As the pandemic raged in April, churchgoers in Ohio defied warnings not to congregate. But what do psychologists have to say about strong beliefs in a god?
Is belief in God a delusion? : Read more
Is belief in God a delusion? : Read more
Is belief in God a delusion?
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Finch
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No, however many people who believe in God are delusional. God is a scientific requirement that explains the writing of DNA.
When we take and engineer new or reengineered DNA for a new World, God is proven as we have fulfilled the God link to settling and creating a new World
Perhaps the human belief in a divinity or gods, (i.e.: an ordered hierarchy of dominance), is a product of H. Sapiens' evolution which produces survival benefits in an increasingly complex human society. A similar effect is membership in an elite military organization. Reality and/or logic may for a great many be a secondary consideration until such beliefs/religions fail to emotionally help with the hardships in life or become obviously inane.
Give the divinity believers a break. The existence of a god or gods can be neither proven or disproven. We primates exist in a hierarchal society; an authority basis is a necessary evolutionary requirement for such a society and possibly for well being. We are all destined to die, how one deals with that fact is a personal accommodation all of us have to make. Those "warm, fuzzy" feelings that a religion and/or a season provide trigger a plethora of memories and enjoyment. Enjoy and Cie La Vie.
adam
BANNED
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
Let me start with my conclusion and then explain why I came to it.
God and Science do not have to be mutually exclusive
In the end we will probably find that there is no real difference between science and God, its just our current understanding of both is very limited and we cannot see the wood for the trees.
The article looks at links to delusion and psychiatric medicine and refers to DSM-5 as the medical Bible of psychiatric medicine without also clarifying that DSM-5 is very subjective and has no medical proofs for its conclusions.
The UK Government NHS web site states (links later below)
Rather than seeing the DSM-5 as the “Psychiatric Bible”, it may be better to think of it as a rudimentary travel guide to a land we have barely begun to explore.
It could be that our current models of human psychology could be as flawed as the "four humours" model of medieval medicine.
Criticisms of the DSM-5, such as the issue of medicalising mental wellbeing, are legitimate areas of debate.
End NHS quotes
Next let us look at science and admit that when we still can not even begin to answer questions about how quantum entanglement works, we should be careful in thinking we can formulate a meaningful answer to
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
Perhaps the nearest we can currently simply get to addressing what a connection with God might be is looking at quantum entanglement which has been referred to as spooky entanglement by Einstein.
Looking at science we know research on quantum entanglement shows that there is a connection that reaches out beyond distance and time which is also faster than the speed of light. Some tests indicate instant travel or even a message arriving before a linked event has occurred or a connection was made.
The researchers suggest that the outcome of their experiment shows that entanglement is not a truly physical property, at least not in a tangible sense. To say that two photons are entangled, they write, doesn't mean they have to exist at the same time. It shows that quantum events don't always have a parallel in the observable world.
phys.org
This is evidence of something like consciousness that connects everything even before it exists, and without any transmission between the entangled receiver and the sender
Some studies show quantum entanglement may be able to predict a future event or that the future influences the past.
"scientists showed that future actions may influence past events"
www.livescience.com
These are obviously bold claims.
While this entanglement is probably not God it shows how universal connections can operate in ways we do not yet comprehend.
Keeping it simple we dont even know how our thoughts come about, so how can we then claim God is a delusion or that we know what God is.
We have at best a limited human understanding of what we are and none of what "God" really might be. We mostly define God by what we are or believe, which as we know is uncertain and changeable over time.
If we can now conceive that the future may influence the past, then its possible the universe may in some way be conscious, and effect and communicate with us and we with it even before existing.
Given what we now observe in quantum physics we could easily be a part of God and already connected with God without knowing it at the level of our mind.
Moving on I am not sure the article is really that serious in its intent to answer the question. I will write more later on this.
However the question is a good one to think about whether you are religious or not.
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
First lets clarify if we mean a human limited belief about God based on each religious culture, Bhuddist, Muslim, Christian, Hindu etc or do we mean something that is a universal God that may transcend everything.
It is almost guaranteed that any cultural human belief or understanding of God can only go so far within our physical existence, and so in that sense will be partly delusional and will change over time as humans evolve. Just as our understanding of what light is has evolved.
A God that exists outside space and time would be as difficult for us to understand as for our ancestors to know what we currently know about light. It is also likely that our knowledge of light is flawed or limited.
