Exodus lobbyist Randy Thomas comments on the Oct. 28 Boston Globe interview of him at Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out road show.
I criticized the article here for its failure to confirm the accuracy of Thomas’s statements and for overlooking the very public antigay political activities of Exodus and Focus on the Family.
In other Randy Thomas news…
Earlier this week on his blog, Randy Thomas tried to evangelize an airplane seatmate with his exgay business card. Having already stereotyped the woman as a “nice new age priestess,” he then wonders why the woman becomes a “snarling sarcastic something-or-other.” Thomas feels the woman presumed too much about him; he concludes: “I, like my God, see all people as complex and priceless treasures…not junk.”
Question: So why does he stereotype people as if they were junk?
Observation: His elevation of his own opinion to be that of God seems just a wee bit blasphemous.
If you notice, most of the people quoted in the Globe article are running gigs–also known as “ministries.” I have yet to see any of the anti-gay personnel quoted who had an honest job.
I know the Park Street church mentioned in the article. It’s a cute little church. I don’t know what its denomination is.
Ain’t that the truth, raj!
What is it with these people that they do turn what they are doing into a ‘ministry’ with the need to promote what they do all over the media and everything?
They must not think much of the ability of God and Christ to reach people without them.
How come none of them are working as chefs in restaurants, or as car dealers or in retail that isn’t about selling their own CD’s?
They seem to be invalidating their own belief in the omnipotence of God, by not letting god speak to everyone in her own way.
God don’t need no double faced profiteers speaking in her name…and bad mouthing her gay kids.
Especially that…somewhere deep in these folks with the ex gay ministries and the raging need to disqualify the other gay folks god made…are people who say they have water and food for the hungry homosexual…but themselves are never sated or quenched.
I sometimes get the impression that the exgay movement has more leaders than followers. It looks like there is a permanent bunch that run everything, and have done so for years. While the ordinary members pass in and out of the programs with rapidity. Most of them out of exgayland, and many out of Conservative Christianity.
They also pass out with a less money in their pockets as well Delea. We need a gay Robin Hood to steal their money and give it to the LGBT folks who are poor.
Park Street Church is a historic Congregational Church (picture soaring Christopher Wren-designed steeple and sprawling brick structure on the Boston Common) that has been a leader in New England evangelicalism. I’m not surprised they house or sponsor an ex-gay ministry. No matter how small, it is symbolic of their commitment to the position that being Christian and ‘actively gay’ are incompatible.
Park Street is a church that refused to be part of the union that resulted in the (liberal) United Church of Christ in 1957. It is now affiliated with the ‘4 C’s’ – The Conservative Congregational Christian Churches.
So… even though Park Street is ‘Congregational’ – it is not among the majority with that name that are UCC. On a personal note… :-)… this afternoon I will be installed as pastor of a UCC in Buffalo – the first openly gay man called to a church in Western NY. I have a (former?) friend from Park Street Church in Boston who has reacted unkindly to that news.
Park Street Church sits almost at the foot of Beacon Hill–the state Capitol is at the top of Beacon Hill, about a hundred yards uphill. The religious center of Boston long ago moved to the Back Bay and South End (cite: Trinity Church in Copley Square, but also others).
Epiphany #5:
I swear that was a moment…years ago.
It was on a bus, going home from work. Me and my friend Nikki. She’s wondered sometimes at how I know stuff. She says I”m spooky. Especially after what happened on the Number 217.
There was a family of three. Mom, Dad and a little girl of about six years old. Reading out of a children’s book.
They had clean, but worn and frayed clothes. They had the look of people whose meals were not plentiful, but their eyes were gentle.
What was so special about the situation?
The little one.
She had the absolutely most blackest skin, I’d ever seen. Deep dark, inky. And with a slightly blue iridescent sheen. Pretty little thing, delicate and her voice sounded like taps on crystal.
She was darker than Nikki, whose flawless skin tone is like a dark choclate Hershey bar.
My first thought was ‘pearl’. A beautiful, rare…pearl.
I voiced that word to her parents.
They said ‘how did you know her name was Pearl?’.
Well, because I would have hated to put them off with any other revelations, I just said…oh, she’s pretty as one.’
They got off at the next stop. Nikki was like, you are SPOOKY! How did you know?!
I didn’t. I think I was supposed to tell that little girl what a beauty she was. Her parents were too, just by patiently helping their little one read that book. That poor family probably doesn’t hear that very often.
Nikki was like…’oh, yeah…that makes sense. Wonder why you’d think of that?’
Why indeed.
We’re not here or get any spirits whispering for any special reason. But if you love enough and the unloved, or not loved enough…it’s not to tell them they aren’t good enough or are required to come to god or Jesus for that to be so.
It’s always so, gonna be so and all you need is to look on that person and your eyes will tell you if the love in YOU is enough.
I read that article all over again.
The things that strike me the most is how sensitive to criticism LWO is againt THEM, while at the same time, in denial about their work and what it does to deserve criticism.
Obviously, the people that would come to them, has had some sort of crisis in their lives…that occurs in heterosexual people as well.
These are people going through an especially vulnerable time and in gay people, might occur more often and with less support elsewhere.
It still all points to creating aversion to homosexuality, whether it be turning to the opposite sex or celibacy.
The other side of their coin, is maintaining PUBLIC aversion to homosexuality, while working on it in gay individuals.
These troubles they encountered could STILL happen in a heterosexual life.
So what then and what to blame it on and resolve it without a convenient scape goat?
To take advantage of gay people this way is especially nasty.
Again, mostly because it’s wrong to demand anyone abdicate their identity, however much you object to it.
There is no kind way to do it, and no kindness that would expect that of someone.
The other is how expensive (the cost in life long, or years disciplining onesself to that purpose) it is.
Most of all, as I’ve mentioned before.
The ex gay conversion expectation is OLD. It’s had it’s time on the floor for a long, long, time… and now SHOULD be silenced, if only to let GAY people speak their mind and reason.
Regan, Love Won Out is a classic case of “can dish it out, but can’t take it” scenerio. This is very typical of organizations and persons who rely on the tactics of fear and hate mongering and bullying in order to fulfill an agenda. Whenever critisism is thrown in their direction, they deflect it by shifting blame to the phantom gay agenda or those with liberal political leanings. Vulnerable people fall for their BS because they brainwash their victims into believing that they are out for their best interests and attempt to convince them that their identity is false and doesn’t exist at all so they seek to modify sexual and gender specific behaviours. This premise is completely wrong and ignores the fact that a physiological response to a sexual attraction is not going to go away and cannot and ought not to be dealt with using religion.
I certainly agree that the ex gay conversion expectation is OLD and has long past its expiration date. I hope others on this blog are working at debunking the whole ex-gay farce and not just monitoring it. I think that gay people are the ones in charge of their own destinies here and only we can stop this crap. We need a few hundred thousand Wayne Besens working at countering this at every turn and not allowing it to continue.
Tim, I do believe that you are being too kind. As far as i can tell LWO is nothing more than a marketing operation for Focus On The “Family” and Exodus. They make their pitch to anti-gay people. I have never seen them make a pitch to gay people.
Raj, pretty much everything that is done in terms of gay rights by religion and even government, is done without consultation of the people most affected: gays and lesbians. Here in Canada during the same sex marriage debate, most media coverage centered on the churches and political points of view, gays and lesbians were not consulted and rarely interviewed by the media. I still think there is a perception that we are like children, to be felt sorry for. Believe me Raj, I’m not kind when it comes to organizations like LWO or any other of those brainwashing outfits. 🙂 Tim.
Does anyone here remember Jim Jones and the People’s Temple?
When I was a teenager, several of their members came to our door.
My family was living in the LA area, at the time the PT was based in San Francisco.
They had glossy brochures, information about helping the poor and were especially concerned about my step mom. She had been widowed less than a year. Had no higher education or profession and us three kids to feed.
She was very tempted by their promises and their ambition to move to a tropical island and farm.
My mom loved to garden and liked the idea of an inclusive communal environment that wasn’t so religious, but more political in their aims.
