is the like the Stork Theory of Reproduction: primitive people's way of explaining the universe. Science has all but killed theism, but it holds on because of its great emotional appeal.

GunnerJ

Meatcock goes off the deep end...

I consider all "authorities" dubious (or "doubious" or "doubous"... Tomato, tomahto...). You think I can't find a quote from another psychologist that disagrees with you? Let's see some reasoning, if you're not too tired out from all the arguments ad hominem below...

Koy's post was a logical argument comparing religious beliefs to delusions. Your reply was an obfuscationist misdirection full of spurious quotes. You have no concept of how to refute a logical argument, do you? If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, blind them with bullshit...

KFC, actually. It helps to pay the gas bills for the commute to my college, thank you. I'm sure many hard working people in the food service industry would be interested to hear an ivory-tower schmuck like you dismiss them all as ignorant because of their line of work. It's too bad that "degree" you have has only taught you how to quagmire a debate with meaningless appeals to authority. You could have used a few courses in logic and critical thinking. It's also too bad that your sociology "degree" hasn't taught you much abotu how to interact with other members of society.

southernhybrid

I was going to argue that all theists are not insane but after finally having Meta crock of shit like this guy, I'm not so sure. Maybe they are all insane. It's called projection, Meta.

Finnish! Good one Kally. Too bad it went right over his head!

Seeker196

BTW, why is Meta talking about what level of education we have?

Let's please not get into a degree flashing session OK? It's like I'll show you my degrees, you show me yours, and it proves nothing.

MetaCrock:
Why is Christian faith not an example of Delusional Disorder as of DSM-IV?

Can you answer without appealing to 'authority'?

BTW, anyone more ambitious can look into Meta's sources, I'll try when I have access to the U library again. I'm pretty sure what I'll find though, you know studies funded by groups with a vested interest in certain results, Christian psychologists wanting to show why they are sane but these other people aren't etc etc...

Seeker196

"My BA was in sociology"


Oh. My. SWEET. Odin!

No wonder...a sociologist pretending to know something about Psych...now I said that we won't get into degree flashing but a BA in sociology actually causes me to LOSE respect for you...

Alright, back to the point: Theism is a delusion.

No, it is not "just" about "a few" presuppositions, it is a belief which permeates and affects ones whole life, and not in a minor way. It is a belief which can have serious, damaging consequences to youself and others.

It is a delusion because it is a belief which is held to without, AND IN CONTRADICTION to evidence.

The caveat of the psychological establishment that 'a bigger herd makes it OK' is just due to the fact that psychologists too reflect the 80-90% theist make up of our culture.

Meta: That quote about unbelief and soul-sickness was the silliest thing I've seen in quite a while.

Do you really believe this crap? Are you just pulling my leg?

Mad Kally

Do you believe this? It seems just as plausible as anything Meta has said..

From the television transcripts:
The Amazing Mystical transport of Jesse Duplantis, Word of Faith evangelist!

Jesse receives a call while in Monroe LA from a man in Lafayette LA. The man’s daughter is sick in the hospital with a very high fever and he asks Jesse to come and pray for her healing. Jesse says he will come and pray. Jesse stops to talk with a friend and then hits the road. Then something singularly unique happens to brother Jesse:

The bottom line of this experience is that somehow Jesse supernaturally ends up in Lafayette, prays for the little girl over the phone and she is healed immediately. Unfortunately, Jesse has to drive home the old fashioned way.

Is this guy sane? I wonder why it was never in the news?

Millions of xians in the USA actually believe this fairy tale. Now that's scarey!

[ February 10, 2002: Message edited by: Mad Kally ]</p>

sullster

After reading the interchange between Meta and Mad on this issue, this is my unsolicited reaction.

I think the human species is riven with irrationality and credulity. These attributes seem to be hard-wired into our brains. People are drawn to the irreason of religion because it provides a kind of comfort in the face of the many miseries of life. Is this psychosis? Maybe it is, in some vast sense.

When does another person's religious ideas really threaten me? When they come to kill me, burn down my house, ban my books or torture me. Until then they are not psychotic by my definition. If they do any of the mentioned actions, then they become psychotic to me. If they sit in their house watching TBN and believe that invisible Jesuses are doing things, they are being human all too human. We are a wacky species, I accept it, as long as they stay out my face. People believe the darndest things. Look at gambling casinos! People are so wacked, that they go and loose billions of dollars a year on rigged sucker games. People are nuts, but psychotic? Not till they send me to the camps.

Koyaanisqatsi

Ahh, Meta, you just never learn, do you? And, BTW, you attributed your own quote to me in one of your posts. Interesting...

Now, to your social sciences evidence. Let's carefully deconstruct how you've presented your evidence and see if it's either honest scholarship or applicable to my supporting contention that the psychosis of theism has caused harm to society.

