[Vision2020] News Article, Mental Illness, Fixation of Belief Discussion

[Art Deco]

Re: Secularism

First I want to apologize to Douglas Wilson for mistakenly thinking he was
the author of the letter Doug Jones wrote.  It was hasty and carelessness on
my part.  I'll try to do better in the future.  (This is not an excuse, but
I do note that the views of the two Dougs (Jones & Wilson appear
isomorphic.)

The discussion of which this a continuation concerns the relationship of
certain kinds of religious belief to mental illness and the methods of the
fixation of all beliefs.

I probably expressed my self unclearly in the previous letter, so I will try
again.

In all that follows when the word "god" is used, it means "alleged god".

There are many definitions for mental illness.  A commonly accepted,
clinically useful one dealing with the mental illnesses that are delusional
in nature is "The holding and acting upon beliefs which are improbable to
the extent that a person's ability to function in the most lawful,
productive, and useful way without intentionally or unintentionally bringing
harm to themselves and/or others is reduced."

It must be emphasized that by nature mental illness is not a black or white
condition but it exists on a continuum from none (or very little) to severe.
It has been argued that almost everyone has had mental health problems at
some time in their life.

There are many well known behavioral scientists from all across the spectrum
of approaches to their science -- behaviorists to psychoanalysts -- who have
studied and pointed out the similarities of religious belief and mental
illness, many saying they are
more than similar.

In short, they speak about an individual's use of psychological defense
mechanisms like fantasy, rationalization, compartmentalization, denial,
reaction formation, etc.  Everyone uses these mechanisms.  They are everyday
survival mechanisms.

These mechanisms become more and more pathological when used over a long
time
without the support of evidence, in the face of contrary evidence, or in the
face of contradictions  -- a 45 year old person who insists there is a Santa
Claus in the traditional sense or believes that unicorns exists in the same
way mice do or believes that 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 are examples.

Behavioral scientists would argue that the more tenaciously held an
unevidenced or a contradictory belief is, the more severe the mental
illness.

Many behavioral scientists have pointed out that society tends to ignore the
fantasies of the religious unless they are far beyond the pale of culturally
accepted norms:

Oral Roberts is not generally thought demented by most for his alleged two
way conversations with some god.

However, when Brian Mitchell claims that his god told him to abduct and to
impress Elizabeth Smart into being his bride, then most of society draws the
line.  It is
interesting to note that there is no way, short of an examination for
internal contradictions, to test empirically whether Oral Roberts mystical
claims are any more true than Brian Mitchell's.

The religious do not like to have their beliefs called fantasy.  Quite
understandable.  Deistic religious beliefs are of varying importance to many
people.

However, it is interesting to note that behavioral scientists are not the
only ones to compare religious belief with delusionary or other kinds of
mental illness.  A fascinating work by Episcopal Father Leo Booth reaches
some of the same conclusions in non-clinical language.  His book is entitled
"When God Becomes A Drug:  Breaking the Chains of Religious Addiction &
Abuse."

Religion is called a fantasy because of the following observations:

There are thousands of gods whose characterizations are contradictory to
each other but are tenaciously worshipped by different peoples of the world.
Lets call them god-1, god-2, ... , god-n.  Then for any i not = j, the
description of god-i is contradictory to that of god-j.

For almost any of these gods, there are people who are extremely apodictic
about
asserting that their god(s) are the only true one(s) and the rest are false
or even sacrilegious.  There are those that believe as strongly about the
truth of their religious beliefs, different as it may be, as Douglas Wilson
and Douglas Jones believe about their about their god.

Unfortunately, there is no unequivocal method (short of examining each
belief for logical consistency***) to test which set of religious beliefs,
if
any, is true.

If there were such an unequivocal method, we would not be having this
discussion.  There is no dispute about the correct specific gravity of lead,
that Boyle's laws give us extremely accurate predictions about the behavior
of gases, or that the Pythagorean Theorem correctly describes the
relationship of the elements of a right triangle on small flat area.  There
is a dispute about almost all non-meta-lingual statements about god(s).

Given the above, it is obvious that at most one of the sets of beliefs about
the set of god-1, god-2, ... , god-n is true.

The rest, then must be false, and therefore, fantasy.

Using this logical conclusion as a starting point, the conclusions of the
behavioral scientists mentioned above seem at this point in humankind's
quest for knowledge, the most likely.