A good many of the members were black people.
Well, now we know what happened don’t we?
My mom just happened to be very vulnerable and going through a terrible insecure time in her life.
Imagine how she felt after what happened to all those people down in Guyana.
It was HER native American mother who had been subjected to missionary zeal against Native folks.
To this day in my family…there is a serious suspicion of missionaries. Especially those of one purpose, like LWO and all the others.
She’s always wondered…why are they honing in so hard on GAY people?
And pretty much ONLY gay people.
My question too.
It’s similar to the way child molesters hone in on children with specific needs.
When we weigh the life and death, or economic concerns of the day…there are things that ONLY gay people do, and there are things that are done that murder and hurt all people universally.
And gay people simply don’t hurt the world and never did.
But are however, easy to hurt.
And in our Chicasaw philosophy…it’s the LWO people who need to go.
Rick, “I will be installed as pastor of a UCC in Buffalo”
CONGRATULATIONS !!! I am so happy for you
A thought…
Perhaps when reading LWO’s response to any questioning it would help to remember that they are firmly convinced that they are right and that God is on their side. They can’t understand ANY criticism because “surely good people agree with us. Why can’t everyone see it?”
It’s a strange combination of faith and arrogance.
Actually Timothy, I would tend to go more with arrogance dashed with falsely elevated sense of power and control, a’la James Dobson. To listen to his speeches one would think that the future of the supreme court rests on his shoulders.
Timothy, I would go along with ‘strongly delusional’ mixed in with some sort of mental illness. Am I the only one here who feels that belief in Biblical inerrancy or inspritation is a mental illness?
Dale, I don’t know if you’re the only one, but I know I don’t agree with you. Sorry.
I think since it’s not been too long ago that gays were considered “mentally ill” just by virtue of having same-sex attractions (something others didn’t understand) I’d be hesitant to start slapping that label on others for their beliefs.
Being attracted to the same sex is not a ‘belief’, it is a central statement about being. Which is rather different from asserting that some book whose contents were settled less than 500 years ago is the ‘God Breathed Infallible’ word. The first can be settled by reasonable people using evidence. The latter despends on an altered state of being. Is there anyone else here who agrees with me?
Regan DuCasse at October 31, 2005 11:59 AM
Does anyone here remember Jim Jones and the People’s Temple?
I remember Jim Jones but I didn’t remember what his cult was named. If memory serves, one day they drank a magic potion and all died. Sounds somewhat ineffective, since there would be nobody left to spread “the word.”
Although that was also true of the Shakers, who eschewed having sex–no next generation to spread the word. Decent furniture design, though.
/tic
Christine at November 1, 2005 12:05 AM
…I think since it’s not been too long ago that gays were considered “mentally ill” just by virtue of having same-sex attractions …
Just to let you know, it was not a particularly long time during which homosexuality was considered a mental disorder. It was a diagnosis made-up in the 1950s by a group of charlatans posing as psychiatrists that had no scientific basis–it was just their personal prejudices. https://www.priory.com/psych/disparat.htm has a fairly complete discussion of the issue, although I could cite you to others.
If you are willing to sit through an hour of PRI’s This American Life, you might also consider the program 81 Words, from several years ago: the attempt to discredit the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is available through https://www.thislife.org/ (do a search on “81 words”). Although https://207.70.82.73/pages/descriptions/02/204.html would probably take you directly to the relevant page, and you can pick up the audio links from there.
Just to let you know, the reason that I call the psychiatrists at the time (largely the 1950s) “charlatans” is that psychiatry was dominated by “psycho-analyists” and there was no evidence that psycho-analysis had anything to do with reality.
Actually, the Shakers are still going. They have always been aware that their path would have few travelers. And accepted that the group would be small. The big question here would seem to be: do they own the rights to Shaker designs and inventions? Let alone the wealth of furniture in their villages. Lots of money in simple living.
With Jim Jones, the beverage was kool-aid laced with cyanide. Thus the phrase applied to dubious ventures: drink the kool-aid.
DaleA: “Am I the only one here who feels that belief in Biblical inerrancy or inspritation is a mental illness?”
I hope you are.
It is a very narrow view of the world to assume that ideas that do not meet one’s definition of observable are a sign of mental illness.
However, the assumption that you are sane and that anyone who disagrees with you is crazy ACTUALLY IS a form of mental illness.
FYI, (and God this makes me feel old) the People’s Temple cult didn’t drink the Kool-Aid because it was magical or mystical. They committed mass suicide.
As best I recall:
Congressman Ryan had been to Guyana on an investagatory trip to find out what Jones was up to. They killed him at the airport. Knowing that he would be brought to justice for that (killing congressmen tends to have consequences), Jones had his people drink grape Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Not everyone wanted to … but everyone did.
Timothy said:
“DaleA: “Am I the only one here who feels that belief in Biblical inerrancy or inspritation is a mental illness?”
I hope you are.
It is a very narrow view of the world to assume that ideas that do not meet one’s definition of observable are a sign of mental illness.
However, the assumption that you are sane and that anyone who disagrees with you is crazy ACTUALLY IS a form of mental illness.”
I agree with Dalea. Anyone who thinks that the Bible is the literal, inerrant and inspired word of God is, by definition, suffering from a mental illness. This is because the Bible is far from inerrant, and if it is errant, then it certainly can’t be the inspired word of a perfect God.
I don’t think it is at all a narrow view of the world to hold Christians to the same standard of reason as we do anyone else. If I were to assert that Santa Claus were literally real, no one would doubt that I suffered, if not from a mental illness, at least an episode of unreason. There is just no evidence for Santa Claus and too much evidence against Santa’s existence (not the least of which being the scientific impossibility of the features that describe Santa Claus). Just the same, there is no evidence for the literal existence of the Christian God, and far too much evidence against the existence for the Christian God (not the least, again, being the scientific impossibility of the features that describe the Christian God).
Why do we give believers of the Christian God a pass but not the believers of Santa Claus? To assert that it is wrong to consider Christians to be mentally ill or at the very least lacking reason is not at all consistent with the way we make sense of the world in general.
People of any given religion should not be given a free pass to be irrational or illogical — and it is dangerous to society when individuals seeking to inflict their irrationality upon others are given access to government power. This is one reason why libertarians favor as small a government as possible — to prevent the seizure of power by irrational, corrupt or sadistic individuals or special-interest groups such as the “religious right.”
But the choice to be irrational is (usually) just that: A choice, not a biological “illness.”
What drug or medical therapy would cure someone of their inerrant belief that the Earth is flat and orbited by the Sun; that the world was created in two or three conflicting ways; that events proven not to have happened did happen, and vice versa; that God committed forgery with billions of years’ worth of fossils that form an evolutionary patchwork; that anyone whose sins are different from one’s own favored sins must be suppressed by legislation and various forms of harassment? How are those choices of misbelief or unbelief in obvious truths either organic or medically treatable?
Dale/Robis, are you suggesting that inerrantism qualifies as an addiction or compulsion? If so, you’ll need to explain.
I’m always amused when people dismiss others’ experiences simply because they do not fit their own world view.
To take it outside religion for a second: I’ve never seen a UFO. Many (but certainly not all) of those that claim to have, also seem to be on the border of downright nutty. But yet, I’m not willing to dismiss their beliefs outright. I just don’t know.
And I’m certainly not willing to say that anyone that believes in UFO’s is mentally impaired.
I find that when anyone takes a firm and absolute position on either the nature or the impossibility of God, that is an indication that they have a closed mind and an intractible view of the world. Basically, a fool. They’ve established and championed a position about which they have inadequate information. Many of the fundamentalist and many of the athiests fit this description.
I believe in God. This is not based on scientific experimentation but rather based on personal experience. But I certainly don’t fault you (though I pity you) if you believe in nothing beyond the parameters of your five senses.
However, if you take my belief as evidence of my mental difficiency, I would say that your position suggests you possess a mind that is lacking in nuance and hardened into rigidity.
