Note to muslims: We are armed and have guard dogs that are trained to eat off your head while barking "RRS Akbar!"

P.S. Please donate for the guard dogs and guns.

Maybe theism simply appeals to those with mental disorders or maybe theism validates those with mental disorders.

I do think that we have evolved the susceptibility to accept supernatural explanations for things we can't explain readily or with things where the natural answer isn't the one that gives us immortality.

Our ancestors couldn't even explain lightning let alone understand death, to keep from going crazy, they almost had to accept supernatural explanations so that they could make it to adulthood. 

I agree, and I address that starting in the second paragraph. As I stated there, even if it is the case that it only affects those who are susceptible, isn't it still the case that the impetus for the worsening of their condition or their ultimate actions/delusional behaviors was religion? Not all people are equally susceptible to drug addiction, but that doesn't stop us as a society warning people of the dangers inherent in even casual drug use. How is religion different?

Religion is different from illegal drugs because it is societally protected. Even if religion is destructive, it won't carry the same stigma as drugs because too many people support it. Your analogy is more effective with tobacco and alcohol, which are both traditionally accepted features of our culture despite the harms they can inflict. Because they are so ingrained in our culture, we won't get rid of them regardless the problems to which they contribute (though tobacco could be teetering on the brink of extinction).

Anyway, that was elucidating an analogy I don't agree with it at all. Pinning acts of the mentally deficient on their influences is spurious logic. It's the same as hysterical mothers blaming teen violence on D&D, then on movies, and now on video games, because a handful of mentally deficient kids are influenced by these things and commit acts of violence. And if you are sympathetic to that pile of crap about the link between violent media and violent kids, then how about taking the analogy to it's extreme with disgusting ideas like homosexuality spreads AIDS, or blacks cause crime. The demographic overlaps of homosexuality, race, and religion with AIDS, crime, and violence are coincidences of society, not causes and effects.

The majority of the world has always been and still is religious, and such cultural beliefs will always inform and color one's behavior. But to demonstrate that acts of religious people are because of their religion you must provide evidence that such acts would not have occurred without religion. Would 9/11 have happened without Islam? Quite possibly. It just would have been dressed up in political garb, Osama a political revolutionary fighting off political, social, and economic oppression by the West (which is what really motivates the jihad anyway). Is the world less war-like after throwing off the yolk of medieval religion that dominated the Crusades? Hell no. Two world wars, the most devastating conflicts the planet has ever seen, were completely secular.

The institutions of religion are bad, not because they are religious, but because they are corrupt and controlling. Protecting criminals in their organization? Stealing from their members? Denouncing opposed sects? This has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the organization. Republicans and Democrats do the same things, and in less stable times Whigs and Torries killed each other over their institutional rivalries. The problems most atheists see and attack are not problems with theism, they are problems with religious institutions. The fallacy of these atheist areguments is that no attack on the corrupt practices of religious institutions touches theism itself. A Republican who defies the tenets of his party and supports socialism does nothing to denigrate Republicanism, he's just a poor Republican. A priest who defies the tenets of Catholicism and molests children does not denigrate Catholicism, he's just a crappy Catholic (and human). And when the Church protects the preist, it still does not impugn the ideas of Catholicism, just exposes the corruption of the organization.

Religion is a tool used by powerful people to exploit the weak, just one of many tools of exploitation like corrupt governments and corporations and other organizations around the world. Like those other corrupt institutions, we should attack them. But only the institutions are susceptible to attacks about causes and effects and real world implications, and attacking the corrupt religious cults is merely selective anarchism, decrying institutional organization itself, rather than atheism.

True atheism assaults the fundamental philosophy of belief in unseen powers, eroding the foundation upon which all the evils and corruption of worldly religious orgnizations stand. I don't see any real atheistic philosophy going on here.

I disagree. A man who cuts of his hand because of a religious belief is not like a child who commits violence because of watching a movie. The child watching the movie is aping a behavior they have seen. The influence is passive. The man cutting of his hand is following a command. The influence is active. The movie never tells the kid to commit violent acts. The religion does tell the man to cut of his hand, or at the least that he is evil. 

Because the world is not less war like (which is disputable. We would need to look at tendeancy to resort to war and not casualities as technology is the cause of increased casualities. This says nothing about whether or not the world is more or less warlike) does not mean that religion is not the cause of  many undesirable behaviors. If one kills in the name of their god their religion is a cause of that behavior. To try and exclude it as such is simply apologetics. You could just as easily exclude political motivations and blame only religion for 9/11.  

