Atheist Think Tank
Ending Biblical Brainwashing
For better mental and cultural health, it's time we classified religious
fundamentalism as a psychological disorder
By George Dvorsky.
Imagine that you're a psychiatrist. A new patient comes to see you and says
that he regularly talks to an invisible being who never responds, that he reads
excerpts from one ancient book and that he believes wholeheartedly that its
contents must be accepted implicitly, if not taken literally.
The patient goes on to say that that the world is only 6,000 years old and
that dinosaurs never existed. He brazenly rejects modern science's
observations and conclusions, and subscribes to the notion that after death
he will live in eternal bliss in some alternate dimension. And throughout
your meeting, he keeps handing you his book and urging you to join him, lest
you end up after death in a far less desirable alternate dimension than him.
how could you answer yes? These symptoms border on delusional schizophrenia,
which the American Psychological Association's DSM-IV describes as involving
a profound disruption in cognition and emotion, assigning unusual
significance or meaning to normal events and holding fixed false personal
beliefs.
So, should you insist on follow-up appointments along with some strong
medication? Well, quite obviously, the patient is a religious fundamentalist.
So he would most likely not be diagnosed with a psychological problem. In
fact, such a diagnosis could land you in hot water; the patient's religious
beliefs are constitutionally protected.
Yet, perhaps it's time this changed, and that we made religious
fundamentalism a mental and cultural health issue. People should be able to
believe what they like, but only so long as their convictions don't harm
others or, arguably, themselves. Fundamentalism, however, breeds fanaticism
and often leads to terrible violence, injustice and inequality. If society
can force drug addicts into rehabilitation because they're a danger to
themselves and the public, then we should be able to compel religious
fundamentalists to undergo treatment as well.
Religion as a virus of the mind.
The evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, considers religion an
opportunistic and dangerous virus of the mind. Comments such as these have a
long history, as religion has been a particularly popular target in the
post-Enlightenment age. Marx claimed that religion was the opiate of the
people. Freud claimed that it was an infantile need for protection in place
of the parent. Ayn Rand thought that belief in God was demeaning to man.
Nietzsche put it this way: "Is man one of God's blunders, or is God one of
man's blunders?"
Dawkins' theory has much merit. He describes religion as a "meme," an idea
that gets passed from person to person and generation to generation like a
virus that infects hosts to reproduce its genes. Under this view, religion is
a potent memeplex that works at a cultural and psychological level. Some
psychologists even believe that the human brain is hardwired for
spirituality, perhaps to help rational and intelligent organisms remain sane
and functional while dealing with the confusions of existence.
Regardless, the human psyche has proven fertile ground for religious memes,
which have evolved and withstood selective pressures over time and, as a
result, now "organize" their hosts in such a way that institutions, including
the legal system, have come to their protection. Evangelical memes -- such as
those of Jesuits and Jehovah's Witnesses -- are some of the best at
reproducing.
When faith goes bad
Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with this. Under memetic theory,
any idea that gets reproduced is a meme. So when do religious memes go bad?
What distinguishes fundamentalism from other types of religious belief
systems?
Philosopher Daniel Dennett, in an essay called "Protecting Public Health,"
provides some guidance. "As science and technology eliminate the barriers and
friction that have heretofore constrained our human powers and thereby
limited the scope of our moral choice, mankind's need for a reasoned,
consensual, and open-minded ethics will become ever more pressing," he
writes. Dennett is concerned with the fallacies and misinformation that
people cling to -- including conspiracy theories, superstitions, mysticism,
astrology and, especially, fundamentalism. He states, "Fanaticism of every
sort, on every issue, is bound to compete for our attention...[and]
unfortunately, many people cling to the simple wrong answers, and are even
prepared to die -- and kill -- for them."
Intervening in people's thinking, however, is a sensitive issue, as it
touches upon freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression. People
have the right to be foolish, naive or dogmatic, just as they have the right
to smoke cigarettes and drink too much alcohol.
So at what point do a person's convictions become a health issue? In my
opinion, the answer is this: A belief becomes cognitively unhealthy when the
believer's free will and normal critical processes have been damaged by the
belief system's dialectic. I argue that fundamentalist religions, insofar as
they cripple a believer's ability to have free will, exhibit rational choice
and appropriately assess the nature of the physical environment, have already
passed this threshold.