Look back at what we knew about radio waves, nuclear power or the light spectrum 200 years ago and then to now.
We can then see the scale of our delusional limitations about science and that we have not even touched on what God might be. In 200 more years our knowledge will almost certainly be exponentially greater that is if humanity has not destroyed itself.
A question I ask myself is why do some believe in a greater power or God?
It is likely that some religious or spiritual type practises lead us to a connection with a universal power which we then called God, but beyond that most have for now not been able to go further and most do not even think much about it, if at all, outside what they are taught.
Such a spiritual connection could have been triggered by an accident just like some scientific findings have been
People did not arrive at nuclear power without great effort and study outside the boundaries of what they knew.
Mastering the wheel or the compass was a big step that took 1000s of years so let us not be too delusional about our abilities to rapidly develop even simple fundamental concepts from scratch
We cannot yet communicate with life on this planet - is it delusional to think one day we may be able to do so ?
So is it then delusional to think there could be more than physical matter in the universe and that it is conscious and we are already connected to part of that non physical consciousness?
The answer to both questions is probably one day we will be able to communicate with the animals at least better than we do now, so it is also probable we will do so with God in whatever way God exists outside our current understanding of God.
Science already tells us that the Universe is very organized in ways beyond our understanding.
So let us keep an open mind that God exists, as the likelihood is we just have not been able to communicate properly with God and do not understand what God really is.
Coming back to the article itself I make the following observations as I said I would
I did not vote for Trump nor do do I go to church, however the way the article flows seems to imply a link between a God belief delusion, fervent Christians, Trump supporters and psychiatric delusion.
I think it is unnecessary to set or answer the question in this context and may even be unhelpful
I think it is odd to link the question
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
with a CNN quote from a woman who says she would not catch the covid virus because she was “covered in Jesus’ blood”
It should also be said that this view is not widely held by most Christians around the world or many other faith believers in a God.
So "Is belief in God a delusion ?"
The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5) definition of delusion says -
delusion excludes beliefs that are widely accepted.
This seems very subjective with a range of factors including - the localition and the date of the belief was held and how many people believed the idea.
Any of these can change something from an idea or religion to a delusion
Even the Drs knowledge of the the idea or religion it is argued can effect the determination of a mental health delusion into an illness requiring treatment to something that is acceptable.
The livescience article sets out
"If sustaining a belief impairs your daily functioning and disrupts your social relationships, then your belief is more likely to count as a delusion"
This would mean that those who said the Earth went round the Sun when the majority disagreed were delusional, and the political victors of a war or an election would flip flop between normal and delusional depending on outcome.
For each group to switch from or to the delusional group depending on circumstances makes little medical or common sense
While I understand these examples are obvious to us as being not applicable to mental illness they serve as examples of why the logic of looking at God as a delusion by reference to psychiatric medicine or even the human condition is so questionable.
There is no independent blood test or other such independent medical test which can independently identify that a delusion or other mental illness exists
Psychiatric medicine is almost always based on a subjective judgement of a doctor or doctors and can do little to predict what will happen to people except in extreme cases and based on past observations.
To use a tool that provides mostly subjective and changing results to clarify if God exists seems illogical
Let us be clear the article says some conditions considered mental health issues by a doctor can be redefined as not requiring treatment by the same doctor because of a patients cultural background.
If conclusions are based on what is culturally accepted this maybe helpful in treating someone, but its not the same as looking at a broken leg which is broken regardless of cultures and over all time.
We know that much is not understood about how to heal mental health conditions with drugs or even what really causes mental health conditions.
We know that some people do not respond to mental health drugs, while some mental health patients condition worsen with treatment, and some treatments have been linked to significantly higher suicide rates. Yet we still do not know medically why this happens - we can only really guess
However medical research shows regardless of environment, people and animal health outcomes are altered positively if they are treated with love and compassion. This shows how little we really know about ourselves or animals
Further it seems odd this area is not heavily researched, but probably because drug companies have no commercial interest in this outcome and may even wish to supress such alternative and cheap treatments
www.simonandschuster.com
This all shows that using psychiatry as some sort of basis for trying to argue God is a delusional belief is very flawed.
Whether God exists and if so in what form is not scientifically known and for now and maybe always is a decision for each person to determine themselves how far they wish to proceed in a way that does no harm to others.