The first thing you do is quote someone else's summary of other people's comments (form the Cities on a Hill News Letter Spring 1999), which I was able to find on the internet (<a href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/coh_spr.htm" target="_blank"> here</a> for those interested).

It is a publication from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research through its subsidiary CCI (the Center for Civic Innovations). The excerpt that Meta quotes from is regarding "The Jeremiah Project."

Here is the "mission" of the Jeremiah Project:

So, we now know what their mission is. All manner of institutions need to get together to help ghetto children learn how to read and write and become upstanding, moral, spiritually whole, citizens.

What this has to do with the thrust of my OP is anyone's guess, but the thrust of the piece is about how to help "at risk" ghetto children to become valued members of society instead of criminals.

I would certainly hope we would now have Dr. Larson's summary presented.

Oh. We don't get Dr. Larson's summary at all. We get an anonymous webmaster's summary of Dr. Larson's summary. Hunh.

Where does that leave us?

Back to Dr. Larson's "conclusion."

Really? That's it? His entire conclusion after reviewing 400 studies is that the "better we study" religion, the "more we find it makes a difference."

Difference to what? Well, the thrust of the panel discussion is already known, so we can assume "religion" makes a difference to making ghetto children (or "at-risk youth") more moral and spiritually whole, I suppose.

How quickly we've gone completely off topic, but, since I'm a freethinker, as always I'll keep an open mind and deconstruct in due process the rest of the post, though it certainly doesn't look promising so far.

So far, we have an anonymous webmaster providing what he or she considers is Dr. Larson's "conclusion" based on two decades of 400 studies (the "where" and the "how" of course, is not mentioned, because this is an argument from authority, not scholarship) which, upon analysis concludes absolutely nothing of qualified substance in regard to a supportive qualifier to my OP; that the alleged psychosis of theism (the irrational belief in fictional beings factually existing) has historically caused harm to society through "tremendous and prolonged social divisiveness, unrest and bloodshed for centuries, up to modern times (WTC)," and whether or not this alleged psychosis should (or should not) be treated accordingly by the psychiatric community.

But, let's get back to the anonymous webmaster's summary of the panel discussion regarding how to help local institutions of all kinds deal with ghetto children's moral and spiritually whole status, shall we?

That's a tasty bit of hyperbolic review, but since you've presented this as authoritative evidence for your position, Meta, don't you think we need to directly read Dr. Johnson's own words? No? Of course no. I couldn't find them on the site, so, I guess we need to just take the webmaster's word for it.

So let's once again read those words, yes? That's what we're looking for, right? Somebody else's conclusions about what these other people concluded?

Great. And this is relevant to my OP how? According to the author of this newsletter, Dr. Johnson has concluded that church attendance reduces delinquency among boys. Well, nobody is arguing whether or not cult programming has its advantages, I guess, but how this relates to my OP escapes me.

Now, to go even further away from whether or not theism is a psychosis and should be treated accordingly, the author of this newsletter tells us about another person.

Positive effect on what? Oh, right on changing immoral, spiritually bankrupt ghetto children into moral, spiritually whole ghetto children. My mistake.

Again, what has this to do with my OP?

Ahh! So government programs rarely succeed at operant conditioning ghetto children. What a shock.

Thanks, though. I'll have to refer to this evidence in some other post regarding the "behavioral" influence of operant conditioning in regard to cult programming.

So, again, cult programming is geared toward cult programming and not as concerned with "training, schooling and providing services."

Got it.

So, fear is what is necessary to motivate certain "at risk" children from being immoral, spiritually bankrupt ghetto rats.

Again, what has this to do with my OP? Other than as fascinating support of cult programming, which uses fear as one its basic motivating indoctrination techniques?

I see. Straight talk is not a strong suit for Government and even secular philanthropic programs in the opinion of the author of the newsletter summarizing the opinions of the panel. This is the conclusion the author has come to from the comments Walker made in regard to why Government programs don't work.

Great. Irrelevant, but great.

So there are a lot of questions about whether or not "faith-based" mentoring can work on a large scale to help certain "at-risk" kids becoming moral, spiritually whole "at-risk" kids? Not too surprising, considering our nation's separation of Church and State foundation, but still irrelevant to my OP.

Boy, they sure do. Wait. I didn't find this on the site. Where did this come from? Oh, I see, we're done with the CCI's Jeremiah Project and on to some other thing. Sorry, your shoddy scholarship is difficult to follow, Meta.

So, we're now going here:

This is about many different forms of intelligence.