Danger to society
Moreover, the effect of fundamentalism on society is as detrimental as the
effect of fundamentalism on believers. Fundamentalists are the ones who fly
planes into skyscrapers and murder doctors that perform abortions. They are
the ones who deny the existence of proven physical phenomena while rabidly
insisting on the existence of clearly unsubstantiated marvels.
They are also incapable of recognizing that they have a problem, and are
often amongst the most intolerant people on this planet, commonly referring
to non-believers as pagans, heathens, or infidels.
And historically, underdeveloped sciences, mystically perpetuated pseudo
sciences and false assumptions about the nature of reality have resulted in
misery and countless social injustices. The more rational the understanding
that humans have about their existence, the better off they are in dealing
with the hazards of life and developing humane moral philosophies.
Acceptable belief systems
Of course, some beliefs and worldviews are more debilitating than others
(both to the believer and to the society around them). Orthodox and
literalist theologians apply a very limited worldview to reality, often
basing their perceptions of existence on ancient texts and mythologies.
Fundamentalist Judeo-Christians are no exception, as many still believe in
Creationism, a 6,000-year-old earth and Noah's Ark.
But what about more moderate beliefs? What about belief in an immaterial
soul? Or that Jesus performed miracles? Is it mentally unhealthy to believe
such things? When do we cross the line and infringe upon constitutional
rights?
Ultimately, belief in the soul or Jesus's resurrection is not so unhealthy as
to render believers dysfunctional. Some of the brightest and most creative
contributors to society were (and are) staunch Christians. It was Bach, after
all, who composed music for the glory of God.
Furthermore, most people in the West rarely think about the deeper
ramifications of their existence and humanity's relationship with God.
Sermons are no longer fire and brimstone threats but, instead, poignant
stories about why we should love and help our neighbors -- issues that I
would categorize as self-evident truths, and hardly the monopoly of religious
doctrine.
Modern religions are useful in that they have taken on the character of moral
philosophies which help followers with interpersonal and intrapersonal
relationships. Religions form an important, if not essential, role in
society. They offer community, existential explanations, compassionate and
valuable moral codes and an outlet for the human need for spirituality.
(Personally, I am agnostic, as I recognize just how sublime and mysterious
the universe really is.)
Also, neither modern scientism nor any other contemporary belief system is
perfectly healthy. In fact, stubborn Western empiricists could learn a lot
from Eastern philosophies. As Freud once said, "It is a mistake to believe
that a science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and
it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand only made by those who
feel a craving for authority in some form and a need to replace the religious
catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one."
The differentiating factor must be this: A belief system is a mental disorder
when it causes believers to deny the observations of empirical methodologies.
With fundamentalists, this involves denying the nature of the physical world
as it is being presented in favor of archaic and unyielding irrational
orthodoxies; their brains have been infected and debilitated with
unsubstantiated nonsense.
Kill the meme, not the patient
Since I'm arguing for categorizing something as a disease, it only makes
sense for me to also propose a cure. And it is this: Engineer fundamentalist
memes out of existence.
Fundamentalists have been mobilized by an unconscious meme that seeks to
protect and propagate itself at all costs, even at the expense of a host's mental
well-being. Viruses do exactly the same thing, often killing a host as they
seek out transmission vectors.
The best way to prevent a meme from gaining a stranglehold on a host is to
prevent it from reproducing in the first place. With religious
fundamentalism, I propose two key elements for memetic immunization.
The first is responsible and accountable education and reporting of
information to the public (including educational institutions, the media and
the government). Children who are taught Creationism rather than natural
selection, for example, are being primed for mimetic infection. The second is
raising the standard of living of all people. Assisting Third World nations
would help alleviate problems of disenfranchised youths who become desperate
and turn to religious fanaticism.
As proof of this strategy, we need only look at how the Taliban recruited
members: They attracted poor and uneducated boys who easily accepted radical
Islam as an outlet for their frustrations. And without proper education they
were unable to properly distinguish religious gibberish from fact.
An important point needs to be made here, however: Killing a cultural
artifact is not analogous to killing people. Culture is not self aware.
Irrational fundamentalists should be treated as we treat others suffering
from psychological ailments and offered immediate help. We should see them as
suffering from a disease and help them to accept a more moderate religious
stance and develop a more balanced life.
Hopefully, this will return to them free will, rationality and self-respect.
In my opinion, these are the elements that give human lives meaning and
purpose.