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Anonymous wrote:^^ You're avoiding the question. Are you trying to suggest it could have have happened just like Paul said it did?
It’s a question nobody can answer and definitely no professional would answer. You can pretend it’s possible from your agenda based viewpoint but that’s absolutely your uneducated opinion. Why would you waste your time, other than it’s not valuable?
Feel free to diagnosis everyone though. Perhaps diagnose yourself, too!
Of course they can: it didn't happen. So that leaves Paul was delusional or he was just making it up.
NP. Or, it was God entering Paul’s life in a way that changed the course of one religion and of history. I’m not a huge fan of Paul, but you go straight to ruling out divine intervention and that only reflects your personal biases.
I’m with the mental health professional—you have zero qualifications or information to diagnose someone who lived 2,000 years ago. Although I’m sure tempted to diagnose someone who obsesses about Paul—and who obsesses about other people being religious on a religion forum—on a daily and hourly basis.
someone said Paul
may have been mentally ill. No one claimed he was. Or maybe just an extreme religious zealot. Another possibility is that Jesus really did speak to him by name and he did go up to heaven and come back. I'.m aware some people believe that really did happen, and that's fine if you wan to believe that.
As far as obsessing, I didn't even think of it until the poster at 11/23/2021 19:19 asked about Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Have you read the whole thread?
You clearly ruled out divine intervention in your post two above your most recent post, so let’s stop with that debate.
So, you appear to admit you’re on this forum 24/7, reading entire threads like this one, as a nonbeliever. Would you say you have intrusive thoughts about religion, or even that you’re obsessed? Do you have any other outlets and relationships, or does trolling a religion forum on a mom’s website provide the most satisfaction you’ll get today?
+1
It’s very sad. I genuinely mean that.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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