This is a website (called Religion in American Life) whose "mission" is:

So, now class, we're dealing with quotes taken from the Religion in America Life website, whose mission, remember is TO INCREASE WORSHIP ATTENDANCE AT CONGREGATIONS OF ALL FAITHS, BECAUSE INCREASING ATTENDANCE AT HOUSES OF WORSHIP HELPS MORE PEOPLE:

Well, since there was no link to the actual book (and no page number) and since I have no intention of shelling out the $15 bucks for the book, I'll have to just deconstruct the quote.

"Attending services." Which services? Branch Davidian services? Islam services? We know it's not Government services, right?

"the most significant factor in predicting charitable giving." To whom by whom? What does "predicting" mean in this context? Whether or not people will or will not give to a charity? Which charity? On whose volition?

What the hell has this got to do with whether or not the historically detrimental, irrational beliefs of theism should be classified as a psychosis and treated accordingly by the psychiatric community? Because there are social benefits to brainwashing and cult programming (excuse me, behavioral operant conditioning)?

Again, which services? "Predicting volunteer activity" for what? What has this to do with whether or not theism is a psychosis and should be treated as such by the psychiatric community?

Again, all this says is that cult programming is effective in controlling its members. We didn't need Robert Wunthrow to tell us this.

"The Faith Factor" eh? What a wonderful, unbiased source.

Does it mention "which" sixth through twelfth graders and or how they arrived at this extrapolation, which authoritatively implies all sixth to twelfth graders who attend "services" are half as likely to engage in "at-risk" behavior? No, because, once again, there is no link to the actual source.

So far, all you've presented is vague, unqualified pseudo-facts regarding the possible positive side effects of operant conditioning. If your intention was to demonstrate the effectiveness of cult programming, you've got no beef from me.

The question isn't about whether or not operant conditioning can help ghetto kids become moral, spiritually whole ghetto kids, especially since it's never been defined precisely what this "moral , spiritually whole" agenda is all about. The only assumption that can be made in this regard from the CCI and the RIAL websites is that they're talking about inculcating Judeo/Christian cult morality in order to make them "spiritually whole" in regard to the tenets of Judeo/Christian cult theology.

In other words, cult programming.

More vagaries without a link to the source. Which "churchgoers" and in what communities? How do they qualify "more likely?" Actual case studies or did they just ask churchgoers whether or not they'd be "more likely" to help their neighbors? Who is keeping statistics on aiding neighbors as opposed to not aiding neighbors and their cult affiliations that they could possibly come to this sweeping generalization?

Do you have anything concrete to offer in your "scholarship" Meta? Anything to do with the thrust of my OP would be nice.

Another sterling, unbiased source.

Three out of every four Americans, eh? Wow. So George Gallup asked upwards of three billion people whether or not "religious practice" (whatever that may qualitatively mean) has "strengthened" their family relationships. That's remarkable! He must be exhausted.

Well, now, isn't that just a typical example of your shoddy scholarship, Meta, staring us all right in the face? Would it be safe to assume that Mikawa was concluding that church attendance for however many incarcerated men he studied that were raised in black christian churches "lessens the probability" of their incarceration based upon him asking men already incarcerated about what might or might not have kept them out of prison?

Would it be safe to assume anything we damn well please considering the vagueness of the quotes you've presented?

Would it be safe to assume that these quotes are deliberately culled by the Religion in American Life website in order to support their overtly biased mission, to give the appearance of a concrete consensus where none, in fact, exists?

Would it be safe to assume that the cult beliefs of incarcerated men have little to nothing to do with the thrust of my OP?

Yes, well, the inculcated fear of eternal damnation in the burning furnaces of hell can certainly affect change, can't it?

Well look at that! How nice of them to quote themselves! Obviously the RIAL (Religion in American Life) website never visited the active churches, synagogues or mosques in the five boroughs of New York; Belfast; Somalia; the entire Middle East, etc., etc., etc.

More vague generalizations that serve, once again, to demonstrate what we already know; cult programming can result in something that is "less likely" to occur, ignoring the fact that millions of cult members are single parents, divorced, and drug and alcohol abusers. Does AA--a faith-based program--ring any bells?

But just so long as it's "less likely" to occur, I guess that's good enough, right, so we should just forget all about the historical detriments theism has caused to various societies throughout the centuries, eh?

Did I mention your scholarship was "shoddy?" It doesn't even approach shoddiness.

Here. Here's a quote of my own for you. "Theism is more likely to allow otherwise intelligent men to become suicide bombers than atheism." --Me, here, now.

Yes, we know already that cult programming can effect control mechanisms in "at-risk" youth. Let's see...the ghetto, or inculcated belief that I will be rewarded with eternal salvation in a mystical paradise once I'm dead? Hmmm. Tough choice for a young mind living in a daily hell.

What this has to do with whether or not the irrational belief in a mystical fairy god king is a psychosis that should be intelligently addressed by the psychiatric community or not continues to escape me, but again, thanks for the generalized vagaries regarding the effectiveness of cult programming to control "at-risk" youth in a "less likely" standard.

