Metacrock

Meta => YOu have one tactic, say a bunch of picky bull shit and pretend like you've killed an argument. You've said nothing, but the other guy has to spend hours pointing it out. Now this is a non argument. Helping ghetto kids is just the occassion of the speech so what? That has little to do with your arugment, but the point is that in content of the talk he summarizes the 400 studies that total blow your point away (and let's not forget you have not one shred of data to support your argument). So you must show why it matters what the occassion for giving the speech was.


quote:
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Meta: Dr. Larson laid the foundation for the discussion by summarizing the findings of 400 studies on juvenile delinquency, conducted during the past two decades.
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MEta=>O yea that sounds like a real insightful criticism, but let's think for a sec. What does it really mean? Larson summarizes 400 studies, obviously he can't read them all at a lunch time speaking engagement so he sumarrizes them, that's his talk. Now does that make them worng? Does it make them go away? NO! and given that you offer no evidence its damn fine documentation. Now what happens when someone summarizes Larson? It's a summary "of a summary." But so what? If it's an accurate summary what difference does that make?


And you still haven't come to terms with the Maslow stuff or any of the stuff on that second page of data which had a considerable batch of sources also


quote:
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MORE: His conclusion: “The better we study religion, the more we find it makes a difference.”
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Meta =-> I want to know why you think that's a clever tactic? It's absurd. The content of the material says things like religious people suffer less form depression and have fewer incidence of suicide or mental illness, and you can't see how that would be relivent to the original lunatic assetion that somehow religion is linked to mental illness? What part of "few incidents" can you not understand? The whole Larson speech is just one fact after another building a gaint case for the positive nature of rleigion and all you do is go "difference for what?" For life obviously and that is clearly relivant.

MEta =>NONONONNON, that is just dogmatic refusal to look at the evidence. Being a summary doesn't make it a mere webmaster's anayonmous work. For one thing the speech itself is linked, I believe. Even so it's a summary of the Larson speech. But that up against nothing form your side, no docs at all, and it's still decent documentation. The 400 studies exist, they show religion is good for mental health and you can't deny that or change it. you have to refute them speicifically.


Meta =>That sentence is just a long string of conjecture without evidence. You are also not bothering to distinguish between a systematic flaw and a psychological one. Even if you could make the link from religion to soical harms, which you can't, that still wouldn't prove your stupid psychosis thing, becasue war, poverty, oppression, intolerance are not the result mental illness, those are systemic ills no one of any weight thinks they are the result of mental illness.


MEta =>So we can get our minds off the fact that you have not given a shred of evidence for your hypothesis.


quote:
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MORE: Previewing his own impressive research, Dr. Johnson agreed.
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meta ->No we don't need them. Your opinion does not have prsumption. You have failed to produce a prima facie case because you have no evidence at all. Until you get some any evidence I produce is better than what you have. When you come up with some actual evidence then we can compare studies.


quote:
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MORE: He has concluded that church attendance reduces delinquency among boys even when controlling for a number of other factors including age, family structure, family size, and welfare status. His findings held equally valid for young men of all races and ethnicities.
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meta =>We aren't talking about cult programing. That's another thing, your hate god cult has no backing for its idiotic assumption that all religion is a cult. Just more opinionated stupidity.

meta =>You never offered any evidence or anything to back it up so I have no reason to take it seriously. But if it was psychosis how could it produce benificail social effects? You really think these things can be isolated with air tight little categories? What an amature.


quote:
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MORE: Gary Walker has spent 25 years designing, developing and evaluating many of the nation’s largest public and philanthropic initiatives for at-risk youth. His experience tells him that faith-based programs are vitally important for two reasons. First, government programs seldom have any lasting positive effect.
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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?

Meta =->You can't produce benificial social effects on a population of mentally ill people. Mental illness is not in a vacuum. In society if it has a benificial effect socially its probably a valid stablizing force for mental health.

The rest of this is just in the same vein, you say nothing cause you know nothing.

Koyaanisqatsi

Where on that site does it list the "three highly qualified sources" that wrote the summary?

Metacrock

Meta =>This is absurdly abusrd. To pretend that this somehow debucks my argument is silly. All he's done is showen the credentials of the people who were on the panel discussion. Those are not the people who did the 400 studies that Larson was talkinga about. That doesn't do anything to get under those studies.

