Comment

Comment by Jonah on November 20, 2011 at 6:23pm

I think religious people suffer from what I call "Situational topical mental illness".  If the situation is the discussion of the topic of god, mental illness kicks in.  Otherwise, they are rational in every other aspect of life.

Comment by Matty Hanlon on November 19, 2011 at 6:04pm

Schizophrenics tend to have layered personalities and are usually very intelligent people at the core of themselves, mentally ill people usually have some difficulty processing certain parts of their abilities. People who believe in a religion or god seem to me to do so as a result of peer pressure, to either be accepted as part of a group or family unit , or to save themselves having to function as an individual and be scrutinized for having their own ideas.  

Comment by Stuart Jeremy Oxley on November 19, 2011 at 4:29pm

By Schitzophrenia, I mean people who literally, hear voices, see things that aren't there and can be medicated for it. Not people who have been brainwashed from birth to imagine things are something they're not.

Comment by Stephanie Blizzard on November 19, 2011 at 1:51pm

Maybe....eventually religion might be all but wiped out.  But being that religion, such as Christianity, has been around for a long, long time, it will probably take even longer for such religious talk to be considered "crazy talk".

Comment by Tenken on November 18, 2011 at 10:04pm

Your question is not so easy to answer.  Mental disorders are culturally defined, not innate.  "Schizophrenia" isn't an illness that someone can "have."  It's a label given to a collection of behaviors that is culturally abnormal and socially unacceptable.  Often, people (even professionals) make the inference that there is a physiological "illness" that causes these culturally atypical behaviors, but this is not implied by the disorder.  Technically, religious people should be classified as schizophrenic even today (at least if labeling someone schizophrenic is going to have any meaning), but since they live in a culture where these specific delusions are considered normal, and because they live in a culture that caters to their religious needs, they escape diagnosis.