Maybe our discovery of what God is, is part of our human journey, just like learning about war, hate, love, compassion and science
When a belief in God or Science provides a framework for people to live at peace with themselves and others it seems to me such mechanisms should be respected, explored and encouraged and where it causes conflict humans should educate, understand and help bring about positive change rather than dismiss or ridicule such differences or lack of knowledge about God or Science
In the end we will probably find that there is no real difference between Science and God, its just our current understanding of both is very limited and we cannot see the wood for the trees.
God and Science do not have to be mutually exclusive
Notes
The UK NHS states about Psychiatric medicine and DSM-5
There are two main interrelated criticisms of DSM-5:
Our knowledge about the Psychiatric mind is dwarfed by our understanding of the rest of the body. We have tools that can confirm a diagnosis of a sprained ankle or a damaged lung with pinpoint accuracy. No such tools currently exist to accurately diagnose a "damaged" mind.
It could be that our current models of human psychology could be as flawed as the "four humours" model of medieval medicine.
Criticisms of the DSM-5, such as the issue of medicalising mental wellbeing, are legitimate areas of debate. This debate is to be welcomed if doctors are to appreciate the scale of the challenges of better diagnosing, treating and caring for people with mental health conditions.
These challenges are likely to persist in the decades to come.
Rather than seeing the DSM-5 as the “Psychiatric Bible”, it may be better to think of it as a rudimentary travel guide to a land we have barely begun to explore.
www.nhs.uk
Let me start with my conclusion and then explain why I came to it.
God and Science do not have to be mutually exclusive
In the end we will probably find that there is no real difference between science and God, its just our current understanding of both is very limited and we cannot see the wood for the trees.
The article looks at links to delusion and psychiatric medicine and refers to DSM-5 as the medical Bible of psychiatric medicine without also clarifying that DSM-5 is very subjective and has no medical proofs for its conclusions.
The UK Government NHS web site states (links later below)
Rather than seeing the DSM-5 as the “Psychiatric Bible”, it may be better to think of it as a rudimentary travel guide to a land we have barely begun to explore.
It could be that our current models of human psychology could be as flawed as the "four humours" model of medieval medicine.
Criticisms of the DSM-5, such as the issue of medicalising mental wellbeing, are legitimate areas of debate.
End NHS quotes
Next let us look at science and admit that when we still can not even begin to answer questions about how quantum entanglement works, we should be careful in thinking we can formulate a meaningful answer to
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
Perhaps the nearest we can currently simply get to addressing what a connection with God might be is looking at quantum entanglement which has been referred to as spooky entanglement by Einstein.
Looking at science we know research on quantum entanglement shows that there is a connection that reaches out beyond distance and time which is also faster than the speed of light. Some tests indicate instant travel or even a message arriving before a linked event has occurred or a connection was made.
The researchers suggest that the outcome of their experiment shows that entanglement is not a truly physical property, at least not in a tangible sense. To say that two photons are entangled, they write, doesn't mean they have to exist at the same time. It shows that quantum events don't always have a parallel in the observable world.
Physics team entangles photons that never coexisted in time
(Phys.org) —Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have succeeded in causing entanglement swapping between photons that never coexisted in time. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team explains how their experiment proves true an entanglement...
This is evidence of something like consciousness that connects everything even before it exists, and without any transmission between the entangled receiver and the sender
Some studies show quantum entanglement may be able to predict a future event or that the future influences the past.
"scientists showed that future actions may influence past events"
Weird! Quantum Entanglement Can Reach into the Past
Physicists have found a way to connect two particles through quantum entanglement even after they may cease to exist.
www.livescience.com
These are obviously bold claims.
While this entanglement is probably not God it shows how universal connections can operate in ways we do not yet comprehend.
Keeping it simple we dont even know how our thoughts come about, so how can we then claim God is a delusion or that we know what God is.
We have at best a limited human understanding of what we are and none of what "God" really might be. We mostly define God by what we are or believe, which as we know is uncertain and changeable over time.
If we can now conceive that the future may influence the past, then its possible the universe may in some way be conscious, and effect and communicate with us and we with it even before existing.
Given what we now observe in quantum physics we could easily be a part of God and already connected with God without knowing it at the level of our mind.
Moving on I am not sure the article is really that serious in its intent to answer the question. I will write more later on this.
However the question is a good one to think about whether you are religious or not.
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
First lets clarify if we mean a human limited belief about God based on each religious culture, Bhuddist, Muslim, Christian, Hindu etc or do we mean something that is a universal God that may transcend everything.