All you've really done is show that some of the people present at the banquet when Larson spoke were very right wing. You can't even impune their academic credentials and the woman "the Dragon lady" was never claimed to be a scholar she's not one of the 400 studies. That has the effect of looking like you've expossed something, in reality all you've done is totally miss the content.

Metacrock

You didn't say anything about any of these studies. Now let's see you try and debunck Maslow!

1)Religious experince is not corrollated to mental illness

It is amazing how many atheists think that any sort of religious feeling is a prelude to schitzephrinia, delusions, and other mental pathologies. But the studies show there is no corrollation at all. Now there are cases where mental illness has conicided with religous thoughts, or where delusions took the form of voices in the head claiming to be God and so on, but even in these cases theree is no corrollation between the patients past history of religious belief and delustions. It just happens that at certain times mentally ill people have delusions that involve religious ideas, but it does not follow that religious thinking is a product of mental illness

a) Religious ideas and practice not corrollated with pathology


J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

"As for psychosis, the authors notied that those with psychotic ideation are not necessarily preoccupied with religious concerns, nor do they frequently attend religious services; rather they are less frequent attenders than those in the general population..."


b) No corrollation between mystical experince and mental illness.

Childhood Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration

Caird
(1987) "found no relationship between reported mystical experience and neuroticism, psychoticism and lying while Spanos and Moretti (1988) found no relationship between a measure of mystical experience and psychopathology."
Quote:

The experience of pure consciousness is typically called "mystical". The essence of the mystical experience has been debated for years (Horne, 1982). It is often held that "mysticism is a manifestation of something which is at the root of all religions (p. 16; Happold, 1963)." The empirical assessment of the mystical experience in psychology has occurred to a limited extent. Scientific interest in the mystical experience was broadened with the research on psychoactive drugs. The popular belief was that such drugs mimicked either mystical states and/or schizophrenic ones (reviewed in Lukoff, Zanger & Lu, 1990). Although there is likely some physiological similarity as well as phenomenological recent work has shown clear differences. For instance, Oxman, Rosenberg, Schnurr, Tucker and Gala (1988) analyzed 66 autobiographical accounts of schizophrenia, hallucinogenic drug experiences, and mystical ecstasy as well as 28 control accounts of important personal experiences. They concluded that the:

"subjective experiences of schizophrenia, hallucinogenic drug-induced states, and mystical ecstasy are more different from one another than alike."(p. 401).

2) Religioius belief indicative of good mental health


a)Religous Pepole are More Self Actualized

Dr. Michale Nielson,Ph.D. Psychology and religion.
"http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/ukraine/index.htm"

Quote:


"What makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."

Gagenback

Quote:

In terms of psychological correlates, well-being and happiness has been associated with mystical experiences,(Mathes, Zevon, Roter, Joerger, 1982; Hay & Morisy, 1978; Greeley, 1975; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987) as well as self-actualization (Hood, 1977; Alexander, 1992). Regarding the latter, the developer of self-actualization believed that even one spontaneous peak or transcendental experience could promote self-actualization. Correlational research has supported this relationship. In a recent statistical meta-analysis of causal designs with Transcendental Meditation (TM) controlling for length of treatment and strength of study design, it was found that: TM enhances self-actualization on standard inventories significantly more than recent clinically devised relaxation/meditation procedures not explicitly directed toward transcendence [mystical experience] (p. 1; Alexander, 1992)


b) Christian Repentence Promotes Healthy Mindedness

william James
Gilford lectures

Quote:


"Within the Christian body, for which repentance of sins has from the beginning been the critical religious act, healthy-mindedness has always come forward with its milder interpretation. Repentance according to such healthy-minded Christians means getting away from the sin, not groaning and writhing over its commission. The Catholic practice of confession and absolution is in one of its aspects little more than a systematic method of keeping healthy-mindedness on top. By it a man's accounts with evil are periodically squared and audited, so that he may start the clean page with no old debts inscribed. Any Catholicwill tell us how clean and fresh and free he feels after the purging operation. Martin Luther by no means belonged to the healthy-minded type in the radical sense in which we have discussed it, and be repudiated priestly absolution for sin. Yet in this matter of repentance he had some very healthy-minded ideas, due in the main to the largeness of his conception of God. -..."

e. Recent Empirical Studies Prove Religious Believers have less depression, mental illness lower Divorce rate, ect.

J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

Quote:


"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical staus in whihc research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alchohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and martital satisfaction, (9) Physical Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies....The authors underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of teh few longevity or mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who attended chruch...at least 70% of the time, increased religious commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from problems."

