Tuesday, December 5, 2006

SCHIZOPHRENIA AND RELIGION

Schizophrenics have are more likely to be religious than healthy individuals and religious people have a more frequent occurrence of schizophrenia than other groups of people. This is especially true in Jehovah's Witnesses who are three times as likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and four times as likely to be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia than the general population.

More interesting and on the topic of the origin of religion: bicameralism is a theory arguing that the human brain was once divided into two parts; one part acted as the speaker while the other part listened and obeyed. Psychologist Julian Jaynes believed that the human brain acted in this way for everyone as recently as 3,000 years ago. The bicameral mind functions similar to the mind of a modern schizophrenic. In unexpected situations the bicameral mind would not make conscious evaluations like our modern brains, but the person would hallucinate a voice (which they perceived as god) giving them commands and they would obey without questioning the voice. At this time humans did not have consciousness as we do today. The commands from "god" we read about in ancient legends were actually commands directly from an individuals' own brain. Jaynes makes the case that in both The Iliad and older sections in the Old Testament there is no mention of any cognitive process (ex. introspection), and no notion that the authors were self-aware. However, later books of The Old Testament and The Odyssey show a different mentality and an early version of consciousness. Jaynes also showed that there were more gods in those times than there are in modern times, and that is further proof of bicameralism because each person had their own personal "god," although it was actually their own brain. I am fairly unfamiliar with this theory, so my explanation is lacking. It's just a theory, but if you want to learn more I suggest looking it up yourself.

To state the obvious, I believe religion is dangerous and mentally unhealthy. Religious people have a tendency to reject proven scientific facts while insisting that unproven miracles exist. These people are not only some of the most intolerant people in existence, but it is impossible for them to see their views as flawed. A more rational view of reality and existence is better, especially when coping with the harsher parts of life and in finding a fair moral philosophy. Also, it is more important and productive for the world to search for scientific explanations rather than supernatural ones and, if nothing else, an atheist is a more intelligent human being who is able to make his/her own decisions and come up with his/her own moral code independent of "God" or a really old book (yes, i am referring to the Bible).

11 comments:

benso1pf said...

That's an interesting statistic. Do you think that people with a problem tend to be religious, or religious people tend to develop a problem?

I looked up bicameralism and found, according to Wikipedia anyway, that it's rather controversial. Again, it looks like the idea fits the obervations, but it's just one way of looking at it. Even if the theory were correct, it wouldn't explain Islam. After all, Islam (the world's fastest growing religion) wasn't founded until 622. Also, the Mormon religion wasn't founded until the 18th century. Perhaps Joeseph Smith and Mohommud were schizophrenics, but that's just a possibility, not a proof.

Your last paragraph implies that you believe religion is nothing more than a crutch for people who won't take care of themselves. That may be true in many cases, but not in all.

I submit that atheism is also a religion. True, atheists don't get together to worship, but they do hold conferences and talk about their atheistic ideas. They don't have a "holy" book, but they have many different books about what they believe. They don't have "religious leaders," but they have plenty of people that publish materials that explain the atheist paradigm. True, they don't have a "code of conduct," but each atheist pretty much makes one up for him/herself. Also, there is one statement of faith that ties all atheists together: they all believe that there is no god.

I'm curious. How do you define "religion?"

tom sheepandgoats said...

I’ve heard this charge before. I don’t think there’s anything to it. Drive by the psyche ward of the hospital. It’s always full. They’re not all our people. At most one or two. Usually no one at all.

Nonetheless, if a faith were to reflect God’s love and Christ’s hospitality, you might expect disturbed people to be drawn to that. The group you mention, Jehovah’s Witnesses, are such a faith. I have been one for thirty years, and can appreciate how the hospitality shown in the congregation might well draw mentally ill people, who are not welcome in many other places.

Science may value these people as guinea pigs for this or that experiment, and they may serve to advance the careers of certain researchers or psychiatrists. There‘s a local doctor in town who drives around with vanity plates: "PSYCHE DR"….just think how that must make his patients feel! But if we’re talking showing personal interest in a mentally ill person, religion trumps science any day.

Unknown said...

First, religious people always try to atribute athiests with religious views. But athiesm is not a belief system it is a label projected on people with a rational worldview based on evidence and logic. As for conferences and shared media, the same can be said about any generic group of people (a film club or a philosophy department) but it doesn't make them religious. Athiest, the word, shouldn't even exist. There is no name for people who don't believe in unicorns so there shouldn't be a name for people who don't believe in gods or God or whatever fantasy one is deluded by.
Secondly and on topic, schizophrenia by definition is "a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation." This sounds a lot like religion to me. If nothing else, schizophrenics can easly blend into world religions. If they are speaking in tongues, isolating themselves in mountains, speaking to god, seeing gods or demons, being stubbornly defiant of evidence against what they believe as true, or believing in fantasy as if it were true, the symptoms of this mental disorder appear as commonplace within religious life. Dr. Simon Dien has linked schizophrenia and religion with a common evolutionary trajectory. Lastly, bicameralism is interesting but it doesn't account for a simultanious global change that would have had to have taken place. Evolution doesn't work simultaniously from the mountains of Peru to China to Finland all at the same time without any genetic mixing and adaptation.

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