(***A logical contradictions in a conjunction of statements (the statement
of a religious creed, e.g.) renders the entire conjunction [the entire
creed] false.)

Applying the above observations about mental illness to the tragedy that
sparked this discussion, it can be further noted:

When beliefs in the secular world are fixed on fantastic non-religious
matters in a manner similar to those fixed by the deeply religious on
religious matters,
society is much more likely to recommend the secular believer receive
treatment.  Society is not as tolerant of people who claim to be and act as
Napoleon as it is of those that claim to talk back and forth to some god(s).

I wonder if this unfortunate person (the root of this discussion) who, on
the alleged advice of some god, beat her two children to death with
a rock would have done so if she hadn't been religious.  Maybe, if her
symptoms were expressed as nonreligious fantasies, they would have attracted
more notice, she could have been steered to treatment, and possibly this
tragedy could have been avoided.

Of course many non-religious persons can do utterly despicable acts.  But if
their mental health symptoms are non-religious in nature, and therefore less
tolerated, then some of these despicable acts are more likely to be
preventable by treatment intervention.

Mr. Jones accuses me of secularism.  He is correct.

All systems of belief start with at least some not provable premises.  For
example, I base my beliefs and actions on the hope that the universe will
continue to operate under those set of statistical averages called the laws
of nature.  It is a hope, not an article of faith.  However, such an
assumption or hope is necessary to my everyday functioning.  It is something
that cannot be proved save for making another assumption or hope from which
it would follow.

It is difficult to take seriously non-mathematical or non-logical systems of
belief which contain as their unproven premises the positing without
question of the existence of objects and/or beings.  The assertion of the
existence of any non-mathematical or non-logical object or being seems to me
to require empirical and verifiable proof -- especially, if conclusions of
great consequences are to be drawn from such assertions.  Some of these
assertions are like those about the existence of unicorns.  The existence of
unicorns cannot be completely disproven, but the probability of the truth of
such statements is extremely low.

The classic American essay on this matter is by Charles S. Pierce.  It is
called "The Fixation of Belief."  It is not easy reading but it has been an
extremely influential document.  Apparently Hitler, whose appears to have
been a minister, banned any work containing this essay, ordering them
burned.

>From the secular point of view, knowledge is always subject to correction
and to revision in the light of new evidence (The theory of the structure of
matter has changed many times in the last century).  If a god physically
appeared tomorrow and spoke to everyone in a way they understood and could
communicate to others, then one would certainly have to give up one's
skeptical ways.

In the meantime, Mr. Jones, calling me a secularist, while apparently a
dirty word among the cult, does not address the arguments that I previously
made and rewrote here.  Though not nearly as earth shaking, it is similar to
the Germans dismissing the theory of relativity because Einstein was a Jew.
Tell us with well reasoned arguments us how you reconcile the contradictions
among the assertions about god-1, god-2, ... , god-no or the internal
contradictions in the beliefs of the majority of Christians.  Tell us why
the researches of the behavioral scientists as noted above are wrong (being
empirical in nature they are subject to error and correction).  Tell us why
the observations and conclusions of Father Leo Booth are wrong.  What are
your reasons?  What are your arguments?  How do you establish your facts and
premises?

Also in the meantime perhaps you might think about how to alter your faith
so that you can encourage all people, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, to strive to each their highest non-criminal potential
undeterred by denigration and discrimination.  Don't you think Jesus would
approve?

Thank you for your indulgence.

Wayne Fox


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Jones" <credenda@moscow.com>
To: "'Vision 20/20'" <>
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 8:56 AM
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] News Article


> Wayne still doesn't get it:
>
> > Unfortunately, there is no unequivocal method (short of examining each
> > belief for logical consistency) to test which set of religious
> beliefs, if
> > any, is true. . . . Using this framework as a starting point, the
> conclusions of the
> > behavioral scientists mentioned above seem at this point in
> humankind's
> > quest for knowledge, the most likely.
> >
>
> All of which is like Wayne suggesting "since there is no unequivocal
> method, let's just impose my peculiar fantasy-paradigm on everyone
> else."  How convenient.
>
> And Wayne's comments support my initial point: apparently, secularists
> can't possibly conceive that their view could be false. What sort of
> evidence, Wayne, would make you think that the methods proposed above
> might just be arbitrary fantasies? Stretch yourself.
>
> Doug Jones
>
>
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