[The authors conducted a literature search of over 2000 publications to glean the current state of empirical study data in areas of Spirituality and health]

2) Shrinks assume religious experience Normative.
Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo

[ <a href="http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/amaro.html]" target="_blank">http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/amaro.html]</a>


a) Unbeliever is the Sick Soul


"A non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it will be the measure for one's understanding."

b. psychotheraputic discipline re-evalutes Frued's criticism of religion

Quote:

Amaro--


"Nowadays there are many who do not agree with the notion that religious behavior a priori implies a neurotic state to be decoded and eliminated by analysis (exorcism). That reductionism based on the first works by Freud is currently under review. The psychotherapist should be limited to observing the uses their clients make of the representations of the image of God in their subjective world, that is, the uses of the function of omnipotence. Among the several authors that subscribe to this position are Odilon de Mello Franco (12), .... W. R. Bion (2), one of the most notable contemporary psychoanalysts, ..."

[sources sited by Amaro BION, W. R. Atenção e interpretação (Attention and interpretation). Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1973.

MELLO FRANCO, O. de. Religious experience and psychoanalysis: from man-as-god to man-with-god. Int. J. of Psychoanalysis (1998) 79,]

c) This relationship is so strong it led to the creation of a whole discipline in psychology; transactionalism

Neilson on Maslow

Quote:


"One outgrowth of Maslow's work is what has become known as Transpersonal Psychology, in which the focus is on the spiritual well-being of individuals, and values are advocated steadfastly. Transpersonal psychologists seek to blend Eastern religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) or Western (Christian, Jewish or Moslem) mysticism with a form of modern psychology. Frequently, the transpersonal psychologist rejects psychology's adoption of various scientific methods used in the natural sciences."
"The influence of the transpersonal movement remains small, but there is evidence that it is growing. I suspect that most psychologists would agree with Maslow that much of psychology -- including the psychology of religion -- needs an improved theoretical foundation."

3) Religion is positive factor in physical health.

"Doctrors find Power of faith hard to ignore
By Usha Lee McFarling
Knight Ridder News Service
(Dec. 23, 1998)
<a href="Http://www.tennessean.com/health/stories/98/trends1223.htm" target="_blank">Http://www.tennessean.com/health/stories/98/trends1223.htm</a>

Quote:

"Some suspect that the benefits of faith and churchgoing largely boil down to having social support — a factor that, by itself, has been shown to improve health. But the health effects of religion can't wholly be explained by social support. If, for example, you compare people who aren't religious with people who gather regularly for more secular reasons, the religious group is healthier. In Israel, studies comparing religious with secular kibbutzim showed the religious communes were healthier."Is this all a social effect you could get from going to the bridge club? It doesn't seem that way," said Koenig, who directs Duke's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health .Another popular explanation for the link between religion and health is sin avoidance."

"The religious might be healthier because they are less likely to smoke, drink and engage in risky sex and more likely to wear seat belts.But when studies control for those factors, say by comparing religious nonsmokers with nonreligious nonsmokers, the religious factors still stand out. Compare smokers who are religious with those who are not and the churchgoing smokers have blood pressure as low as nonsmokers. "If you're a smoker, make sure you get your butt in church," said Larson, who conducted the smoking study."

see also: he Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993 For data on a many studies which support this conclusion.


4) Religion is the most powerful Factor in well being.

Poloma and Pendelton The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3290.

Quote:


"The authors found that religious satisfaction was the most powerful predicter of existential well being. The degree to which an individual felt close to God was the most important factor in terms of existential well-being. While frequency of prayer contributed to general life satisfaction and personal happiness. As a result of their study the authors concluded that it would be important to look at a combindation of religious items, including prayer, religionship with God, and other measures of religious experince to begin to adequately clearlify the associations of religious committment with general well-being."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mad Kally

Hezekiah,
I'm saving that one in my quote file..

GunnerJ

Watching Meatcock attempt to debate is like watching a walrus attempt to fence. Keep your epee up, Koy, and run all that flabby blubber through! <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

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

Vorkosigan

[b]You didn't say anything about any of these studies. Now let's see you try and debunck Maslow!

1)Religious experince is not corrollated to mental illness

Agreed.