Religion is bad because it removes responsibility for humanity from humanity. It is not only corrupt religion that is bad. All religion is dogmatic by its nature and allows one to commit atrocious acts in the name of a greater good. It is true it is not the only ideology which allows this, but just because others do as well is no reason to excuse religion.

Religion is an unnecessary tool which places the responsibility for mankind in the hands of an imaginary entity who can be seen as condoning any desired behavior. I'm not interested in addressing your anarchist arguments.

Are you the bringer of the One True Atheism?  

Actually, religion in of itself *can't* be a mental disorder, if some books are to be believed - the most pertinent is this one: 

http://godpart.com/

 If you have a quick read about this book, you will see that the author posits that religion originates from a specific part of the brain. I'm not sure if this is a proven theory, but from the evidence I've read about, it seems promising. 

Therefore, if religion is hard-wired into an average person's brain, how can it be considered a mental disorder? Rather, *atheism* might be considered a mental disorder from this perspective, as, despite atheists' superior rationality, it is not how our brains seem to have evolved to work.

Even if religion is not hard-coded in the brain, how do you define a mental disorder? The majority of the world's population are religious in some way or another, and shouldn't the majority be used as a comparison for what is "normal"? You're making the mistake that deviations from pure rationality constitute mental illness, when it is clear that the human mind did not evolve as a purely rational machine.

 Of course, if you're willing to call *universal* emotions like love and jealousy mental disorders (which are also irrational, hardwired in our brains, and make us do stupid things like kill people) then yes, I suppose you could classify religion as a mental disorder.

But seriously, your argument is weak. Making inflammatory and incorrect soundbites like "religion is a mental disorder" hardly helps the rest of us atheists in arguments. Please think things through.

True atheism is what you are born into.  True atheism is merely the absence of belief in a god.   (see the OED definition)

Ironically what I see here is exactly what you described as "true atheism."  Yet "true atheism" doesn't have any philosophy to it at all.  Just for kicks, could you explain in more detail what you mean when you say "atheistic philosophy?" 

Atheist bombshell kelly once again lays waste to theistic nonsense.

 There is a push for Muslim leaders, if Islam is such a peaceful religion, to openly denounce violence.  I think this article is a good argument for Christian leaders to openly denounce violence throughout history, both mass violence and self destructive "penance".

"pope (yeah - Ratzi)"... Pope Ratzi in English is Papa Ratzi in Italian, ya know, paparazzi, annoying person trying to get in your personal business... coincidence?  I think not...

Jason

ps. spector>specter

Forgive me if I doubt your atheism on first blink. 

The "religion is hard-wired" doesn't really help the theistic cause all that much. For me, it means that man evolved a need for an invisible friend to help explain the world around him. Then he made one. Colossal lack of a divinity there.

You also go from not being sure the "religion is hardwired" theory has been proven to asserting that the assertion "religion is a mental disorder" is incorrect (asserting the correctness of the hard-wired theory). Damn, if only someone had actually made that assertion, you might have something. Way to knock down that strawman.  

 Ad hominem. And frankly, why do you doubt it? Simply because I'm arguing that another atheist's point is weak? If being an atheist means that you have to agree with whatever else another atheist says on religion then I guess I'm not an atheist.

Irrelevant. As I said, I'm atheist, and the "theistic cause" doesn't concern me one bit. What I'm arguing against is purely that religion is a mental disorder. Way to go with your own straw man.

 Ok, my argument was poorly formed here - I will concede that I should not have assumed the correctness of the "hard-wired theory" without evidence to back it up.

 However, the assertion that "religion is a mental disorder" was indeed *implied*, if not stated explicitly, in the title of this post. Unless I am very much mistaken, the author of the original post was indeed stating that that was her belief. Feel free to explain to me what I misunderstood here.

And of course, one of my arguments was made independently of the "hard-wired theory". If you read my original post carefully, you'll see that. And I notice you didn't make a rebuttal to that one. Care to try now?

alot of religious people are insane.

and the pope and islamic extremists give religion a bad name.

most child molesters should get the death penalty.

depending on the degree and severity of the offense, looong prison terms, castration, lobotomies and ,`,`,arks on their faces might suffice in some cases, though.

spirituality is preferable to religion, imo.

are atheists ever wrong about anything?

yes.  they might be wrong about god, too.

i submit to you that atheists are really agnostics with closed minds.

no offense intended.

