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What would cause someone from a normal background to become a religious zealot?
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Anonymous
DP here. Not sad at all. It's someone expressing their opinion on a religious topic in a religious forum. It's exactly what this place is for. Hopefully you see the irony of saying a topic you hold of paramount importance can't be just as important to someone who believes differently than you do. Maybe that crosses over from irony to hypocrisy? |
Anonymous
What’s sad is that some of you spend 24/7 here trolling on a topic you claim doesn’t interest you. |
Anonymous
Nobody here claims the topic doesn't interest them. Not one person. Just the opposite. They have passionate feeling on the subject, as you do. They just don't believe what you believe. For some reason, to you that disqualifies them and invalidates their opinion and right to express it. Again, that falls somewhere between ironic and hypocritical. |
Anonymous
Asking someone if the “hear voices” and insinuating they are mentally ill is not expressing opinion on religion. You are a gaslighter that tries to sound reasonable, but that’s not respectful or reasonable discussion. |
Anonymous
Asking posters if they “hear voices” and proclaiming how delusional everyone is for being religious is personally judging religious people, not discussing religion. There’s a lot of people here that are mean, rude, and obsessed with religion. At least the guy op is speaking about has a loving family and lives his life in a respectful manner, unlike you and many posters here. |
Anonymous
| Trauma. That’s the only answer in my experience. |
Anonymous
Your anecdotal personal experience? Case solved! 
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Anonymous
Triggered much? Most of the people on this thread have listed reasons that fall under the umbrella of trauma. Prison, near death experiences, Mental health issues. |
Anonymous
No, but other people’s experiences aren’t your experiences, and stalker op who watches this man and catalogs and critiques his family life (ew) has not determined via her dedicated surveillance of this unaware man and his innocent children any trauma has taken place. But don’t worry! Op will constantly stalk this man and watch everything he posts about his life and kids and family to determine exactly what’s wrong with him! |
Anonymous
I did not ask that question, and I understand you may find the question insulting because it conflicts with your deeply held beliefs, but I find it a reasonable one myself. I am assuming you would also if we were speaking of the leader of Heaven's Gate or Joseph Smith. Maybe a better way to ask the question: how can we tell someone who is genuinely being spoken to by a deity from someone with a mental illness? How do we know which? Can you answer that? If we can't know the difference, then it is reasonable for people to assume either position, and seemingly more reasonable to assume the one that is common and for which there is mountains of evidence, right? BTW, Are you the same person who mis-uses "gaslighting" in the college forum? That's not what the term means and you should look it up. |
Anonymous
Gaslighting is used correctly to refer to you and your comments. “Religion and mental illness are different psychological processes,” said atheist and mental health advocate Miri Mogilevsky. “[Religious beliefs may] stem from cognitive processes that are essentially adaptive, such as looking for patterns and feeling like a part of something larger than oneself.” “People who cannot leave the house without having a panic attack or who feel a compulsion to wash their hands hundreds of times a day are experiencing symptoms that interfere with their ability to go about their lives,” Mogilevsky said. “Except in extreme cases, religion does not operate this way.” Simply put: You may find religious beliefs irrational, but that doesn’t mean they’re a manifestation of mental illness. Surely not all atheists who claim religion is a mental illness do so to insult believers, but some do. This should go without saying, but it’s vital: Mental illness should never be wielded as an insult, particularly because people with mental illness face widespread stigma. “Equating religion with mental illness is harmful for a number of reasons,” said Mogilevsky, who will soon launch a secular mental health support group. “When done to make fun of or put down religion, it also puts down people struggling with [mental illness].” Calling religion a form of mental illness as a way to insult believers is not only crude and wrong—it also contributes to a culture that marginalizes people with mental illness and defines them solely by their illness. Atheists, agnostics, and Humanists should actively promote dignity for all people and strive to challenge dehumanization, rather than contribute to it. Religion not a form of mental illness—it’s actually associated with wellbeing in the U.S. Religion is many things—a famously indefinable concept—but for our purposes we can use the word to refer to supernatural belief systems and institutions built around them,” said David Yaden, a researcher at The University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center who works in collaboration with UPenn’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, in a recent email exchange. “If that is our definition, religion absolutely cannot be [categorized] as a mental illness.” “In fact, empirical evidence sometimes points to the opposite conclusion,” Yaden said, citing the work of Dr. Ken Pargament. “When it comes to facilitating mental health, empirical data demonstrates that religious people have more positive emotion, more meaning in life, more life satisfaction, cope better with trauma, are more physically healthy, are more altruistic and socially connected, and are not diagnosed with mental illness more than other people.” Claiming that religion is a mental illness obscures the fact that we all—yes, atheists too—regularly engage in irrational thinking,” said Mogilevsky. “If thinking irrationally is a mental illness, then we are all mentally ill, and the term loses its meaning. As a survivor of mental illness myself, I think we should save that term for situations in which people are truly suffering and having trouble going about their lives.” People here, especially you, are engaged in agenda based and frankly ignorant discussion about things (mental illness and religion) that obviously they know very little about. Op should be embarrassed and stop stalking that man. |
Anonymous
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Based on the people I know IRL, he either felt guilty about some really bad sh1t he did (drugs, abuse) and couldn’t “fix” himself without external help -or- mental illness.
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Anonymous
First “gaslighting” has a meaning and it is not simply used to discredit someone’s comment. It doesn’t mean what you think it means. If you don’t mind using a term incorrectly that is your prerogative but it does not communicate what you want. Your quotes don’t answer the question, in fact they totally avoid it. The question was explicitly about someone who believes they hear voices from a deity. How can you tell the difference between someone who is and someone who has a mental illness? The point is if you can’t tell the difference then neither position can be disproved. |
Anonymous
| ^ this is true. But to be fair, Paul may have been an epileptic, which would explain seeing the blinding light and falling off his horse. It doesn't explain his claim that Jesus spoke to him; that may have been a psychotic episode. Or he may have just been lying and made the whole thing up. All reasonable explanations. |
Anonymous
You will continue to type the same words and they will continue to mean nothing. Enjoy doing so. It seems that is what you do, and that, though sad, is your life. Now someone is diagnosing Paul with epilepsy. 
I am fully convinced that people read things on google and think that what they read gives them medical credentials. And not only is that odd, they use these google medical credentials with great assurance and confidence. Can you imagine IRL how people would move rapidly away from you for doing so? Try to and save yourself from this fake life. It’s not real even though you cling to it. |