2) Religioius belief indicative of good mental health

a)Religous Pepole are More Self Actualized

This interpretation of Maslow's work is not correct. Maslow would claim mystics are more self-actualized. I doubt he would think religious people like Hitler, Falwell or Bin Laden are very self-actualized.

Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe.

No shit. The definition of a mystic is someone who has had a peak experience. Maslow's observation is like saying that "football players are more likely to have played football."

Above you asked us to refute Maslow. As the quote you supplied says:

Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."

Gagenback....

...is a nut. Why are you citing this weirdo whose work is not peer-reviewed and who believes people contact a higher consciousness when they dream?

b) Christian Repentence Promotes Healthy Mindedness

william James

William James' opinions are interesting, but hardly proof of anything. Against him I adduce all the horrors of the Church, which are sufficient to annihilate this position.

e. Recent Empirical Studies Prove Religious Believers have less depression, mental illness lower Divorce rate, ect.

J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

Larson is a fundie. In any case, as a glance at divorce stats, suicide, mental illness and other issues show, the most religions regions of the US (the rocky mountains and south) have the highest rates of all of these.

a) Unbeliever is the Sick Soul

Oh please. What about Japan, the Netherlands....

b. psychotheraputic discipline re-evalutes Frued's criticism of religion

&lt;shrug&gt; Freud was wrong on just about everything.

blood pressure as low as nonsmokers. "If you're a smoker, make sure you get your butt in church," said Larson, who conducted the smoking study."

Sorry, but I don't buy this. Why is the healthiest, longest-lived nation on earth the irreligious Japanese? Why are the most violent, socially-regressive nations religious/communist?

Also, research by fundie propagandists like Larson is not really objective.

What annoys me is that these studies of yours were already annihilated last year, and you put them up here without any acknowledgement of the prior problems with them, and with no attempt to respond, forcing poor Hezekiah to repeat work I did last year.

Michael

Koyaanisqatsi

Actually, the tactic was a detailed deconstruction of the shoddiness and irrelevancy of your "evidence." You want to dance again? Fine by me.

Scathing indictment, Meta. Just scathing. What amounts to 12 pages printed detailing precisely why your evidence is worthless and has nothing to do with the thrust of my OP and you childishly proclaim, "You've said nothing."

Are you going to take your ball home now, too?

IT'S THE PRIMARY THRUST OF ALL THE "EVIDENCE" PRESENTED AND THEREFORE HAS LITTLE TO NOTHING TO DO WITH MY OP, in case that wasn't painfully clear to you already.

Ahhh, so you do see it and all of this other bullshit is just pointless masturbation. Got it.

<ol type="A">[*] He didn't summarize the 400 studies, some anonymous webmaster did.[*] The "conclusion" the Dr. comes to is that more study is needed (so that blows the relevance of your 400 studies away) and that "religion makes a difference." A difference to what? TO THE POSSIBILITY OF GHETTO KIDS BECOMING MORAL, SPIRITUALLY WHOLE GHETTO KIDS[/list=a]

Jesus, do your goddamned research before wasting everyone's time like this!

I don't need evidence to support my argument since I never made an argument! I asked a question, preferably of any psychologists around here, about why the irrational belief in theism is not considered a psychosis and treated accordingly.

If you're referring to my claim that theism is harmful to society, fine, I offer two thousand years of the christian cult's victimization, divisiveness and bloodshed and the WTC disaster.

More examples of your disingenuous scholarship. I didn't show what the "occasion for giving the speech was," I showed what the context of your worthless evidence was!

They were talking about religion making a "difference" to "at-risk" ghetto kids! What has that got to do with whether or not theism should be classified as a psychosis and treated accordingly?

You're so tiresome.

Why don't we first complete the rest of my analysis and get to what Dr. Larson "concluded" about those two decades of 400 studies, which was that more study was required and that "religion makes a difference." Difference to what? To Ghetto kids possibly becoming moral, spiritually whole ghetto kids!

You are such a pain in the gluteus.

No, actually, he doesn't summarize them, the anonymous author of the newsletter summarizes them for his. The same author then gives us Dr. Larson's conclusion[/i], which was no conclusion at all!

Are you seriously claiming that "The better we study religion, the more we find it makes a difference" (without any context according to you) is a valid and acceptable conclusion?

Take great and painful steps to go back to the website and note that the author of the newsletter states, quite categorically, that Dr. Larson's conclusion is:

Do you know what a conclusion is?

Does that make them in any way, shape or form relevant to the OP?