Your biases have locked you into a mindset which requires not only that others agree with you but that they are insane if they don’t. Thus you don’t have to ever challenge your own positions; there’s (by your own definition) no credible proof or argument, ever.
You see this type of thinking in much of the conservative religious press. Since they know the answer, the facts must fit or they are just lies. It’s the same thing: an improperly functioning mind.
So, I guess, if we are both calling the other mentally impaired I’m fine with that.
I don’t believe that all mental illnesses are neccessarily biological in origin (in fact, the causes of mental illness can be from “social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors” according to the American Heritage Dictionary), nor do I think that there is a drug or a medical therapy for all mental illnesses. So I’m not sure why that criteria would be important to determining whether literalism or inerrantism is a mental illness or not.
I also do not believe that everyone–or even the majority of people–who subscribe to inerrantism chooses to do so. Most people, IMHO, are socialized into it from birth, through their exposure to the dogma, and cannot in any way concieve of the world in which inerrantism is not real. You could show them all the evidence in the world that it is not so; you could list for them the ways in which the Bible is far from inerrant; you could go step by step through the logical arguments that show that the Christian God cannot literally exist with the features attributed to him and it would make no difference at all. The majority of people do not choose to be irrational or illogical in such situations, they just do not have the capacity to recognize that they are being irrational or illogical; they’ve had that ability conditioned out of them.
Again, if I as an adult claimed that Santa Claus were literally real in direct contradiction to the evidence, I would be considered mentally ill. Since the evidence for a literal, God and an inerrant Bible is equal to that of Santa Claus, why would we give Christians who believe in such things a pass? What elevates a literal God above that of a literal Santa Claus that justifies such a pass?
Timothy said: “I’m always amused when people dismiss others’ experiences simply because they do not fit their own world view.”
I think you’ve misunderstood what I am saying, Timothy. I am in no way dismissing religious belief as a whole, nor am I suggesting in any way that there is no god. What I am doing is pointing out that what we often use to determine mental illness in others is set aside when those same behavioral patterns crop up in Christianity. I am not discounting the power of faith, nor am I stating that there is no god (Christian or otherwise). There is, however, a difference between faith in a personal god (again, Christian or otherwise) and the insistence in the existence of a literal God based upon a literal and inerrant Bible. Faith in a personal God speaks to the experiential while the insistence on the aforementioned dogma flies in the face of rationality.
Re: “You see this type of thinking in much of the conservative religious press. Since they know the answer, the facts must fit or they are just lies. It’s the same thing: an improperly functioning mind.”
I’d like to add further to this. Whether we’re talking about UFO’s, Jesus, Magic, Druidism, communism (Remember when the Soviets used to locked dissidents in psychiatric hospitals? They claimed that anyone who was against the state was obviously crazy.) or no organized belief system at all, saying that you either agree with me or you’re deficient smacks of fundamentalism. And yes, there really are fundamentalist Buhdists, Druids, and Socialists (even fundamentalist liberals!) because we’ve all seen them.
Hmmmmm, how to respond. OK, if someone tells me s/he is a Christian and believes the Bible is a work written by men who had experiences they could not really fully comprehend. That the authors put them as best they could into the laguage and conceptual framework of their own lives. That these were an effort to explain wonderous events in their life expressed in the limitations of a specific time and place. And that the task of the Christian today is to try and apply these insights to lives in radically different situations and understandings. Hey, I feel this is wholly rational and intelligient. I have no problem with this approach.
But when I hear that the Bible is ‘God Breathed’, without contradictions, infallible, without error, then I begin to wonder. It certainly looks to me to be filled with such things. And most of it seems very much culture bound. My own experience in trying to talk with literalists has been not very helpful. They seem to be in a delusional state, one where contrary evidence does not exist. Or is simply not recognized. Which I feel is correctly dubbed ‘mental illness’. Which can refer to an organic problem or a problem in thought.
I am a religious person. I do not really believe in a God ‘out there’. Instead I find Deity in the Apparent World. Animist or Pagan, Wiccan subset. And I am prone to mystical experiences. No idea why this happens, but it does. Deity finds me. So, I find myself trying to comprehend a Great Mystery. I use the tools that those who have gone before have bequethed to me. And suspect my answers will be no better, no less time specific than theirs were.
Does this answer your question MikeA and Timothy? I feel that the Bible inspirationists are presenting something as a magical apportment, a Bible that was brought down from heaven by doves. Which can clearly be shown not to have happened.
Re: …if I as an adult claimed that Santa Claus were literally real in direct contradiction to the evidence, I would be considered mentally ill.
Not really. Let me try this. I will claim that Santa Clause is literally real. I don’t really need to prove it; I just have to believe. I’ve been bad, so he’s never visited my house. Nor the homes of my friends, family or neighbors. In fact, we’re all so bad that parents often resort to faking it for their kids. But that doesn’t disprove anything, just because I haven’t seen him or spoken with him. On the contrary, when it comes to matters of faith, I cannot prove anything.
But you have stated that there is “direct contradiction to the evidence.” Where is it? How do you propose to prove a negative? Let’s see you prove me wrong.
Matters of faith cannot be proven nor disproven. They just are.
And when it comes to defining rationality, it truly is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, it has been the core of an ever-present debate in psychological circles: What constitutes irrational thought and behavior? Who says it’s irrational?
Psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysist all thought we were crazy for being gay. Many of them still do, and can point to perfectly rational reasons to support their claim — although it is rational only as long as you buy into their viewpoint.
I had one very nice Wiccan lady in Dallas tell me that she thought Christians were idiots because Christianity made no sense. I didn’t tell her that I thought Wicca, as she explained it to me, made no sense. So let’s take that to it’s logical conclusion: at least one of us was correct: Wicca makes no sense, Christianity makes no sense, or both. Now then, who gets to decide and on what basis?
Let me re-iterate before I offend anybody. I do not believe that Wicca is an irrational belief set. I plead guilty on being wrong on my reaction to that lady in Dallas.
But I think the example is valid.
Concerning UFO’s. Do I regard these people as actually having had an experience? Yes, I do. Do I think it is an actual flying saucer? Not a clue. What I do suspect, though I can not prove it, this is just a random thought, is that seeing a flying saucer, the Virgin Mary, ghosts, Lord Krishna, Mother Demeter, Mother Isis, are all very much the same sort of experience. Which for lack of a better word I would call ‘mystery’.
My further idea is that much of Evangelical Christianity is a system of operant magic. A way of manipulating God. Sort of like a rain dance. Which I feel is different from religion.
Uh, Jim, actually Wicca is not about belief. It is a religion that requires no beliefes in anything. You can belief things if it makes you happy, but is not required. Rather it is a religion that relies on experience. The main point of most, if not all Wiccan texts, is to point out rituals and practices. It has the idea that here is what I did, and here is what I experienced. Try it yourself and see what happens. One of the early Wiccan books is entitled ‘Religion Without Belief’, by Lammond.
I also understand that Buddhists do not make belief part of their system.
Dale A
One tool to use when one is afraid to hear what another has to say, is to come up with an external reason. “You’re just crazy so I don’t have to listen to you.” I don’t know if this is your motivation.
However, your reasoning for declaring certain beliefs a sign of insanity seem inconsistent. You allow for YOUR mystical beleifs, but THEIR mystical beliefs prove they’re mentally impaired.
I have to confess that I know very little about Wicca. That lady in Dallas may very well have been completely wrong in how she explained Wicca to me. She was very adamant in saying that Wiccans believe this, they don’t believe that, etc., with a heavy reliance on what she called “magic” (I can’t provide a definition, hence the quotes), mysticism and rituals. I didn’t take her explanations as authoritative, and I don’t want to intimate that she represents all Wiccans, or even very many.
Please rest assured, I may be ignorant on the better understanding of Wicca, but I mean no disrespect whatsoever. My ignorance reflects my own shortcomings, not necessarily those of Wicca.