Do you have any more generalizations that give the appearance of supporting attending unspecified "services?"

Oh, great! You do. I particularly like this one for its use of the phrase, "makes a person twice as likely to stay married than a person who attends once a year or less," with no concern for whether or not they should stay married.

Not to mention that it, once again, helps qualify what I've been talking about regarding the comparative effectiveness of cult programming and control.

Now, we move on to another generalized set of quotes:

Now that's my favorite for impossible to qualify, generalized assertions, Meta! Sterling scholarship!

Ah, yes, the same George Gallup who personally interviewed some three billion people. Note once again the tell-tale use of the word "influence." The plot thickens....to opacity.

Oops, sorry! That's the best example of your shoddy scholarship, Meta. The conclusion posted doesn't even base itself correctly on the evidence presented to support it!

Same thing!

Meta, this is a travesty, even for your own low standards. Don't you dare ever accuse any of us of shoddy scholarship! This is just repulsive.

"Most people" have said no such thing! 80% of whomever Gallup poled (couldn't resist) who said they were "excited about the future" (whatever that means) agree that they find comfort and support in their beliefs.

What a shock. Cult members who find comfort and support in their cult beliefs? Say it isn't so!

This is just appalling, Meta, even for you. You know damn well that all these quotes are saying is that cult members consider their cult to be the most important influence (there's that programming word again) on their lives.

What has this to do with anything other than further demonstrating that cult programming influences people; something we already know and is not in contention?

-*snip* the rest of the RIAL nonsense-

Now we go to another website.

This is typical apologetic "scholarship," BTW. Start out with vague, non-specific quotes from a seemingly reputable source and then slowly progress to the unabashedly biased sources, such as this last one from the University of Wales "Center for Ministry Studies."

More questions regarding cult programming (only here it's directly christian cult programming). How nice.

Is that their way of saying "homosexuality?" One wonders...

That's it? Where's the cookie? Oh, I see, we're supposed to go off and read all of those studies.

So you aren't actually presenting any direct evidence here at all regarding the thrust of my OP, are you Meta? I mean beyond the vague generalizations presented and edited third hand by overtly biased sources regarding how best to help ghetto children become more moral and spiritually whole, right?

As always, a pointless waste of time, Meta, but you get points for giving the appearance that you're a scholar, if not actually demonstrating you're one.

(edited for formatting Meta's url inclusions - Koy)

[ February 10, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

hezekiah jones

There's nothing quite like an objective inquiry composed of a panel of dispassionate "social scientists," is there?

Midge Decter, a.k.a. Mrs. Norman Podhoretz II, far from being a "social scientist" is in fact a journalist. She is a also a trustee of the Heritage Foundation, and "laughingly tell[s] us that liberals [sic] refer to her as 'the dragon lady.'"

John DiIulio is familiar to denizens of the Church/State Forum as the former adminstrator of Bush's "faith-based" initiative, which has essentially been reduced to a tax break for charitable contributions.

DiIulio some years ago was the co-author, along with fellow traveler and celebrated moral absolutist William Bennett, of a book that predicted the emergence of veritable armies of juvenile "superpredators," which were to lay waste to America's cities. Of course they don't like to talk about that one much anymore.

David Larson, whom the Manhattan Institute describes as the "President of the National Institute for Healthcare Research," is in fact no longer the "President of the National Institute for Healthcare Research." This is because the "National Institute for Healthcare Research," no doubt responding to concerns related to truth in advertising, changed its name to, "International Center for the Integration of Health and Spirituality" on August 15, 2001.

"Byron Johnson is distinguished senior fellow and associate director of the Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society."

<a href="http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/johnson.html" target="_blank">Religious Programs, Institutional Adjustment, and Recidivism</a>.

In other words, Johnson found no correlation between the inmates' professed degree of faith and good conduct while incarcerated.

The conclusion to the above assemblage of related studies contains the following:

I suggest the "potential" that religious programs supposedly offer is roughly equivalent to the "potential" that making participation on the Secular Web available to inmates will reduce recidivism just as effectively.

No one is suggesting that these individuals are incompetent, or that they are not dedicated to improving society from their own perspectives, particularly with special emphasis on young people. However, it should be noted that all of those on the panel Metacrock cites represent one political perspective on what has proven to be a highly contentious issue.

Furthermore for Metacrock to engage in a vituperative shower of personal invective against those that would dare question his highly selective compendium of supposedly ironclad "social science" research obviously belies the fact that it is indeed Metacrock himself who is abusing the results of his empirical studies.

One more thing:

Whoever said this has obviously never set foot in a county courthouse.

GunnerJ

Koy, as always, you are in my prayers. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />