Religious Fundamentalism Could Be Treated As A Mental Illness

[lynnvinc]

We’re all brainwashed, don’t you know. Get the strait jackets ready!

huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/kathleen-taylor-religious-fundamentalism-mental-illness_n_3365896.html

*An Oxford University researcher and author specializing in neuroscience has suggested that one day religious fundamentalism may be treated as a curable mental illness.

Kathleen Taylor, who describes herself as a “science writer affiliated to the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics,” made the suggestion during a presentation on brain research at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales on Wednesday.

In response to a question about the future of neuroscience, Taylor said that “One of the surprises may be to see people with certain beliefs as people who can be treated,” The Times of London notes.

“Someone who has for example become radicalised to a cult ideology – we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance," Taylor said. “In many ways it could be a very positive thing because there are no doubt beliefs in our society that do a heck of a lot of damage."*

I think quite a few religions have a fundamentalist component – Islam, Judaism, Hindism, Buddhism, Christian Protestant denominations, Catholicism.

I think it is not a return to the old time religion, as much as a response to the horrible things associated with our modern world & maybe an over-reaction against that in a way that might be harmful to the adherents and/or others.

I think it might be related to some small (or large) extent to paranoia, the authoritarian personality, and stereotyping and racism – people seeing the world in “black & white,” and are to some extent unable to understand or “see” the complexities…such as some good in nearly every “bad” person and some bad in nearly every “good” person. Also some good in the modern condition and some bad in the “good old times.”

Fundamentalism could be a bad thing if it leads to violence against innocent people – bec they are socially constructed as being part of a category of people considered to be evil and/or dangerous.

If people engage in such thinking and behavior that harms others (and perhaps themselves), then it would be good for others, including the psychiatric community, to try and dissuade them of such harm and the thinking that leads to it.

Real Christianity of love, mercy, forgiveness - what Jesus taught us - is sort of the opposite of fundamentalism, and it would be good to bring the fundamentalist types to such thinking. This could be done within healthy, solid Christian religion…which might work better than psychiatry.

It’s sort of surprising that many on this thread feel somewhat antagonistic about all this. Perhaps some see themselves as “fundamentalists” and feel threatened.