`,`,`

That's why I asked your forgiveness in advance. I've seen so many theists play the "I'm an atheist too" card that I'm suspicious of anyone.

Your "maybe atheism is the mental disorder" made me wonder. My apologies again for any offense. 

The "hardwired" theory helps neither cause. It destroys the theistic cause for the reasons I stated earlier. It doesn't do much for the atheist because it means that using logic and reason is irrational which makes no sense. 

Again, "religion is a mental disorder" is a strawman because religion is a man made construct with rational reasons for being (conning its followers out of money and power). They're not ethical but they are rational. If you mean religion is hard-wired in this instance I can agree with you because wanting to be in control could also be said to be hardwwired. 

The instinctual need to create a sky daddy and build a story around him is just too hard for me to see.  It's hard to see because every God requirers that the follower has faith. Faith is a belief without evidence which runs contrary to reason and logic.

Theism, the belief in a God, is a mental disorder according to the RRS. I am by no means an expert but much of theism follows the DSM-IV concerning delusional disorders. (thinking God talks to them, they're under spiritual attack/persecution, etc) 

Fair enough. After a brief foray on the forums, I think I can understand this. And no offense was taken.^^

On the other hand, one can kinda understand why theists sometimes try that trick. Despite the rules on the "Kill 'Em With Kindness" forum, I noticed Ad Hominem attacks in almost every thread I read. A lot of atheists here have their heads up their arses... I digress.

Well, again, this is irrelevant to my point, but I can't resist commenting anyway. First off, it doesn't "destroy the theistic cause". There are theistic arguments around this discovery (as there are around any contradictory discovery) - mostly that "God put that part of the brain there so we could comprehend him". Then again, if it is true, it doesn't *help* the theistic cause either, so if that's what you meant, I agree.

As for how it affects the atheist, I think your last sentence reads like a non sequitur. Can you clarify what you mean here?

Are we on the same page as to what a straw man is? I was under the impression that a straw man is a misrepresentation of the opponents' position to make it easier to refute. So, in that case, unless "religion is a mental disorder" isn't really a belief that anyone holds, then it isn't a straw man. Of course, maybe people here are being ironic, sarcastic or metaphorical, but I didn't really get that impression.

The first two sentences here merely state your opinion, so I'm going to leave them. The last one - I agree, but once again, why is it relevant?

Ok, I think this basically boils down to semantics then. If you define a mental disorder purely by the DSM-IV, which seems reasonable, you can call it a mental disorder. But let's take a look at what it thinks is a mental disorder. According to Wikipedia, mental conditions were added to the DSM-IV if they caused the following:

“clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning”. (Take note: it doesn't say anything about rationality.)

Well, due to the status of religion in the world, I don't think religion actually meets this criteria. Going to church can be social. You are generally not restricted from holding jobs based on your religious beliefs (though it might conflict with an evolutionary biologist's duties^^). In fact, religious people can, from a clinical point of view, operate completely normally in the world (unless they have other, independent issues).

Once again, because religion is so ubiquitous, it seems like a misnomer to be calling it a "disorder", when the word is usually applied to something that is irregular.

I agree totally that religion is irrational and harmful, but I see no reason to call it a disorder, apart from being arrogant and inflammatory. Which I suppose was my original point. Stop being arrogant and inflammatory.

Thanks for your responses. You've given me much to think on so I won't respond to all of this post yet. On the strawman, Kelly in her OP, talked about "theism as a mental disorder" You equated "theism" with "religion" and shot that down. I tend to give Kelly enough credit that she knows how to choose her words.

On the "arrogant and inflammatory" closing. I chalk it up to human nature. If you get arrogant and inflammatory it's really hard to return sweetness and light. Some Christians (particularly those in America) have been really arrogant and inflammatory lately in their attempts to make their Bible the law of the land. Meekness doesn't work with them - they interpret it as acquiescence. You defend yourself with what tools you have

john allan tate iii wrote:

i submit to you that atheists are really agnostics with closed minds.]