What is? The fact that there are 400 studies out there somewhere and that the conclusion Dr. Larson comes to from those studies is "The better we study religion, the more we find it makes a difference," without, according to you, any context whatsoever to qualify that conclusion?

You're out of your mind if you think that qualifies as "damn fine documentation," especially when the context of the discussion is taken into account and we discover that he's talking about making a difference to ghetto kids in their ability to become moral, spiritually whole members of society!

I have such a keppy ache.

No, it isn't. READ YOUR OWN GODDAMNED EVIDENCE!

Better still, just read your own goddamned post:
There's the summary made by the author of the newsletter.

There's his conclusion. You don't even have scholarship; you have anti-scholarship.

Accurate summary of what in what context? Jesus F-ing Christ!

Oh, don't worry. Since you've demonstrated you haven't the first f-ing clue about scholarship, however, I'm not holding my breath.

First, I don't necessarily consider it either “clever” or a tactic; I consider it pointing out the obvious.

Which material? The Jeremiah Project material doesn't. The Religion in American Life material does. Yes, it sure does "say" that doesn't it? Though I don't recall anything in it that refers to mental illness, but since you're all over the friggin' map, I'll take a wild guess and consider you're referring to something I haven't addressed yet.

"linked to mental illness?" My OP asks whether or not theism (the irrational belief in magical fairy god kings) is a psychosis and should be treated accordingly by the psychiatric community.

Try, just once, to stay focused on what everyone else is talking about instead of rewriting everything to your cross-wires, yes?

What are you talking about? "Few incidents" of what?

Of for fu...enough of this stupidity. You presented a conflated list of hopelessly unrelated and impossible declaratives that could not possibly be verified ("Most people that are happy are religious people") to build a giant straw man so that you could somehow then discard all that dead weight by saying, "It's documentation that says there's shit out there for you to go research and do my work for me."

Enough. You haven't an honest scholar's bone in your entire body.

What evidence? After this unbelievably shoddy piece of pseudo scholarship, why in the world would you think I would do your own work for you?

Seriously. I'd like to know that. Why?

What does it make it?

Then why didn't you present the speech? I can find no link to it.

RE READ THAT LAST POST ONE THOUSAND TIMES. That's your punishment for impersonating a scholar.

An anonymous author's summary of his speech is "decent documentation," because I presented no counter documentation?

I think you're proving, quite nicely, the psychosis of theism in my OP IMO.

Good for them. Whenever you'd like to actually get around to quote from them and provide a detailed methodology, feel free.

And now I'm supposed to take your word for it? Wow.

Present them specifically and we'll start from there. How's that?

True, that's why it's a contention in support of the question. You remember the question? Why isn't theism considered a psychosis and treated accordingly by the psychiatric community? You know, the thrust of my OP?

Sorry, I've been far too busy dealing with your shoddy scholarship. I'll get right on it. Had you offered any of this originally, then we would have had something.

Not much, but something.

Well, so much for the "something." Once again and for the record, I am asking (hopefully psychologists or people with psychiatric background) why theism isn't classified as a psychosis and treated accordingly? Many people have given great insight into this, most notably the classification of delusional psychosis, which is still being discussed by everyone not interested in whether or not ghetto kids become moral, spiritually whole.

Now it's a "hypothesis?" I thought it was a contention in support of the question. I tell you what, let me apply your own standards of evidentiary procedure.

This site is chock full of thousands of references to the detrimental effects theism (the irrational belief in magical fairy god kings) has caused to society throughout the centuries. Go <a href="http://www.iidb.org" target="_blank"> here</a> to research that for me, ok?

There's a good li'll clubber.

Well, it's a good thing I haven't offered a prima facie case and instead asked a question of, hopefully, any psychologists who might be lounging around.

Shit is better than nothing? Is that your argument?

Go <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/index.shtml" target="_blank">here</a> and get to back to me on what you found.

Brilliant refutation. So, what is Dr. Johnson talking about? Let's see if we have some clue from the webmaster's summary...oh, yes!

Great. And that's relevant to the thrust of my OP, how again?

Well, it's a good thing it was a question to open up a discussion and therefore didn't require me to provide evidence backing it up, but others have. It's still being discussed actually, aside from your pointlessness.

Theism isn't what is producing "benificial social effects," according to your "evidence," you expletive deleted. Operant conditioning is.

Well, that's why I asked the question. Please don't let the URL hit you in your ass on your way out.