Perhaps she didn’t represent Wicca very well, and if that’s the case, I suppose it’s all the better for this discussion because now we can set up yet another example of your understanding and practice of Wicca against hers. I’ll root for yours, but who has the authority to say that she’s wrong? And if she’s wrong, does that same someone have the authority to declare her insane? And if someone has that authority, where does it come from?
I believe you are correct about most forms of Buddhism not making belief part of their system — that is, if you define “belief” as being equivalent to dogma. Yet I have met Buddhists who insist that particular practices and mythologies are essential, which I would say defines “belief”.
(Please note: I use the word “mythology” the way Joseph Campbell used it, and not to mean anything “false”.)
And through all of this, who gets to decide what’s rational and what’s not? Is anyone ready to convince me that my firm faith in Santaology is any more insane than any others? Or even that it is any more insane than no belief at all?
Jim B said: “Not really. Let me try this. I will claim that Santa Clause is literally real. I don’t really need to prove it; I just have to believe. I’ve been bad, so he’s never visited my house. Nor the homes of my friends, family or neighbors. In fact, we’re all so bad that parents often resort to faking it for their kids. But that doesn’t disprove anything, just because I haven’t seen him or spoken with him. On the contrary, when it comes to matters of faith, I cannot prove anything.”
But we’re not talking about people who view the existence of God as if it were a matter of faith but as a matter of fact–that is, when faced with choosing either a God that is impossible or ration that is well-spelled out, they choose the God that is impossible—and the literal God described in the literal, inerrant Bible is impossible.
“But you have stated that there is “direct contradiction to the evidence.” Where is it? How do you propose to prove a negative? Let’s see you prove me wrong.”
Do you want the evidence that shows a literal Santa Claus as he has been described is impossible or the literal God as described in an inerrant Bible is impossible? Because it does not require proving a negative to do so. For Santa, one only has to show that it is physically impossible to deliver toys to every deserving child around the world (which it is). For God, one only has to show that it is impossible for a being to be ominpotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent (which it is). That is not to say that no Christian God is possible, only that a literal God as described in a literal and inerrant Bible is impossible. This is not being narrow-minded, nor is it being “as fundamental as the fundamentalists”. Certainly if you can show that either one is possible, I would be amenable to changing my opinion.
“Matters of faith cannot be proven nor disproven. They just are.”
Well, proofs are for alcohol and math, not for arguments of what is or isn’t. But still, my argument is not against those who believe in God as matter of faith. I see nothing wrong with a personal God.
Sorry, that last one was me. I hit the submit button too soon–yikes!!
Timothy, fundagelicals do not claim their belief in the inerratn, literal etc Bible is a ‘mystical’ belief. Rather if you look at what they say, the words ‘objective’, ‘historically accurate’, ‘narrative of actual events’ pop up all the time. Josh MacDowell (sp?)appears to be the current leader of apologetics on this topic. There were many before him. And there are others now. MikeA provides many examples of this sort of presentation in his post above.
And if you read my responses, perhaps you would see that I made this distinction between struggling to comprehend one’s own mystical experiences using the Bible as an assistance and guide and saying the Bible is inerrent infallible etc. I do not claim that my experiences are a guide for anyone else. The fundegelicals claim that theirs are universally applicable. This is a perfectly valid distinction.
I would suggest that before going off on people, their comments should be read.
On Wicca there is Ronald Hutton’s ‘Triumph of the Moon’ which is a very helpful guide to the growth and practice of this religion. It is a beautifully written work, one with an understanding of the intellectual currents involved. Otherwise, check out Witchesvoice.com to see the wide array of Wiccan practice.
Jim,
“Is anyone ready to convince me that my firm faith in Santaology is any more insane than any others?”
Well that depends. If you believe in Santa in a rational way (for example if you believe that his suit is a deep burgundy red) then I can accept you. However if your belief in Santa is not rational (for exaple if you believe his suit is candy-apple red) then you are insane.
Because his suit is NOT candy-apple red. And can be proven to not be candy-apple red (because it’s impossible).
I’m making a careful distinction between what is rational (burgundy red) and what is irrational (candy-apple red) because being candy-apple red is impossible (in the same way that diety is possible but omnicient diety is impossible).
And please note that your sanity is linked to whether you use the term “mystical” or “inerrant”.
In other words, as long as you believe what I think is acceptable to believe (preferable if you don’t call it a belief) and you believe it the WAY I find acceptable, then you are fine.
Otherwise, you are insane.
Sorry.
(and yes this is different than fundamentalism because I say so)
Is it impossible to deliver toys to every deserving child around the world? Santaology has found that it is virtually impossible to be deserving — much as Christianity does, but without the saving grace that wipes away the issues of “merit”. It turns out that delivering toys to deserving children is quite a snap because there are so few. I already pointed out that parents end up faking it for their kids. And besides, didn’t Einstein have something to say about the relativity of time and space? None of this makes Santa any less of a “fact”. (But I am suddenly reminded of the brilliant ending of a David Sederas story. “… but the Easter Bunny, that’s just f**ked up!”)
And so, too, the Bible says that with God, all things are possible (I’m too poor of a student to point to the exact quote), and that would necessarily include the literal God of an inerrant Bible. Of course, for one who doesn’t believe in the inerrancy of the bible, that doesn’t hold much water. Fair enough. I don’t believe in its literal inerrancy either. But some do, and for them all things are possible, including what you (and I) perceive as contradictions. I don’t buy it, but that doesn’t make God any less of a “fact” as far as I’m concerned, not even for me. Nor does it make anyone, including fundamentalists, crazy.
I think we can at least agree on one point. I don’t have the right to impose my beliefs on you, even if you’re going to hell (Just kidding!) I think that is your real objection, if I may be so bold to rephrase it. Even if I think that God is as solid a “fact” as my right arm, I still don’t have the right to impose my beliefs on you and insist that you behave according to my beliefs. But yes, there are far, far too many evangelicals and fundamentalists who say otherwise.
And by the same token, you don’t have the right to impose your beliefs on me, which I don’t think you’re trying to do. At least not directly. After all, threatening us Santaologists with a declaration of insanity can certainly be coercive in some cases, or at the very least, ostracizing. 😉
Oy, ma! Look at me. I’m defending fundamentalists!
Timothy, you’re not insane, but you are a bit touched! LOL!
LOL
too true.
I suppose I should set the record straight. I believe the Bible to be a collection of writings of men seeking to know God and to share their revelations with others with limited means, within the context of their society, and to the best of their ability. Sometimes the wisdom in it amazes me.
Take for example the creation story. Is it a narrative of actual events? Well, yes.
It is a VERY good description of the evolution of the planet and the species. In fact, I can’t imagine a better way to explain evolution to a bedoin tribe 4000 years ago than with the Genesis story.
There’s something almost chilling about the description of pre-terra outer space: “…and the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep…”.
I just don’t get caught up in the number of hours v. millions of years.
Going WAY off on a tangent,
I’ve been reading some of the gospels, acts, epistles, and apocrypha that didn’t make it into the canonized Scripture. It’s amazing to see the warring religious beliefs that didn’t make the final cut. Yet for hundreds of years the early Christians held these in as high an honor as they did the 27 books that made it.
Timothy, I think your views and mine are very similar.
Please forgive my strong words here, but I find it truly appalling that you, Jim and Timothy, have chosen to ridicule this discussion rather than try to understand what Dalea and I are saying. I have taken the time to read and understand your postings, and I have taken the time to try and explain where I am coming from in such a way that it should be easy to understand. I have further made sure to make a distinction between god-belief and inerrantism. I have made sure that I have not cast aspersions on anyone’s personal faith, and have made a point of discussing only those facets of god-belief that pass over the boundaries from faith to something more.
Rather than try to carry on a dialogue about this matter, you both have chosen instead to be offended, and to use those offended feelings as a justification to ridicule arguments that you don’t like, rather than actually address the arguments provided. That is simply appalling, and far beneath either of you.
Now, I’ve made my case, and if you want to address what I’ve provided in a mature manner, please do so. If your only response is to ridicule and villify what you have no intention of understanding, I’m sure you’ll find a much better reception from ex-gay folk who engage in the same behavior.
