Does religion, spiritual beliefs and practices cause mental problems, and what can be done about this?
Posted by dirtyDo you ever notice people who are, or at least seem, religious and spiritual who looks like they are suffering from some form of mental illness? They look down and depressed most of the time. They obsess over being dirty, sinful, and holy. They may isolate themselves from society long-term to achieve spirituality. Some monks who go overboard meditating in solitude claim to hear 'voices' and see 'things'. If it is not mistaken, Martin Luther, the reformer, suffered obsessive and compulsive confession of sin. What forms of mental illnesses are attributed to religion / spiritual involvements? What can done about this issue?
For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."
(1 Corinthians 3:19-20)
Fireball is… I won't say it because I'll get reported. But anyways, a religion is a cult. Check the definitions.
Sin drives people crazy.
No way! Mental problems cause religion and spiritual beliefs.
It can, so moderation is the key to keeping sane.
Depends on the religion, don't generalize
There are different people, different religions, different lifestyles
Many people are happy and contented because of their religion, in that case, they somewhat have a problem, group of them maybe.
The greatest expression of mental illness is denying ones own freedom and responsibility by giving another person control over your life. That is nuts, and the conditions of the world prove it.
No. not true.
Mental illnesses are organic brain disorders. Your view is straight out of the Dark Ages. Now, admittedly, sometimes OCD manifests itself in religious obsessions or compulsion, but these are the effect of the disease rather than the cause. Most religious people are perfectly mentally healthy.
We need to let time to heal and help religious people to evolve into something more acceptable than plain cannibalism!
CANNIBALISM IS ONE OF THE MAJOR THEMES IN THE BIBLE!
Christianity is a sick primitive religious fetish trying to blend into our modern society! The Bible writers claim that the GOD that they put together FORCED the Jews to eat their own children for dinner NOT AS A PUNISHMENT, but as a natural “WILL OF GOD!” God NEVER objected any cannibalism. In fact, he never issued any law against cannibalism. God Jehovah, Jesus, Trinity or what have you is on record forcing his especially “chosen” people to slaughter and cook their own children for dinner! The Bible God prohibits eating PIGS, but NOT CHILDREN! There is a complaint about sacrificing children to God Moloch, but NOT TO THE BIBLE GOD! Today, Abraham would be in jail for the attempted murder of his son Isaac, and Jephthah would be on death row for the premeditated slaughter of his young virgin daughter that no preacher dares to mention (Judges 11)! Any religion back then was as primitive and savage as you can’t possibly imagine. The Mormons wised up to buried the Bible under the BOOK OF MORMON! The Bible God is totally powerless to teach the Jews any lesson without FORCING them to eat their own children for dinner!
Palestine was a “Land Flowing with Milk and Honey,” but after the Jews landed in the “Promised Land” the milk and honey stopped flowing! So the Bible writers began to promise that “God will make the desert to blossom like a rose!” The perennial carrot hanging from a string at the end of a stick is still working not only for religious Jews, but it is earning MILLIONS for the Clergy & Preachers especially since the “going to Heaven when you die” idea was put together!
No smutty publication is putting out anything as vicious as the Bible stories on cannibalism, but smart Preachers and Christians not buying any smut magazine can fantasize all about it reading the Bible!
Leviticus 26:29 – (without warning of any evil or any punishment God is anxiously saying to his Holy people) YOU WILL eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters…* (*this Jewish God is not forcing the Jews to eat PIGS for survival, but he is forcing them to eat their own kosher CHILDREN for dinner!)
The tender BBQ rib slab of an 8 year old boy or girl, flavored with some spicy sauce would taste delicious to any Christian pedophile today! The Bible writers say that for non Christians the Bible stories are “FOOLISHNESS” (1 Cor 2:14). Actually they are not foolishness, but PUKING SMUTTY CRAP… in flawless King James English!
Deuteronomy 28:53-57 – Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege* (*about 700 Bible years into the future!), YOU WILL EAT THE FRUIT OF THE WOMB, THE FLESH OF THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS the LORD your God has given you* (*the Jews won’t eat PIGS in obedience to God! But they will eat the children that God gave them! Christians know this to be the IRRESISTIBLE WILL OF GOD!) Even the most gentle and sensitive man* (*not a gay or a “Godless” atheist, but a “SWEET” man of GOD!) among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the WIFE HE LOVES or his SURVIVING CHILDREN, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating…* (*Not sharing your favorite child dish with your spouse is a shameful SIN that will send you to Hell!)