My $0.02: Really? I admit that I'm new to atheism, but my early impression is that as an atheist, I don't have to have an ideology.  I get to go where the information leads.  Getting an education can be tiring, to say the least, when you take merely learning the information (which is what education should be about,) and add to that a process of doctrinally filtering said information, (for "errors," of course,) then trying to decide what can be kept, what has to be cast aside, and fill in the gaps on your own (read: re-inventing the wheel, to doctrinal specifications,) and top it all off with worrying about whether or not you will end up in Hell anyway, because the case for whatever-it-was sure sounded convincing.  (Heresy, of course, is a major sin in any religion that I know of.)

How much easier it is just to deal with the information by itself.

Conor

_______________________________________________________________________________

"Faith does not fear reason."--Pope Pius XII]

"But it should!"--Me

Theism is not a mental disorder. It is something that is derived by how we're hardwired. Human beings are pattern-seeking individuals, and as such, we sometimes, when searching for a pattern, have a hit ("Those are MOONS circuling Jupiter!" ), and sometimes have a miss ("This phenomena was caused by a GOD!" ). That's just in our nature. A person who holds a religious belief is not mentally ill.

The yokel who cut his hand off may very well be mentally ill, but that act is not necessarily derived from religion, or even necessarily expedited by it; It is just as well possible that he would've done that had he been an atheist.

Does religion expedite violence in people in such a way that it would not do with the same people were they atheists? Arguably. But I think I better example would be the Crusades, the Inquisition, witchhunts, jihads, fatwas, circumcision, etc. because these people who commit those acts are not mentally ill, and this is why religion's power is so disturbing: It is disturbing precisely because it can get people who are not mentally ill to do things that would otherwise seem to be the domain of the mentally ill. That religion provides a prism for illogical behavior that secular ideas cannot is a valid criticism of it. But one is traipsing onto the realm of pseudoscience when one argues, without citing peer-reviewed scientific evidence, that it can objectively be labeled a sign of mental illness. Doing this is little different than when homophobes refer to homosexuals as mentally ill, or when anti-atheist theists claim that atheists are immoral.

But if these acts were born out of mental illness, then you would expect a drastic drop in mentall illness demographically if theism decreased and atheism increased. I'm skeptical that this would be the case, but it makes an interesting question. Do countries with higher levels of atheism than the U.S., like Sweden, for example, have a lower per capita rate of mental illness? Well, we know from the 2005 study "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies" published the Journal of Religion and Society (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html) that there appears to be a positive correlation (though not necessarily causation) between religiosity and higher rates of abortion, teenage pregnancy and murder, but I know of no information offhand that establishes the same correlation for mental illness.

Can you supply such information, Kelly? If not, then I'd say that no, I still do not think that theism is a mental disorder. It's just an unfortunate by-product of what makes us uniquely human.

-----------

Btw, has anyone else read Tom Neven's silly little essay in which he argues that pro-choicers use the term "pro-choice" as a euphemistic dodge because they can't win the debate on intellectual grounds? If you wanna read it, it's at: http://www.boundlessline.org/2008/01/abortion-and-th.html. My response to it is in that thread, near the bottom (Just do a search for my name). It's also my latest MySpace blog entry, at www.myspace.com/luiginovi.

But I signed it with the following:

"I am against the petition. No censorship for any reason! No religion is more sacred than human life! The islamists have no authority for people outside of their religion. No theocratic rules! Individual liberty and first amendment freedom of speech. No religion before the constitution!"

Amazingly my grammar was better than most other signators.

 What we really need is a petition to remove Mohammed from Islam.

Thanks Rational Response Squad!

Religionists can always come back with the same replies to those examples of craziness - they're not "real" practitioners of (insert religion of choice) or they're simply crazy. The clear flaws of this are, of course, that there's no definitive and accepted definition for what a "real" practitioner of (insert religion of choice) is and that (insert religion of choice) can do nothing to help someone who is crazy. 

Great comic that looks at the silliness and irrationality of the religions that sprang out of the teachings of Jesus and Mo They throw Moses in every once in awhile.

No problem. It was an interesting debate.

Point. 

But, which of my arguments don't apply when you replace the word "religion" with "theism"? This was just me being lax - I wasn't deliberately trying to modify her POV.

I agree that it is human nature to respond in kind, but the efficacy of this method depends on your agenda.

From what I gather on this site, the intent of the RRS seems to be to:

• Raise awareness of atheism.
• Appeal to those on the fence about religion.
• Stop marginalisation of atheists.