Thank you Robis, I agree totally. This more and more resembles Bridges Across, where Christians are allowed to run roughshod over others. You have expressed my sentiments exactly.
Robis,
I did not take any personal offense by anything you or Dale have said, and I’m sorry if I offended you. It was not my intention.
I believe I understand exactly what you are saying, including the distinctions you are trying to draw between “god-belief” and inerrancy. I would like to re-iterate that I am not a fundamentalist, and don’t hold to their views. I thought I made that clear. However, I don’t believe your distinction is relevant because I contend it to be a false one when it comes to belief. I think that this is exactly what I was trying to get at. And as for Timothy’s response, (If I may be so bold to speak for him) I read a very lighthearted attempt to illustrate this very problem, using my example of “Santaology”.
I think on this topic, we disagree, and we do so strongly. I don’t believe you understand the double-bind that your and Dale’s arguments present. And I fully understand your argument that with your particular distinction, there is no double-bind to begin with, at least as far as how you see it.
I just think you are dead wrong. And you obviously think I am dead wrong. But really now, what’s so terrible about that? Disagreement doesn’t equal disapproval or disrespect. It’s just disagreement on this point.
I know that saying “he started it first” is a very poor defense. But who is tossing around accusations of insanity? Is that not both offensive and dismissive? And isn’t that, too, reflective of ex-gay folk’s behavior?
Truth be told, it is exactly that parallel that gets me going so strongly on this. I’ve seen this so often among gay activists, it makes my head spin. Mischaracterizing opponents’ views and dismissing them personally as deficient constitutes an ad hominen attack, which, despite the term, is actually very dehumanizing. And if your opponent is not fully human, then it is all the easier to dismiss them.
I hate it so badly when they do it to us that the very injustice of this tactic stirs my anger regardless of who is doing it and who the victim is.
Yes, they do it to us. But it is not any more credible when we do it to them. And because of all of it, our nation’s political discourse is all the poorer for it.
I feel very strongly about this, and I will confess that I am not very good at restraining myself when I see it going on among our own. If I offend, I’m sorry.
I wouldn’t call that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible a mental illness.
I call it phony, cafeteria religious commitment.
Of course the very people that utter that statement know they don’t REALLY have to live according to the Bible in legal PUBLIC life.
Our laws and secular debate and the civil belief in basic freedoms are protective for THEM as well.
The divorced, the adulterous, and back talking children are not stoned to death.
And money lending and usury are thriving business in America. People work on Sunday.
The real Sabbath is Friday through Saturday.
Women have far more freedom than their Muslim counterparts in religious countries like Iraq.
This is how you know those Bible thumpers are full of **it.
Those Scriptural laws won’t and don’t apply to THEM now, nor their loved ones and never will.
As long as someone ELSE can suffer the consequences of those inerrant rules…they can live with them.
Goes back to the basic most fundamental rule there is-demand not for someone else that which you will not suffer as well.
Jim said, “I don’t believe you understand the double-bind that your and Dale’s arguments present.”
Please explain the double bind that you think exists in my argument.
Robis:
Re: “Please explain the double bind that you think exists in my argument.”
I’ll try it again, but I must admit that I’m getting tired. Not your fault, however. But I suspect this will be my last stab at it.
You said:
“I don’t believe that all mental illnesses are neccessarily biological in origin … nor do I think that there is a drug or a medical therapy for all mental illnesses. So I’m not sure why that criteria would be important to determining whether literalism or inerrantism is a mental illness or not.
“…if I as an adult claimed that Santa Claus were literally real in direct contradiction to the evidence, I would be considered mentally ill. Since the evidence for a literal, God and an inerrant Bible is equal to that of Santa Claus, why would we give Christians who believe in such things a pass?”
You also said:
“There is, however, a difference between faith in a personal god (again, Christian or otherwise) and the insistence in the existence of a literal God based upon a literal and inerrant Bible. Faith in a personal God speaks to the experiential while the insistence on the aforementioned dogma flies in the face of rationality.”
I countered with:
“…the Bible says that with God, all things are possible (I’m too poor of a student to point to the exact quote), and that would necessarily include the literal God of an inerrant Bible. Of course, for one who doesn’t believe in the inerrancy of the bible, that doesn’t hold much water. Fair enough. I don’t believe in its literal inerrancy either. But some do, and for them all things are possible, including what you (and I) perceive as contradictions. I don’t buy it, but that doesn’t make God any less of a “fact” as far as I’m concerned, not even for me. Nor does it make anyone, including fundamentalists, crazy.”
What you are trying to do is make the fundamentalist Christian a not-a-fundamentalist Christian. The fundamentalist Christian can no more separate God from an inerrant Bible any more than I can separate Bush from Rove. And I would add that this understanding is essential in understanding their world view. And from what I read, you understand that as well.
But the problem you appear to be having is that it doesn’t conform to your world view. To you, it doesn’t make sense. I agree. It doesn’t make sense to me because it doesn’t conform to my world view either. But that’s not the issue. World views don’t define sanity. If world views were the benchmark for sanity, then we’re all in trouble. That is the double-bind: You’re crazy because you don’t meet my definition of sanity.
I am gay. Until 1974, I would have been considered mentally ill. Today, I’m not. Nothing changed except the world view of psychiatrists – and not all of them agree with that viewpoint still today. Many continue to believe I am mentally ill.
When I was in high school, my best friend since second grade started acting out, doing all kinds of crazy things, slowly deteriorating into drug use and believing everyone was out to get him. His perceptions didn’t fit anybody’s world view. He finally went into counseling, and the psychologists at that time blamed all sorts of things for his problems – latent homosexuality (he wasn’t gay!), smothering mother, distant father, you get the picture. Years later, he was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia — a dibilitating mental illness. I’m glad that diagnosis came about before his parents passed away so they could know it was not their fault. Today, he is on medication and living in a group home, and he is doing much, much better.
Joe is mentally ill. He was mentally ill before there was medication to help him. He would be mentally ill even if there was no medication to help him. He is mentally ill even though there is now medication helping him. With medication, his world view is at least closer to most other peoples’ perceptions of what is going on around him, but it doesn’t make him well.
Fundamentalists don’t fit your or my world view. They do not separate God from an inerrant Bible. They can shoot holes through the theory of evolution, and they can point to studies that “prove” that we are deviants who are a danger to society. But their only problem (outside of their actions) is that they don’t fit your or my world view. That does not make them mentally ill simply because they believe the things they believe.
This brings us back around to Timothy’s neat and concise statement: “I’m always amused when people dismiss others’ experiences simply because they do not fit their own world view.”
Now, when some of these fundamentalist Christians do some of the things they do, they are wrong — sometimes misguided and other times malevolent. But they’re not crazy or mentally ill. They’re just wrong — and fully responsible for their actions.
Thinking again on Timothy’s statement: I’m always amused when people dismiss others’ experiences simply because they do not fit their own world view.”
I would like to reiterate that in my earlier reaction to that nice lady in Dallas who was Wiccan, I was guilty of precicely the same error. You see, it is an exceptionally easy trap to fall into. My only redeeming grace in that episode is that I did not express my reaction to her.
Jim said: “But the problem you appear to be having is that it doesn’t conform to your world view. To you, it doesn’t make sense. I agree. It doesn’t make sense to me because it doesn’t conform to my world view either. But that’s not the issue. World views don’t define sanity. If world views were the benchmark for sanity, then we’re all in trouble. That is the double-bind: You’re crazy because you don’t meet my definition of sanity.”
This seems to be the problem right here, because you seem to be conflating “worldview” with what I am talking about. I am not talking about worldviews of any stripe. Instead, I am making a very basic observation–i.e., that the criteria we use to determine whether one suffers from a mental illness changes when those same criteria are applied to xianity. This observation holds true no matter what worldview you come from. So when you say:
“But the problem you appear to be having is that it doesn’t conform to your world view. To you, it doesn’t make sense. I agree. It doesn’t make sense to me because it doesn’t conform to my world view either. But that’s not the issue. World views don’t define sanity. If world views were the benchmark for sanity, then we’re all in trouble. That is the double-bind: You’re crazy because you don’t meet my definition of sanity.”