It is almost guaranteed that any cultural human belief or understanding of God can only go so far within our physical existence, and so in that sense will be partly delusional and will change over time as humans evolve. Just as our understanding of what light is has evolved.
A God that exists outside space and time would be as difficult for us to understand as for our ancestors to know what we currently know about light. It is also likely that our knowledge of light is flawed or limited.
Look back at what we knew about radio waves, nuclear power or the light spectrum 200 years ago and then to now.
We can then see the scale of our delusional limitations about science and that we have not even touched on what God might be. In 200 more years our knowledge will almost certainly be exponentially greater that is if humanity has not destroyed itself.
A question I ask myself is why do some believe in a greater power or God?
It is likely that some religious or spiritual type practises lead us to a connection with a universal power which we then called God, but beyond that most have for now not been able to go further and most do not even think much about it, if at all, outside what they are taught.
Such a spiritual connection could have been triggered by an accident just like some scientific findings have been
People did not arrive at nuclear power without great effort and study outside the boundaries of what they knew.
Mastering the wheel or the compass was a big step that took 1000s of years so let us not be too delusional about our abilities to rapidly develop even simple fundamental concepts from scratch
We cannot yet communicate with life on this planet - is it delusional to think one day we may be able to do so ?
So is it then delusional to think there could be more than physical matter in the universe and that it is conscious and we are already connected to part of that non physical consciousness?
The answer to both questions is probably one day we will be able to communicate with the animals at least better than we do now, so it is also probable we will do so with God in whatever way God exists outside our current understanding of God.
Science already tells us that the Universe is very organized in ways beyond our understanding.
So let us keep an open mind that God exists, as the likelihood is we just have not been able to communicate properly with God and do not understand what God really is.
Coming back to the article itself I make the following observations as I said I would
I did not vote for Trump nor do do I go to church, however the way the article flows seems to imply a link between a God belief delusion, fervent Christians, Trump supporters and psychiatric delusion.
I think it is unnecessary to set or answer the question in this context and may even be unhelpful
I think it is odd to link the question
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
with a CNN quote from a woman who says she would not catch the covid virus because she was “covered in Jesus’ blood”
It should also be said that this view is not widely held by most Christians around the world or many other faith believers in a God.
So "Is belief in God a delusion ?"
The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5) definition of delusion says -
delusion excludes beliefs that are widely accepted.
This seems very subjective with a range of factors including - the localition and the date of the belief was held and how many people believed the idea.
Any of these can change something from an idea or religion to a delusion
Even the Drs knowledge of the the idea or religion it is argued can effect the determination of a mental health delusion into an illness requiring treatment to something that is acceptable.
The livescience article sets out
"If sustaining a belief impairs your daily functioning and disrupts your social relationships, then your belief is more likely to count as a delusion"
This would mean that those who said the Earth went round the Sun when the majority disagreed were delusional, and the political victors of a war or an election would flip flop between normal and delusional depending on outcome.
For each group to switch from or to the delusional group depending on circumstances makes little medical or common sense
While I understand these examples are obvious to us as being not applicable to mental illness they serve as examples of why the logic of looking at God as a delusion by reference to psychiatric medicine or even the human condition is so questionable.
There is no independent blood test or other such independent medical test which can independently identify that a delusion or other mental illness exists
Psychiatric medicine is almost always based on a subjective judgement of a doctor or doctors and can do little to predict what will happen to people except in extreme cases and based on past observations.
To use a tool that provides mostly subjective and changing results to clarify if God exists seems illogical
Let us be clear the article says some conditions considered mental health issues by a doctor can be redefined as not requiring treatment by the same doctor because of a patients cultural background.
If conclusions are based on what is culturally accepted this maybe helpful in treating someone, but its not the same as looking at a broken leg which is broken regardless of cultures and over all time.
We know that much is not understood about how to heal mental health conditions with drugs or even what really causes mental health conditions.
We know that some people do not respond to mental health drugs, while some mental health patients condition worsen with treatment, and some treatments have been linked to significantly higher suicide rates. Yet we still do not know medically why this happens - we can only really guess
However medical research shows regardless of environment, people and animal health outcomes are altered positively if they are treated with love and compassion. This shows how little we really know about ourselves or animals
Further it seems odd this area is not heavily researched, but probably because drug companies have no commercial interest in this outcome and may even wish to supress such alternative and cheap treatments
The Rabbit Effect
This groundbreaking and life-changing work based on the latest research effectively demonstrates “the profound impact that love, connection, and ki...
www.simonandschuster.com
This all shows that using psychiatry as some sort of basis for trying to argue God is a delusional belief is very flawed.