Jeremiah 19:9 I* (*God, NOT SATAN, but GOD!) WILL MAKE THEM EAT THE FLESH OF THEIR SONS AND DAUGHTERS* (Christians still claim that NOBODY can resist the will of this “loving” God! The Jews WILL BE FORCED TO EAT their own children for dinner no matter what, while at the same time gays must be stoned to death, along with PREGNANT ladies who are caught in adultery or in promiscuity!)
According to the Bible, when the “666” trademark will be set up Christians WON’T BE ABLE TO BUY OR SELL FOOD or anything else without it. Will they eat their own children for dinner?
Ezekiel 5:10 – Therefore in your midst fathers WILL EAT THEIR CHILDREN*… (*this crap is ALL OVER THE BIBLE! God is dead serious about getting people to eat children! Christians don’t see it because they are bewitched with fairy “Jesus”)
Any kind of government would allow their people to eat pork instead of their own children! It took Moses 2 men to carry a single cluster of gigantic size grapes to show the Israelites how plentiful was the Land of Palestine that they were going to invade (Num 13:23)! The Bible writers had well fed Jews in Egypt COVETING something that wasn’t theirs, but when God gave them the 10 Commandments they were told NOT TO COVET anymore! As the Jews invaded the Promised Land Flowing with Milk and Honey they never found the giant grapes. They had to eat their own children to survive! Hardly any lady needed to abort in those days. God FORCED them to eat their babies after they were born!
Lamentations 4:10 – With their own hands COMPASSIONATE WOMEN* (*Not lesbians or atheist ladies, but “Jesus loving” women!) HAVE COOKED THEIR OWN CHILDREN…!* (*DONE! as God promised! But relax it NEVER happened in real life! This is all Bible smutty crap no matter how you look at it! BTW, our Government officials swear on this Bible! They are all hedonistically oriented!)
CANNIBALISM in the Bible is in FULL EXPLICIT CONTEXT that is IMPOSSIBLE for any HONEST Preacher to “spiritualize” and make it disappear. That is why I had to quit Christianity and religion in general! It is sickening!
2 Kings 6:26-29 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!” The king replied, “If the Lord* (*God/Jehovah/Trinity/Jesus!) does not help you, where can I get help for you? Then he asked her, “What's the matter?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we'll eat my son.’ So we cooked my son and ate him* (*BTW… it tasted delicious!!!). The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him, but she had hidden him!* (*GODAMMIT! She cheated!)
They were all COMPASSIONATE Godly, not atheist, or Lesbian, but heterosexual women who HAVE SLAUGHTERED AND COOKED THEIR OWN CHILDREN FOR DINNER at the tune of “The LORD is my Shepherd I shall not want” (Psa 23 or 24, if Catholic)! God given children must be delicious for dinner!
Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I* (*God) WILL NOT FORGET YOU!* (*God may have the child served for dinner!)
The last bunch of Bible writers claim that God the Son Jesus Christ was beaten to a pulp thoroughly tenderized and heavily marinated in Roman soldiers’ spit to become the “Spotless Lamb of God” nailed TOTALLY NAKED to a Holy Cross in a primitive Heathen ritual to cleanse the “sin” of Eve in her quest for knowledge! BTW, there is no record that the Roman soldiers ever dressed the genital area of their victims in a white diaper or that anybody nailed to a cross enjoyed a foot rest so they could have a long chat on religious issues within hearing distance of the Bible writers! The Christians now snack Jesus’ delicious SPIT FLAVORED MEAT and like vampires DRINK HIS BLOOD to go to Heaven when they die (John 6:53)! Since cannibalism is all over the Bible the forever snacking God the Son Jesus Christ in the Holy Communion is NATURAL for a cannibalistic oriented Bible religion!
The Bible writers say that God’s enemies ought to be killed in their infancy when it is easier to get rid of them! That’s smarter than Allah having the Muslims kill grown ups!
Psalm 137:8-9 * O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, HAPPY is he who repays you for what you have done to us* (*Holy Vendetta!) –he who seizes your infants and DASHES them against the rocks* (*after the kids are dashed against the rocks they can be cooked for dinner, or trashed in the dumpster! The Bible writers were obviously having a real sadomasochistic orgy writing the Bible!)
Needed abortions today are for HUMANE reasons! Only the fetus is destroyed not a born child! GET THIS, the Bible God wants some grown children to be dashed to pieces and some cooked for dinner!