I am in no way saying “you’re crazy because you don’t meet my definition of sanity.” I am saying quite distinctly, “you’re mentally ill because by the standards by which we determine mental illness you fit the definition.” One of the standards we use to determine mental illness is a divorce from reality–if we fail to recognize when things cannot possibly be true, even in the presence of evidence of this fact.
Jim,
Thank you. You expressed that so beautifully.
Dale A and Robis, etc.
I apologize if I was being dismissive. I certainly enjoy your input and don’t want to exclude you or your view points.
However, if you re-read the above posts you will find that in no instance did Christians seek to define what you must believe. But you, on several instances, were insistent on what is acceptable for Christians to believe, or they are insane. You may want to reconsider who is running roughshod.
That having been said, please don’t feel that you can’t post whatever you like.
Well, here is the heart of it. Reality. Are you going to define what is real for us? Should someone else? The majority? The overwhelming majority even? And why should I trust someone else to define what’s real?
I’m not being impertinent when I ask this, because here’s something that’s real: in 1974 I fit “the standards by which we determine mental illness”. The DSMV — as official of a standard as you can get — said that because I was homosexual, I was mentally ill. Today I am not. Nothing changed. I didn’t change Reality didn’t change. But the collective worldview of the APA did change.
Since I am not an archaeologist, I take it on faith that evolution is true. As an engineer, I take it on faith that the world was not created in seven days. These are my realities because they are defined by my worldview.
That is exactly what I mean by worldview. And hence, our impasse.
Robis (I think.. it’s anonymous)
You wish to define “reality” and have conveniently defined it to agree with what you believe. Further, you have decided that your “reality” is the only reality. And anyone who disagrees with you is “divorced from reality” and ergo mentally ill.
I have a friend who uses the same type of logic. I care for him and hope that some day he will find the strength to get off the meth.
Anonymous at November 2, 2005 05:32 PM
Jim said: “But the problem you appear to be having is that it doesn’t conform to your world view. To you, it doesn’t make sense. I agree. It doesn’t make sense to me because it doesn’t conform to my world view either. But that’s not the issue. World views don’t define sanity. If world views were the benchmark for sanity, then we’re all in trouble. That is the double-bind: You’re crazy because you don’t meet my definition of sanity.
Sorry, but you seem to be under the misapprehension that psychiatry had anything to do with science in the 1950s. It did not. It was what might be referred to as a “black art” generally surrounded by mumbo-jumbo. I did not fully agree with Thomas Szasz (professor of psychiatry at Columbia) that psychiatry was totally non-scientific, but it certainly was in the way it was practiced at the time. It has since been discovered that some abnormal behaviors such as schizophrenia can be linked to abnormalities in the brain that can be corrected by medication, but more than a few of their supposed “mental disorders” were nothing more than their judgements as to what ought to be. Including homosexuality.
What ought to be? That is hardly scientific. I am somehow reminded of the Philip K Dick novel Clans of the Alphane Moon. What ought to be? That, sir or madam is a crock.
Raj:
Re: …but more than a few of their supposed “mental disorders” were nothing more than their judgements as to what ought to be.
Exactly!!! Thanks for putting it so succinctly.
Jim said: “Well, here is the heart of it. Reality. Are you going to define what is real for us? Should someone else? The majority? The overwhelming majority even? And why should I trust someone else to define what’s real?”
I’m not going to define what reality is because reason and its younger sister science has done a perfectly good job at that. For all your talk of worldviews, reality is not negotiable. You can have a worldview that says gravity doesn’t exist but you will still die if you walk off a cliff. You can have a worldview that says that human beings can breathe underwater, but you will still drown if you dive to the bottom of the ocean without a suit. It doesn’t matter what interpretation you put on reality, it does not care what you personally believe—it is not negotiable. That is not my personal judgement, anyone can perform those experiements and see that it is so–though they won’t be alive to report their findings. It also has nothing to do with what ought to be—I make no value judgements about the injustice of gravity or unbreathable water. It just is.
That said, regardless of the worldview of Christians who believe in a literal and inerrant Bible, those two features are exclusive to each other. They cannot exist together in the same universe. The Bible is either literal or it is inerrant. It is either inerrant or literal. It is not both. That is one of those facets of reality that are not negotiable. Again, that is not my personal judgement, anyone can do the exercises and see that this is so. It also has nothing to do with a value judgement on my part. It just is.
And let me add this as it seems to be an issue: I make no value judgement about mental illness either. I do not think that people who are mentally ill are less valid as people, or cannot have valid ideas or opinions outside of the problems they are having distinguishing reality. That seems to be a value others want to impose upon what I am talking about. Further, I don’t see any reason to assume that just because I assert inerrantism is a mental illness that I place my OPINIONS higher than the opinions of anyone, even inerrantists. That’s your baggage, not mine.
Jim Burroway at November 3, 2005 09:02 AM
Exactly!!! Thanks for putting it so succinctly.
You are welcome. I am a lawyer who has a real science background (I have a masters degree in physics). I do not pussy-foot around with this silliness.
Fortunately, the medical community has, subsequently, been able to develop regimens that might be used to ameliorate the effects of what were previously considered “mental disorders” if those who had the so-called “mental disorders” wished to partake.
Even if the medical community were to come up with a regimen that might make me straight (which they have not), I would not see any reason for me to partake. I have had enough problems with a cortical steroid ointment and i have determined that the only drug that I will take is aspirin.
Robis,
Re: You can have a worldview that says gravity doesn’t exist but you will still die if you walk off a cliff etc. etc. etc.
Strawman arguments aren’t very pursuasive.
I know of no Fundamentalist Christians making these claims. Maybe because they all died/drowned/etc. ? 😉
re: “just because I assert inerrantism is a mental illness that I place my OPINIONS higher than the opinions of anyone, even inerrantists. That’s your baggage, not mine.”
I’m sorry, but these look like your bags.
Robis at November 1, 2005 02:30 PM: “Why do we give believers of the Christian God a pass but not the believers of Santa Claus? To assert that it is wrong to consider Christians to be mentally ill or at the very least lacking reason is not at all consistent with the way we make sense of the world in general.”
Robis at November 1, 2005 03:42 PM:
“The majority of people do not choose to be irrational or illogical in such situations, they just do not have the capacity to recognize that they are being irrational or illogical.“
I think we’ve pretty much exhausted this topic.
Jim said: “Strawman arguments aren’t very pursuasive. I know of no Fundamentalist Christians making these claims. Maybe because they all died/drowned/etc. ? ;-)”
It’s not a strawman. I’m not saying that anyone is making those claims. Perhaps you should reread what I wrote. You seem to have missed the point I was making. That point had nothing to do with what Fundamentalists believe, but rather the subjective nature of reality that you are proposing.
Further, your attempts to show that I place my OPINIONS above those of inerrantists fails because the passages you highlight do not address any opinions at all.
A double murder suicide was just committed by a young man with Aspberger’s Syndrome.
It’s a form of autism. The person who has it, may have a high IQ, but is socially inept.
Obssessed with a single subject, can’t read body language or cues from another person. Making them seem too bombastic for healthy interaction.
They don’t necessarily become so violent.
But this 19 year old had warned of his feelings of suicide on a website and bought a shotgun, despite a 10 day waiting period.
He killed a young woman and her father before taking his own life.
His photo shows a clean cut, dark haired boy, handsome with a nice smile.
His syndrome made him feel excruciatingly lonely.
The point is: our society has people with varying degrees of behavioral issues.
Some are mellowed with medication (which isn’t managed by LAW) and some are either subtley or strongly maladjusted and cannot function in ways that people DO notice.
Even if a mental illness or genetic deficiency is evident in individuals-there IS NO LAW that excludes or bans someone from marriage BASED on that issue.
So WHATEVER a person thinks of homosexuality, it has less implications for society than sociopathy or clinical disorders like schizophrenia.
