Reply With QuoteAlso in relation to the DSM, if I hold a correct belief for a false / poor reason, is that a delusion?
The DSM-IV defines delusion as;
“a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary”
Another definition
"A delusion is a false, unshakeable idea or belief which is out of keeping with the patient’s educational, cultural and social background; it is held with extraordinary conviction and subjective certainty" (Sims, 1995).
So based on the DSM definition - Is religious belief really a delusion (in the proper sense of the definition)? If so, what kind of delusion is it?
Is it irrational? If so - what counts as rational?
Can a scientist be religious at the same time?
Could it be that as long as one does not use a non-evidence based belief system in their scientific reasoning - then all is well?
People have a right to believe in what they want - but they do not have the right claim what they want to be a factual truth. Thoughts welcome
{note I have put this here as it is more related to critical thinking than religion per-se}
Last edited by Dr B; 4th March 2009 at 01:04 PM.
Also in relation to the DSM, if I hold a correct belief for a false / poor reason, is that a delusion?
Last edited by Dr B; 4th March 2009 at 01:05 PM.
Scientists can certainly be religious, although in some extreme cases they must surely be approaching schizophrenia (like the US astrophysicist in a recent TV programme who was defending Young Earth creationism; when pressed, he simply said that if science conflicted with the Bible, the science must, by definition, be wrong).
Incidentally, New Scientist had an article in the 7 Feb issue ("Natural Born Believers": see http://www.newscientist.com/article/...eates-god.html ) which suggested that the human brain is primed to be religious.
Just because you're paranoid...Originally Posted by Dr B
We know that Philip K Dick thought that his phones were being bugged. We also know that eh suffered from amphetamine psychosis and a number of mental health issues at the time. However his phones were really being bugged. Was it nontheless a delusion on his part.
Under the DSM definition it's not.
a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary
It would seem that simply being true is enough to ensure that this belief doens't count as a delusion. We don't know whether "everybody else" believed - possibly not, and there is unlikley to have been incontravertable evidence to the contrary however I would say that these latter qualifications describe how the belif would react in the pressence of this opposition not that such opposition needs to be presdent for a belief to be regarded as a delusion.
Disregarding the definition requiring a belief to be false, it also says it must be based upon an incorrect inference about external reality. This we simply don't know. Bugging techniques at the time could be detected. Do he hear the effects of an induction loop muffling his conversations, did he imagine he see and extra mike hidden within his handnset or did he imagine one whilst the the other was employed. It's possible that specific details of this belief were delusions. At the same time we could consider what if he arrived at his belief through a vision. Could that vision actually be his subconcious tellign him he was being bugged after subconciously picking up on the real clues? Would it be a delusion to trust such a vision?
I think it's an interesting question not least because I don't ahve a simple answer. It'll be good to see what others think.
Point of information: Despite the name, schizophrenia is not a "split personality" in the sense of two conflicting personalities occupying the same brain. That would presumably be some sort of multiple personality disorder, and I don't think we can deduce that anyone holding both religious and scientific beliefs is necessarily suffering from this.
I'm baffled as to how someone can work in cosmology yet believe the Bible is literally true, but I don't think we can dismiss it as a mental illness. How would we like it if, as was doubtless the case not so long ago, atheism was classed as a disorder just because it went against the grain of what most people believed?
Be skeptical of the things you believe are false, but be very skeptical of the things you believe are true.
Part of the problem here is with the word 'delusion' is that it has overtones of mental illness. If one were to define it as holding beliefs without evidence (and given that paring it down to a simple definition like that aids communication maybe a good thing), as it can be, then religion is clearly a delusion. Maybe it is more helpful to say it is an non-evidence based position, then we avoid the problem of appearing to be insulting?
It would seem that we have some sort of pre-disposition towards religious belief, but the most likely explanation seems to be that we have a tendency to try to understand and where we cannot we will try to fill that gap with something. Also some recent studies suggest that not all humans have religion in the sense that there is a god of some description out there (religion by definition requiring a deity).
"a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality ..."
So what 'external reality' demonstrates unequivocally that religions are false? If you read the New Scientist article quoted above you will see that religiousity is actually the default mode of human thought. It takes a deliberate act of will to be an atheist. If you think of mental disorders as differing significantly from average human behaviour, atheists have thea disorder, not religious followers.