    They have little interest (or hope) in converting die-hard theists, because this is a lost cause. (Of course, this may once again be a straw man, so someone please correct me if you think this is a misrepresentation!)

While making the "theism is a mental disorder" statement, you certainly accomplish the first of these. By being controversial, one can certainly gain attention. But, I would suggest it is counter-productive on the other two points.

Firstly, those on the fence, however irrationally, will judge an idea (or lack therefore ) by the people that adhere to it. If all atheists come off as arrogant, and make false statements about theism, it'll hardly entice anyone to seriously think about atheism, even if otherwise one might have eventually come round to the idea. And too, I have several nontheist friends who refuse to be labelled atheist simply because of the negative connotation. 

Anyway, how does pissing people off stop them from hassling us? It just gives the theist more ammo against us: "Hate the atheist, for he calls you insane for your beliefs!"

The ironic thing here is, that atheists generally value reason over petty urges (such as the urge to believe in a divine being). And yet, it seems that we're giving in to petty anger here, without really thinking it through. 

  Anyway, those're my thoughts. Anyone want to disagree?

Great work as always Kelly!!

No.  Do us a favor and argue for your postion without pretending to know your logical fallacies.  It'll make the experience more beneficial for all of us. 

I'll give you this... it could appear like an ad hom, but it wasn't. 

I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that dragging this apparently schizophrenic guy who cut his hand off as a springboard for this argument is simply opportunism, pure and simple.

If you can't discern between real psychosis on the one hand, and religious fervor and its various neuroses on the other, then there's a problem here.

Schizophrenic people often can't navigate between imagination and reality. It's like living in a dream, often a scary dream where voices are commanding you to do things, and for some reason it's hard to resist those voices. That is a function of chemical imbalances in the brain that probably have a biological basis. But to link schizophrenia, however indirectly, to religion as a mental illness is irresponsible.

I like Kelly's posts, and I like the remainder of this particular post of hers, but I found that using a genuinely psychotic individual as a springboard for this post just creates confusion about what mental illness really is.

It's not uncommon for schizophrenics to have "religious" delusions, but they can also have non-religious delusions involving extreterrestrials, the CIA, the FBI, the KKK, Nazis, their neighbors, family, and friends.

Is religion a form of mental illness? Maybe, but it's not the same as schizophrenia. Even in cultures full of religious, superstitious beliefs, schizophrenics still stand out as psychotics with chemical brain imbalances.

well said. i do think that the message of RRS gets lost with some very blatant attention getting lines. their intent is still to rid the world of religion, one conversion at a time. i would like them to be a little more as their namesake states.....rational. when they start saying things like mental disorder, it doesnt help anything. until its fully proven that its a mental disorder(which it never will), theists can walk all over that statement. RRS and many other atheists, tend to fall in the category of extremists. it seems that it is very hard to belong to anything involving religion or anti-religion these days without having to be an extremists to get your point across or get respect. this of course, is a very bad category to fall in to. i hope that doesnt happen seeing how big RRS is and how much of an influence RRS has, and will have on atheism in the 21st century. on the other side, if you just sit back and be a quiet atheist you are doing the same good/bad a quiet theist is doing. nothing. if you care about your country or your world, you need to help. i do my part with my friends and family in a respectful rational way. i hope others do the same. i would love to see RRS help atheists do the same with their families and friends.

I agree with the last few people. I love the rational response squad, but sometimes you guys play a bad representation of atheists like me.

Now I would say religion (usually) leads to very irrational behavior, and sometimes can lead people to do extremely irrational behavior that is pretty insane. However, I would not become so prejudice or bigoted that I'd say all theism is a mental disorder. Perhaps a mental block but not a "disorder" in a medical sense. This block can lead to people doing insanely good and benevolent things, but it can lead to insanely malevolent or violent things. Perhaps those who are already mentally weak succumb to fanaticism by using religious or spiritual ideas as a mental crutch, but let's not get simple minded by labelling theism as a mental disorder (meaning they are flawed humans, mentally less than atheists, etc).

This kind of bigotry doesn't do anyone good in any situation, and in this situation it especially doesn't help atheists. If we ever want to be taken seriously, and end the negative views and hatred towards us, then we need to be more rational than that.

/rant

Thanks, teddy5k. I agree with you.