And these issues are not excluded from homosexual people.
So, if anyone is going to argue a ban on marriage between gay people because they THINK it’s a mental or emotional disorder, they STILL are committing an egregious act against equal standards of inclusion for everyone.
The psychiatric community struck homosexuality from the DSM for more than a few specific reasons.
Most of which had to do with function.
In our basic respect for sexuality-how one functions sexually IS strictly personal.
We don’t measure or observe other people’s sex lives and how they handle it or to what degree.
We have no motive to intrude as neighbors or legal bodies unless and until, something that betrays or assaults another human being is in evidence.
Homosexuality doesn’t do that. It’s a personal characteristic and identity.
It’s not a cultural identity, it’s not based on a religious or social identity.
And no one has their entire lives disrupted or intruded on based on a personal characteristic, ESPECIALLY if, in their PUBLIC lives and condition, they are performing and functioning well and competently.
Nobody has taken a shotgun and blown away other people BECAUSE they were gay.
So all this bull**it over what homosexuality is and how it figures into marriage, job and other exclusions has no protection in the law equal to others who DO suffer from disorders of any and EVERY other kind.
Robis,
this is my final post on this subject.
Where your logic fails is that you start with a set of assumptions not shared by Christians. You reject the possibility of the miraculous. You believe the universe must act in accordance with the laws of physics as you know them to be.
You have predetermined the nature of God and applied to him the rules that you believe should apply. Thus, by your set of rules, it isn’t possible for God to be everywhere simultaneously or to know all things; that is contradictory to your knowledge of matter. Since you cannot fathom such a being you state that such a being cannot exist.
I suggest to you that your understanding of the universe and its possibilities is incomplete. I don’t fault you for basing your beliefs on what you know, I fault you for assuming that what you know is all there is to be known.
You mention walking off a cliff and that the automatic conclusion is falling. I hesitate in doing this because it truly does make me sound illogical or a nut and can lead one to discount my position; nevertheless, I will share with you a family story:
My grandfather was a preacher. One day he was traveling with a group of preachers to a meeting and needed to cross a ravine on a narrow and fragile bridge. The car was full and my grandfather was riding on the side step and holding onto the body of the car. After crossing the ravine the other men noticed that my grandfather looked shocked and asked why. He told them that for the last half of the crossing the car was riding on air. The men looked back and saw that the bridge had collapsed into the ravine.
My grandfather had a reputation for being scrupulously honest. I know that he believed the story.
According to your understanding of what is, the car could not have driven across air and safely gotten the ministers to the other side. By your standards, my grandfather was either lying or somehow deceived about the bridge (perhaps it fell after they got across). But – and here is the crux of the matter – you think that because my grandfather believed that a miracle had happened, he was demonstrating a rejection of logic and embracing the impossible and thus demonstrating mental illness.
I have no idea what happened. I don’t assume a miracle. Nonetheless, I cannot see my grandfather’s desire to understand his experience to be a sign of mental illness.
My family’s history is peppered with such stories.
Was my mother miraculously cured of vision impairment? I don’t know. Yet she believed so – and she seemed able to see better than most.
Was my uncle born dead? I don’t know. But my grandparents and their doctor believed so. He’s certainly alive today.
Did miraculous “healings” occur to people that I knew growing up? I don’t know. But Mrs. Hoague’s first x-rays showed inoperable cancer which was missing from the next x-rays.
Each of these things may have had a very logical and scientific based explanation that would be consistent with your understanding of reality. Perhaps no miracles occurred at all. My view of the world tends toward the skeptical.
However, I cannot say that these people – whom I know to all be logical people – were irrational in their understanding of what occurred. They saw things that seemed unexplainable by your set of rules and said “I cannot explain it, it must be God”. They based their understanding on what they observed.
You, however, have based your understanding on what you have not observed. You say that because you’ve not seen anything that cannot be explained by your rules, then your rules must be true. Further, you think that anyone who does not believe your rules is mentally ill.
I do not claim that you are not correct. Perhaps all things that exist can be explained by our current understanding of science. But it is incredibly arrogant to insist that this is the case.
For one to seek an understanding of what they’ve seen and to apply a supernatural basis to what seems on the face of it to be supernatural is not illogical or irrational. They may be wrong but they are not mentally ill.
The belief in a literal and inerrant God and the belief in Santa do not signify mental illness by themselves, but they are beliefs similar to those found in the mentally ill. Believers in God have been given a pass not given to adult believers in Santa. As long as one is able to function and meet the day to day needs of life one can have such magical beliefs and not be mentally ill. Nevertheless religious delusions are a common feature of schizophrenia and psychosis and with good reason – note the discussion of DL Foster under “Exodus Testimonials Blame Homosexuality for life Problems”. Having a large segment of society promote beliefs in magic and that contradictions can both be true triggers and feeds psychotic episodes in the mentally ill. When a susceptible person is unsure of (even a small) reality the idea that magic exists and contradictions are true can increase mental confusion and uncertainty to the point of panic which further prevents rational assessment of reality in a vicious cycle. Religious beliefs are certainly responsible for escalating the prevalence and severity of mental illness in society. I know, I’ve been there.
Religous beliefs are not consistent with what one typically finds in nature – things generally don’t move by themselves, we aren’t bumping into people we can’t see, there’s usually obvious reasons for things happening and a reasonable person will acknowledge that gods creating and controlling things including impossible contradictions is outside of what is usually seen and that is reason enough to have some skepticism.
Fundamentalists are willfully stupid in that they are willing to ignore what is usually seen in favour of explanations that would be considered less likely by a scientific thinker. Scientific thought emphasizes an equal consideration of all evidence and fundamentalists refuse to do that. There has been thousands of religions over the millenium and typically they claim to be true and all others false. A reasonable person will admit this means most religions must be false and based on this alone it is unlikely their’s is the one which might be inerrantly true. Few people are reasonable when it comes to their religious beliefs but most function well enough to be considered sane by most people. How many Christians honestly believe if they had been born in Japan or Saudi Arabia they would have come to believe Christianity is the one true faith? Not many I’m sure.
It is unfortunate that reality doesn’t provide perfect scientific answers to every question. Although it may not be very much so, psychology is as scientific as it can be at this time. That this is the best that can currently be done doesn’t justify dismissing the effort entirely. Raj, would you prefer society just throw up its hands and do nothing because the effort is (and possibly must be) far from perfect and scientific?
Anti-gay religous fundamentalist acceptance of the idea that the bible can contradict itself and still be inerrant is the same rationale Exodus uses to put out spiritual lies of ommission like encouraging people to jump to conclusions like: because the gays we know (some gays) have been sexually abused this means sexual abuse is the cause of same sex attractions. Its the same “logic” that allowed people to believe “Its okay for me to own my slaves, I am a good person”.
The same logic allows exodus to say “complete change is possible” and encourage the belief that all gays can completely convert same sex attractions into opposite sex attractions when what they really mean is the trivial technical truth that a gay person can suppress strong desires and pretend to be heterosexual. One cannot condemn these actions of Exodus and slave owners and not condemn the belief that its possible for the bible to be contradictory and true. A reasonable person acknowledges the contradictory belief in biblical inerrancy is typical of those that accompany mental illness, not typical of nature.
I lied… it wasn’t my last post.
Randi, you make some excellent points. However I disagree on a few things:
1. “Fundamentalists are willfully stupid in that they are willing to ignore what is usually seen in favour of explanations that would be considered less likely by a scientific thinker.”
This is true to an extent. Some small number of fundamentalist always fit this discription. However, few fundamentalists willfully ignore the obvious in favor of the miraculous. Usually this comes into play when there is no obvious answer.
2. “There has been thousands of religions over the millenium and typically they claim to be true and all others false. A reasonable person will admit this means most religions must be false and based on this alone it is unlikely their’s is the one which might be inerrantly true.”
Don’t fall into the trap of using results based logic.
A reasonable person could also conclude that the fact that their religion has endured while others perished is evidence that theirs is the correct one, blessed and ordained by God.