At least I didn't just post a conflated list of disparate and irrelevant quotes taken out of context from biased sources and try to fob that off as legitimate scholarship.

I've noticed too that you haven't addressed the majority of my direct observations on the quality of that evidence, demonstrating in each step how it is not applicable or even supportive of its own contentions. Hack.

No one has claimed theists are "mentally ill" people per se, the question is why isn't theism (the irrational belief in magical fairy god kings who blinked everything into existence) considered a psychosis and treated accordingly? That's what my question was to the board. The question.

Well, what do you know, you've finally offered a cogent point. A "valid stabilizing force for mental health," does not necessarily negate the question of whether or not it's a psychosis, however or beneficial. Prozac is a valid stabilizing force for mental health to psychiatrists, but not necessarily considered one by psychologists. Lobotomies and shock treatment are considered "valid stabilizing" forces for mental health by some and not by others.

Regardless, the question remains, why isn't theism regarded as a psychosis and treated accordingly? Your answer seems to be (after all of that other pointless nonsense) that it is not regarded as a psychosis and treated accordingly because it has "valid stabilizing" attributes.

I still contend that the "valid stabilizing" attributes (that your evidence supports, by the way) are due more to behavioral operant conditioning (i.e., cult programming) than to anything psychologically beneficial, in the ultimate sense, so I continue to ask the question and seek out input from the board.

Is that ok with you?

Yes, yes, fuck you too, but is that ok with you? That I continue to ask questions regarding why theism is not regarded as a psychosis and treated accordingly?

Now piss up a rope

(edited for formatting - Koy)

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

-DM-

And I'm wondering why it is that you, with your inflated opinion about your allegedly superior education, seemingly don't realize just how arrogant you sound. Given your own allegedly superior education, one would think that you would be less prone to jump to the kinds of erroneous conclusions that you do.

But thank you for asking about my education even though it could not possibly measure up to yours. Yes, my education went beyond grade school. I didn't finish high school, however, Instead, I skipped the last two years of high school and entered the University of Chicago at age 16 on the basis of the entrance exam, passed out by examination of 3 of the required 16 core courses, and graduated from Purdue in 3½ years instead of the then-usual 4.

Since graduation from Purdue I have taken 100+ hours of college-level credit courses in various different subject areas, mostly for my own interest and amusement -- earning a grade of A in every single one of those courses -- though none of them was part of an advanced degree program.

"Totally meaningless"?

Didn't they teach you at Perkins not to exaggerate so?

Not one shred of data? How would you know? Are you exercising your omniscience again? Do they teach you how to obtain and use omniscience at Perkins too?

Even with my inferior education, I would have thought that somewhere along the way one of those schools that you went to would have mentioned that just because someone doesn't make you immediately aware of what data they do have doesn't mean that they have none. One would think that, at the very least, they would have taught you at Perkins to avoid leaping to conclusions such as that. Yes, I have data. Quite a bit of data to support what little I actually said.

Of course I didn't claim that religion was correlated with mental illness, so you are off on a straw man on that one.

I didn't conjecture, at least not much. Other than about Jesus and whether he would be judged psychotic today, that is another straw man.

Two strikes and one to go. One more and you're out.

Exactly what am I wrong about, Metacrock?
1) Nathaniel Branden did say what I quoted from his book.
2) I do agree with him.
3) There is often a religious component in mental illness.
4) And the biblical Jesus, if he were alive today and preaching what he allegedly preached, claiming to be the Son of God, that he would rise from the dead, etc., would likely be diagnosed by today's standards as psychotic

If you want to believe otherwise, that is OK by me. But in that case, I would say that -- like many religionists I have met -- you are a bit out of contact with reality.

--Don--

P.S. Suggested reading from amongst the books that I have read which are at least peripherally related:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0787945269/InternetInfidelsA" target="_blank">The Psychology of Self-Esteem</a> by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D.

<a href="http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y02Y0895020Y3698120/InternetInfidelsA" target="_blank">Religion May Be Hazardous to Your Health</a> by Eli Chesen, M.D.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0844628948/InternetInfidelsA" target="_blank">Psychiatric Study of Jesus</a> by Albert Schweitzer

The Secret of Jonestown: The Reason Why by Ed Dieckmann

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

-DM-

My B.S. was in psychology. My minors were sociology and cultural anthropology. I surmise that you know next to nothing about psychology else you wouldn't likely be so consistently insulting in your responses to others.

--Don--