Well, are they? :)
IMO, not necessarily.
Abstract religious beliefs which can't be proved one way or the other are not necessarily irrational, and therefore shouldn't as an indication of an unwell mind in themselves. Belief in the afterlife, for instance, could be seen as a functional way of rationalising fear of death or grief arising from bereavement.
Belief in the existence of psychic powers, and belief in divine intervention (e.g. faith healing) which I consider to be in the same category, are erroneous because they are demonstrably at odds with reality. However, people can hold erroneous beliefs for all sorts of reasons which are not related to their mental health - misinformation or lack of information, peer pressure, wishful thinking, lack of education etc.
OTOH, people who believe that they personally posess psychic powers, or the ability to channel divine power or somesuch thing, are clearly delusional to some degree. They may possibly be motivated by relatively harmless things like a desire to help others or escapism from the daily grind, but in some cases such a belief could amount to a symptom of mental malaise. One only has to peruse the threads from claimants for Randi's million to see some individuals who appear to be sad examples of this.
The actress Sarah Lassez has written a book describing how she was addicted to tarot phone lines.Originally Posted by Jocky
http://www.amazon.com/Psychic-Junkie.../dp/1416918388
She was eventually diagnosed with OCD.
People do tend to turn to these things in the most extreme manifestations due to some difficult life circumstance or illness. They give people some sense of control.
That's why I feel some of the psychics, healers etc are taking advantage of desperate people.
Love
Kath
Indeed, but life-destroying addictions of that kind are not the rule - there are plenty of ordinary, functional people who hold erroneous beliefs but do not consequently exhibit dysfunctional behaviour.People do tend to turn to these things in the most extreme manifestations due to some difficult life circumstance or illness. They give people some sense of control.
However, as you rightly point out, there is considerable potential for harm in such erroneous beliefs when they are held by someone who for whatever reason is vulnerable to exploitation. This is the main reason why woo is worth arguing about!
I don't think you can make an assumption about someone's mental health on the basis that they believe something woo. It's the manner in which the belief manifests itself which is the important thing.
I'm not.
Yes and no.
I think it might be a question of context.
Take two people of the same age- one is a member of a tribal community in Uganda and the other a former sports commentator from Leicester...they both suffer with a delusional illness where they hear voices of people who are not there.
Which one is mentally ill and which one is revered as a shaman?
Har har.
I think the question is when and where on the huge spectrum of disorders is the phenomena considered an illness. :D
I think that people who are highly superstitious, for example, are no more likely to suffer psychoses than anyone else, but people who are psychotic are more likely to be more superstitious than average.
So, there's likely to be a small correlation in any population sample but erroneous belief does not imply mental illness.
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The concept of "mental illness" is not well-defined anyway; it tends to mean "whatever is significantly different from the current norm".
You could argue that believers are mentally ill because they hold unsound beliefs, or mentally healthy because they are certainly not abnormal, depending on how you choose to define illness in this context.
Some religious groups do have a higher rate of mental illness, but I don't think anyone's done a study to see if it's true of woos.
There was a study which found it to be true of Jehovahs Witnesses. How much this is due to the stigma they face from society towards their religion it's hard to tell, but they undoubtedly face some.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/jw/jw72.html
There seems to have been no control group though, and the sample size was 50
Well, some statistics of suicide and mental illness to not favour atheists vs. believers. Studies has shown that beliefs in hell and life after death has act as a protective factor for suicide.
Can you link us to those studies?
I read somewhere (and it matches my personal experience) that religion plays a high factor in making people suicidal in the first place, whereas athiests don't have quite the same mental anguish and torment. I have tried to find my source, and am struggling, I'll admit.
Try to google it because the ones are for professional journals. Sorry I don't have a link now.
But basically, it serve as a protective factor, because religious people sees life as the maximum gift from God and suicide is the denia and rejection of that tremendous gift, then it is a mortal sin that will conduct you straight to hell. In some way that act as a "stop" for suicide. This is mostly from a christian perspective.
http://www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html
Here is one.
There's other studies as religious people suicide too, even masses, but generally it act as a protective factor.
http://www.med.uio.no/ipsy/ssff/suic.../Bertolote.pdf
This is another.
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