I like the RSS. And I like it as much as any out-of-the-closet atheist can, but having known a number of people with schizophrenia, I'm a bit concerned that people with mental illnesses are being lumped together with the scary evangelical religious faithful. This is not right.

It is okay to criticize your friends, especially if you think some aspect of the point they make is flawed. We can't hide our dirty laundry from the public, as atheists, simply because we ARE public. And this is how it should be.

But if we call religious beliefs a form of mental illness (and they might be), we should be careful not to equate them with real genuine schizophrenic psychosis.

This approach does not genuinely serve psychotic people and their needs. In fact it might allow schizophrenics with religious delusions to be denied the proper respect they deserve in order to deal with their mental health issues.

I know Kelly's point had very little to do with this issue, so I apologize if I've made a mountain out of a molehill, but as someone who believes in advocating for the mentally ill, I feel strongly about this particular point.

I recently read a bunch of atheists jumping on the same bandwagon against this poor delusional guy with his religious hallucinations.

 If this disturbed guy didn't live in a religious culture, he would probably have some other hallucination that could have caused as much damage, based on whatever the irrestable voices in his head told him to do. One could debate this point, but plenty of images of violence and mutilation exist in every culture, and they're not all founded by religion.

Well said, Charles.

Without even reading any further evidence presented for the claim that theism is a mind disorder, three posters with less than 20 hours combined membership have voiced disapproval of the examination. Followed by someone that MAY have read everything posted, but only commented three times in 33 weeks.

How very quaint.

Would it please your delicate sensibilities if we referred to it as mild schizophrenia? Perhaps just delusional behavior? Either way, we're discussing aberrant psychology.

I am not quite sure that I understand your objection due to the fact that you argued schizophrenia was more severe instead of wholly dissimilar.

A disorder is a disorder is it not? Refusing to accept the idea that a god might NOT exist based upon one's psychological conditioning is every bit as much of a disorder as a chemical imbalance, traumatic injury, or aversive programming.

This has also been covered:

here

here

here

And generally every day, but we are most certainly welcome to discuss it again.

Leave the nicey-nice dogma at the door though. In all honesty, I go into these discussions concerning the 'mind disorder' thing with an open mind, but as of yet I have seen no convincing argument to the contrary.

I'm not sure I understand. Because I was under the impression that by doubting my atheism, jcgadfly was implying a lack of reasoning capability on my part (considering we're on an atheist website here, I expect the majority of people consider theists irrational on the subject of theism). And by stating this, he/she was distracting from my argument, and biasing people here against it. Frankly, whether or not I believe should have absolutely no bearing on the validity of my arguments, and yet jcgadfly still brought it up as his/her first point.

Of course, I'm new to debating, so I admit you might be right. But don't just knock me down and act superior without explaining why - that is hardly a mature way to handle this. Please tell me - why was it not an ad hominem fallacy?

No, the phrase "aberrant psychology" is even easier to knock down. The word aberrant is defined by Merriam Webster as:

• straying from the right or normal way
• deviating from the usual or natural type

Exactly what about theism isn't normal or usual? Sure, not rational and (I think it's) probably not correct, but aberrant is *precisely* the wrong word to use here. I can't see how you can call theism "aberrant psychology".

On the other hand, I don't disagree at all with your use of the word "delusional". Actually, the definition of this word seems to fit theism more closely: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary. Spooky.

This paragraph looks like a statement of opinion with no backing argument. Yes, a disorder is a disorder. That hardly makes for a good definition of the word though, does it? Once again, Merriam Webster to the rescue:

• lack of order <clothes in disorder>
• breach of the peace or public order <troubled times marked by social disorders>
• an abnormal physical or mental condition <a liver disorder> <a personality disorder>

The former two definitions can't make sense in this context, so I assume that you refer to the latter. So, what it means by mental disorder is an abnormal mental condition. In what way can theism be considered abnormal?

Guys, I think I know what you mean when you say that theism is a mental disorder. Theism doesn't make sense and often has symptoms in common with recognised mental disorders. Actual mental disorders are often coupled with theistic beliefs too (like in the case of Mr Handy).

But in of themselves those beliefs are not in any way abnormal or aberrant - both adjectives that "mental disorder" connotes. So can we please find another catchphrase?

Darth Josh: Without even reading any further evidence presented for the claim that theism is a mind disorder, three posters with less than 20 hours combined membership have voiced disapproval of the examination. Followed