Isaiah 13:16 (KJV) Their little ones also WILL BE DASHED TO PIECES before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered AND THEIR WIVES RAVISHED* (*in the erotic mind of the Bible writers any sex starved masochistic lady will be ravished to their orgasmic delight, while their children are being DASHED TO PIECES… Surely some Christians are getting off like mad worshipping this Bible GOD! Amen?)
In Christianity, this repulsive God is evolving into Sweet Jesus that they use as a pretext to enforce their own uncivilized morality, denying needed abortions, same sex marriage, and so on…WHEN THEY MUST KNOW THAT JESUS IS NOT ANY BETTER…!
Revelation 2:23 (In his apocalyptic “revelation” Jesus Christ says) I WILL STRIKE HER CHILDREN DEAD* (*abortionists destroy fetuses ONLY WHEN NEEDED, but JESUS is killing real children! Most right wing Christians love to hear that Jesus is going to kill children in the wrong Churches! They get rich selling books on “Jesus loves the little children of the world,” but only of the right Church brand!). Then ALL THE CHURCHES WILL KNOW that I am he who searches hearts and minds and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.* (*not even the Mafia talks like that in public! For Christians to be “CHRIST LIKE” MUST include killing children in the wrong Churches… spiritually speaking, of course!)
Christians love “Jesus” and the Bible so much that they are willing to kill to defend. In any case no Church will give anybody their money back if they are not 100% SATISFIED!
Boy are you are in for some heated answers. We can't discriminate or suppress those people, that will only make the problem worse. Worse because they will continue to do them and by discriminating they will feel attacked and play the "supressing the truth" card, or something to that effect. We can only hope that through influence and experience these people may come to their senses. BUT, consider this also: What if the things they see voices they are, in fact, real? How can we ever debate that if they experience it. How can you explain the color green to someone who is blind? You can't do it. They haven't experienced other colors. There no connection, no relation. So while I remain open-minded, I am highly skeptical. So again, we shouldn't suppress or discriminate, only try to understand and give an oppurtunity for them to realize that they may be delusional.
Practices of wrong religions and Ideas only cause mental problems and belief in the right concept heals all problems.
for e.g- Christan made jesus(pbuh) "god" and his own begotten son"
if you'll see its a clear mental illness..
And the truth is-
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;
Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;
And there is none like unto Him.
It is not (piety, righteousness, and each and every act of obedience to Allâh, etc.) that you turn your faces towards east and (or) west (in prayers); but Al-Birr is (the quality of) the one who believes in Allâh, the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, the Prophets and gives his wealth, in spite of love for it, to the kinsfolk, to the orphans, and to Al-Masâkin (the poor), and to the wayfarer, and to those who ask, and to set slaves free, performs As-Salât (Iqâmat-as-Salât), and gives the Zakât, and who fulfill their covenant when they make it, and who are As-Sâbirin (the patient ones, etc.) in extreme poverty and ailment (disease) and at the time of fighting (during the battles). Such are the people of the truth and they are pious -
I don't believe religion etc causes mental illness, but i think existing mental illness may attract people to religion. I think maybe mental illness can make you question life more, like why do i think/act this way when others don't, and in looking for answers may discover religion. In religion, you can find somewhere to belong if you feel isolated, or judgement if you feel like there must be a reason you are this way.
I also think mental illness may have a link with intellect, in that many geniuses and intellects suffered from some forms of mental illness, and religion, spirituality and philosophy are normally explored by thinking people.
While I don't necessarily think that religion causes mental illness, I do believe that mental illness opens doors of suggestion for things like religion,which are then carried to the extreme.
If such people are not exposed to religion, just about anything can cause an obsession. There was a mentally handicapped guy working at our local Goodwill who talked incessantly about the Care Bears, because that's what he watched at his group home.
Non-believers will twist and turn innocent Christians into wierd or paranoid people. We are IN this world but not OF it. If we seem to be zealous people, its because we serve an awesome God. Those who claim to be religiously spiritual or obsessed with filth, sin, and overly holiness are not with God. We are not supposed to judge people, and we are all imperfect in His eyes. It is not crazy to believe and faith in a Creator/Love.
Those who do not understand that simple concept will always view us as misfits. In the end, Love will always prevail. I pray for enlightenment to those who cant see the signs in creation/nature.God really exists, and may He keep u.