Last edited by Mulder; 4th March 2009 at 03:50 PM.
1. "Unequivocally" sets the bar far too high. There is always room for doubt.
2. Religion as constructed is unfalsifiable. All we can say is that external reality fails to provide any plausible evidence for the claims of religion.
Be skeptical of the things you believe are false, but be very skeptical of the things you believe are true.
So what if I infer that the sun is actually a god that crosses the sky every day, as many people used to millenia ago? That inference agrees with 'external reality'.
No, it simply does not conflict with external reality, provided that you assign to your god the precise characteristics required to make it compatible with observation.
There is no testable evidence to say you are right, and plenty of circumstantial evidence to say you are wrong. We know from objective evidence that the Sun is a place where no life as we know it could exist - you could say your god is a form of life that can live in 6000K plasma, but that would be special pleading - and we know that the Sun is more or less stationary in the solar system (a slight wobble around the barycentre) and that the planets revolve around it.
You could claim that your god simply arranges things to appear this way to us, but then you would be making an untestable claim, so there wouldn't be any point in pursuing it scientifically.
Be skeptical of the things you believe are false, but be very skeptical of the things you believe are true.
Where does it say that 'external reality' has to be tested scientifically? It says "... despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary". Firstly, who cares what everyone else believes - they could all be wrong! Secondly, who decides what constitutes proof - a mathematician? And who decides on the evidence - a judge and jury?
The idea of 'external reality' can depend on the knowledge and culture of the observer, not just science. If you talked to an Amazonian tribesman, who had only recently been contacted by the outside world, would you consider them delusional if they said the sun was a god?
As a definition, it is all over the place and makes little sense, like so much in psychiatry.
Last edited by Mulder; 4th March 2009 at 05:43 PM.
I think this is the crux. Religion, at least as I've known it, exists in groups and those groups perpetuate social pressure to conform to the religious belief. I believe it was Asch who did some classic work regarding the effects of conformity on beliefs in mainstream, non diagnosed (note my reluctance to say healthy!!) volunteers. It's normal for us flawed people to see things the way 'our' group does, throw confirmation bias and strong family attachments into the mix, plus fear of death and an external locus of control in the first place and VOILA - a god botherer is born. (There but for the grace of ...)!...despite what almost everyone else believes...
I remember someone telling me that the DSM's value as a tool lay in where and when it's used. Without a presenting problem, either to the individual or society it's inappropriate to attempt to diagnose, the tool isn't built to give accurate results while applied 'willy nilly' amongst the general public - although HELL it would be fun!
If a person invents there own religion and can get bog all following but continues to individually claim god is a cockle shaped, marshmallowy, big thing then they will undoubtedly appear deluded. But taking a ready made off the shelf which is well supported by other big wigs (presidents...etc), well, I think that falls into the gullable section.
'pologies for laziness not referencing but it's a big enough classic and I will if anyone needs it. (I'm sure it was Asch??)
I consider religion a delusion (i.e. a false belief). Most religious claims are not testable, but where they are (talking to the dead, the power of prayer, etc.) the results are negative so the small amount of evidence that does exist doesn't support their claims.
On a wider note, I do not think that we're predisposed to religious belief per se. It seems that we, along with most of the animal kingdom, are predisposed toward superstitious (or magical) thinking. e.g. Skinner's pigeons/rats.
Superstitious thinking and rituals have been found in human civilizations universally whereas religion has not. IIRC, the Aborigines did not have religion although they had the same types of superstitious beliefs as everyone else.
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I agree with this and have been thinking along these lines for years now. Our brains can easily hallucinate as well and i am sure as a species, we have been having odd experiences for hundreds of years. In addition, I think all religion originally came from a form of causal reasoning (which simply went wrong along the way). So ancient people saw, let's say, the four seasons, they saw the sun / moon / stars etc - and made the mistake that there is an 'intention' underlying events (Theory of Mind attribution) from these objects.
Oddly, they were trying to explain (as a scientist today would) and to understand their environment - but they just did not have the mental tools to do it at that time.
Might find this interesting http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/7745514.stm
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