Is religion proof that a society as a whole can catch a mental disease?

Question

Is religion proof that a society as a whole can catch a mental disease?

Answer 1

Well the thought of some type of h**l after life is Mass hysteria obviously.

Also wanted to say it was great of Ann C to judge other religions....thats the "better than thou" mental defect.

Answer 2

How else can you get kids to behave, except to tell them that God is watching and they will burn forever in h**l if they are bad.  This is backed up by Santa, who keeps the names in a book, of good and bad kids.

Sometimes when you go diving underwater and see the most beautiful scenery, or look closely at a butterfly's wings or a flower, you realise there must be a God, and when you see children being hurt in accidents etc, there must be a Devil, but some of the ways history has celebrated this, is pretty screwy.  Instead of just going to Church and singing about it, religion decided to go into the clothing business (you must wear this and that for God), the s*x business (don't enjoy yourself), the crime business (priests and choir boys), and before tv came along to entertain we had human sacrifice, and then just to remind women to not try to rise above their station.........witchburning.    What more proof do you need?

Answer 3

Humans, as well as probably all primates, are followers - for it is an evolutionary advantage to be included in a group.

What comes with the ability to think rationally comes with the fear of what we know (death) and what we are uncertain of.  Religion comforts some in both of these.

Also, many children are taught right away to be ignorant and to accept things as true without any real reason.  Their reason is that other people believe it to be true and through fear of burning for eternity.  Religion can be compared to cults in many ways (most specifically Christianity).

If thinking irrationally is a mental disease, then yes, religion is proof of your question.

Answer 4

Honey if your religon is linked to mental disease then you must be either catholic or not in a religon at all but a cult instead. Because I as a Baptist know that reilgon is a group of individuals whom worship a common God/god.Mental disease are where you worship a person whom is not God or god.

Answer 5

Dogma and secularism are the same thing.

Answer 6

Well, religions happen for a relatively obscure reasons in the mental development of humans beings during history. It has been theorized, that it was making a society stronger when its population was believing in a god, as its peoples were not scared anymore to die for their cause, and were making more willing combatants. Thus it really increase the paces of conflicts among tribes of the early neolithic period and eventually select individuals more encline to believed in mysticisms, while the ones more criticals were selectively eliminate from the tribe. At the time, it is also theorized that the ''priest'' of the tribe were more often than not schizophreniacs, so pretty much intelligent and manipulatives. So early religion was mainly monotheistic (sun was the first god), and then seeing that one god was giving them more strength (belief in death and others), they began to add more gods (mainly after conquest of other tribes that may have been larger than the original)...

Anyways, early religions did indeed contributes to increase the natural pressure on mentally ill persons over the mentally healthy for a while, and have contributed a lot to the establishments of the first large settlements and eventually cities! Those schizophreniac were quite power hungry, and were gift with an above average intelligence and were making socially mainpulative leaders. So we can`t say that religion cause mental illness, but it certainly arise from them!!

Answer 7

If you don't like it----be a man and mind your own business.

Answer 8

yes...there have also been instances of group hallucinations

EDIT: james, thanks a bunch..I swear to goddess...i literally laughed out loud when I first read the question

Answer 9

I fail to see the relation.

If your statement is true, then it would have to be assumed that all religions are nothing more than a mental disease. I think you'll find a lot people disagreeing with you.

Mental illness and Religion are two different things, one does not automatically follow the other.

No, it is not proof of mental illness.

Answer 10

There is an interesting thing about religion; every society till the modern Marxists believed in a religion and I would argue that they did also.  The atheists are sometimes the most religious in that they hold their views blindly and do not allow any alternatives.

Answer 11

haha that's a bit harsh but instead of "mental disease" i would say "collective manipulation", like inventing a placebo that takes effect on a bunch of patients trying to fill a need.