Remember too that most fundamentalist trace their religious heritage back to Adam and so consider their religion to be the oldest and most authentic. Others were just a flash in the pan.
3. “Few people are reasonable when it comes to their religious beliefs but most function well enough to be considered sane by most people.”
This one I agree with completely!!
4. “Religious beliefs are certainly responsible for escalating the prevalence and severity of mental illness in society.”
I suspect that religion does not contribute so much to the occurance of mental illness but rather becomes a magnet for those who are mentally ill.
So does politics, incidentally. Maybe it has something to do with a sense of power for those who feel powerless. It isn’t coincidence that many people who charge into the polital sphere for religious reasons are, well, um… you know.
5. “Having a large segment of society promote beliefs in magic and that contradictions can both be true triggers and feeds psychotic episodes in the mentally ill.”
Much has been made in these posts of the inerrant belief in a contradictory scripture. If by contradictory you mean that it contradicts alternate beliefs or scientific observation, that has been discussed ad nauseum.
If however you mean self-contradictory, I think the fundamentalists have addressed whatever contradictions may occur.
I think one of the problems that anti-Christians have in debate with Christians is that they don’t recognize that a “literal” belief in scripture is nuanced. Some literalists believe that the story of Lazarus is figurative, others not. Some believe that much of Genesis is alegorical, others ascribe to the details including talking snakes and a 144 hour creation. All beleive that certain portions of Leviticus are applicable and others not. Yet none of this is arbitrary and without years, decades, centuries and even millenia of study, debate and argument.
If there are two biblical segments that appear contraditory, you can be certain that fundamentalists have seen those two and have made some conclusion that is consistent with their belief structure. These are not simple uneducated back-woods people and if we choose to see them as such we do so to our own detriment.
and finally,
6. “The belief in a literal and inerrant God and the belief in Santa do not signify mental illness by themselves, but they are beliefs similar to those found in the mentally ill.”
This is not particulary relevant in that the sane and insane have many traits in common and share many beliefs.
I think a more relevant point would be that the mentally ill often include people who are extreme in their religiosity or overly devout. It seems to me that the indicators of mental instability have less to do with the beliefs chosen and more to do with the level of insistence.
Based on nothing more than my observations, those most convinced of their dogma and least willing to accept or hear an alternate voice seem the least capable of functioning.
Or to put it in terms that fundamentalists would understand “beware of the man who shouts “amen” the loudest.”
Re: “Nevertheless religious delusions are a common feature of schizophrenia and psychosis and with good reason…
As are UFOs, CIA plots, Illuminati and Bilateral Commission conspiracies, etc., etc., etc. My friend Joe heard me talking to him through his television.
Re: “Religious beliefs are certainly responsible for escalating the prevalence and severity of mental illness in society.”
Am I to read into this the suggestion that an absence of religious belief is a beneficent to mental health? In other words, one is less likely to suffer from psychosis, depression or schizophrenia if one is not religious? I’m not aware of any substantiated claims in the literature.
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Here’s the last I will post on the subject. After this, I leave it to you folks to continue if you wish.
Accusing fundamentalist Christians of being insane/crazy/mentally ill is wrong for all manner of reasons:
1) They do not fit the clinical definitions of mentally ill. Look in the DSMV. That, for better or worse, is the standard.
2) Mentally ill persons act under circumstances of reduced culpability due to reduced capability. I have no intention of letting any-Gay Christian fundamentalists off the hook, as I am sure is the case with you.
3) Calling fundamentalists mentally ill is intentionally and needlessly insulting to them. A co-worker, incidentally, has a sign in his office saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result”. While it is technically incorrect, it is instructive. If you want society to change, you go about it through giving people a positive reason to change their minds. Insults are a non-starter. If you don’t want society to change, then you are currently on the right track. There are far, far more of them than there are of us, and they’re not going away. They will continue to vote, like it or not.
4) Calling fundamentalist mentally ill — or any one else for similar causes that matter — is an insult to the thousands of people who struggle mightily with real mental illness. It diminishes the very real illnesses with which they struggle, reducing it to simply bad behavior that they can be taught or cajoled into changing. It is not. My friend Joe is testament to that. He is functioning as normal as can be expected today because of the care he is receiving. His accomplishments do not deserve to be lumped in with people who are merely motivated by malevolence or misguidance.
I think I have said everything I can possibly to think of to say on the subject. Let’s just say we agree to disagree and move on.
Yes, I’m a liar, just like Timothy 😉
One last point, which I made earlier, of why it’s wrong. I’ll repeat it here:
5) Dismissing opponents as personally deficient is an ad hominem attack, which, despite the term, is dehumanizing. If your opponent is not fully human, then it is all the easier to dismiss them. It is an illigitimate exercize in debate to dismiss ideas simply because of a “deficient” messenger.
Yes, they do it to us. All the time. But as I said, I hate it so badly when they do it to us that the very injustice of this tactic stirs my anger regardless of who is doing it and who the victim is. Do we really want to become what we fight?
Now I’m done.
The fundamentalists I’ve encountered are the most vehemently anti-gay and they do favour miraculous explanations over obvious ones. They feel for example its okay to criticize the National Education association for not presenting both sides of the story, while they do not criticize the ex-gay groups for doing the same.
Timothy you saying don’t fall for results based logic is indistinguishable to me from saying don’t fall for the conclusions of scientific experiments. One may certainly suggest that a resonable person may conclude that because their religion has persisted that it is the one true religion, but is the assumption that it has persisted till now reason to assume that it will continue to persist? No. Prior to the dismissal of old religions at that time one may have made the same conclusion. Religions have lasted thousands of years, just because one persists to a present point in time is no reason to believe it will continue to do so and hence be justifiably considered valid any more than a religion that has persisted for thousands of years but just not to this point in time. Historically religions do not persist and there is no reason to believe that Christianity or any other current religion will differ in the long run.
Religion certainly triggered and contributed to the last psychotic episode I experienced. Why don’t you laugh at your dismissal of my experience just as you laugh at the dismissal of religious people’s experiences?
I’m referring to the biblical beliefs that are self contradictory. At that time I was psychotic the belief in space aliens certainly made as much sense to me as the belief in gods. These beliefs are on a par in my experience in that they are a last gasp attempt to explain what seems unexplainable in typical natural terms. I have since found reaonable explantions for what seemed unexplanable to me and I wouldn’t blame anyone for questioning my beliefs in the supernatural for what I still cannot explain. The fundamentalists have most certainly not explained such self-contradictory biblical beliefs to me despite my demands they do so. I can only assume they do not have such explanations or do not consider them convincing themselves.
You say I don’t understand that the literal belief in scripture is nuanced? Well, I do understand that, the trouble is its so nuanced that an average Jane like myself can’t see any logic in it whatsoever – it ignores what is typically seen in nature for the more unlikely explanation again and again. At some point one must say that this belief is predicated upon that which is unlikely based on something else which is unlikely based on yet another unlikely thing and at some point a reasonable person must say this is so unlikely as to be reasonably considered untrue.
I never said fundamentalists are mentally ill, in fact I said most are not. What I said is that the belief in the inerrancy of the bible is unreasonable and similar to beliefs in magic considered symptomatic of mental illness. Anyone stating the self contradictory bible statements are true is at least at that point in time unreasonable, albeit not necessarily mentally ill. The belief that the bible is not inerrant is not confirmation of mental illness but is to be condemned in the same way exodus’s lies of ommission are.
Agree to disagree? You said you agree that the belief in the inerrancy of the bible is wrong. If you don’t consider wrong beliefs unreasonable then why say you consider them wrong in the first place?
Whoooaa….
Whoops, I meant to say “Belief that the bible IS inerrant is not confirmation of mental illness but is to be condemned in the same way exodus’s lies of omission are.”
-randi
I started to respond but then I realized…
nah, I’m done.
Thank God. Any more of this and I will lose my mind.
(Channelling Monty Python)
And I’d like to point out that this is the 76th comment to this post. 😉