Whether God exists and if so in what form is not scientifically known and for now and maybe always is a decision for each person to determine themselves how far they wish to proceed in a way that does no harm to others.
Maybe our discovery of what God is, is part of our human journey, just like learning about war, hate, love, compassion and science
When a belief in God or Science provides a framework for people to live at peace with themselves and others it seems to me such mechanisms should be respected, explored and encouraged and where it causes conflict humans should educate, understand and help bring about positive change rather than dismiss or ridicule such differences or lack of knowledge about God or Science
In the end we will probably find that there is no real difference between Science and God, its just our current understanding of both is very limited and we cannot see the wood for the trees.
God and Science do not have to be mutually exclusive
Notes
The UK NHS states about Psychiatric medicine and DSM-5
There are two main interrelated criticisms of DSM-5:
- an unhealthy influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the revision process
- an increasing tendency to "medicalise" patterns of behaviour and mood that are not considered to be particularly extreme
Our knowledge about the Psychiatric mind is dwarfed by our understanding of the rest of the body. We have tools that can confirm a diagnosis of a sprained ankle or a damaged lung with pinpoint accuracy. No such tools currently exist to accurately diagnose a "damaged" mind.
It could be that our current models of human psychology could be as flawed as the "four humours" model of medieval medicine.
Criticisms of the DSM-5, such as the issue of medicalising mental wellbeing, are legitimate areas of debate. This debate is to be welcomed if doctors are to appreciate the scale of the challenges of better diagnosing, treating and caring for people with mental health conditions.
These challenges are likely to persist in the decades to come.
Rather than seeing the DSM-5 as the “Psychiatric Bible”, it may be better to think of it as a rudimentary travel guide to a land we have barely begun to explore.
News analysis: Controversial mental health guide DSM-5
Sixteen years in the making and weighing in at over 800 pages the publication of the new version of the so-called "Psychiatric Bible" – the DSM-5 – has led to claims the diagnostic manual is over-medicalising normal human behaviour and moods…
Last edited:
Interesting comprehensive hypotheses concerning "a God Delusion". Thank you. Cynically, any human belief in an other than material personification begs the question "Where is the proof"? However, humans do derive an "inner strength" from such a belief with resultant benefits to societies. Conversely, there is a "dark side". Perhaps agnosticism is the "middle road" until H. Sapiens gets smarter or evolves into another sub-species.
I think you have many great points here, and I also belive that god can turn into a delusion to many."Is belief in God a delusion ?"
Let me start with my conclusion and then explain why I came to it.
God and Science do not have to be mutually exclusive
In the end we will probably find that there is no real difference between science and God, its just our current understanding of both is very limited and we cannot see the wood for the trees.
The article looks at links to delusion and psychiatric medicine and refers to DSM-5 as the medical Bible of psychiatric medicine without also clarifying that DSM-5 is very subjective and has no medical proofs for its conclusions.
The UK Government NHS web site states (links later below)
Rather than seeing the DSM-5 as the “Psychiatric Bible”, it may be better to think of it as a rudimentary travel guide to a land we have barely begun to explore.
It could be that our current models of human psychology could be as flawed as the "four humours" model of medieval medicine.
Criticisms of the DSM-5, such as the issue of medicalising mental wellbeing, are legitimate areas of debate.
End NHS quotes
Next let us look at science and admit that when we still can not even begin to answer questions about how quantum entanglement works, we should be careful in thinking we can formulate a meaningful answer to
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
Perhaps the nearest we can currently simply get to addressing what a connection with God might be is looking at quantum entanglement which has been referred to as spooky entanglement by Einstein.
Looking at science we know research on quantum entanglement shows that there is a connection that reaches out beyond distance and time which is also faster than the speed of light. Some tests indicate instant travel or even a message arriving before a linked event has occurred or a connection was made.
The researchers suggest that the outcome of their experiment shows that entanglement is not a truly physical property, at least not in a tangible sense. To say that two photons are entangled, they write, doesn't mean they have to exist at the same time. It shows that quantum events don't always have a parallel in the observable world.
Physics team entangles photons that never coexisted in time
(Phys.org) —Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have succeeded in causing entanglement swapping between photons that never coexisted in time. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team explains how their experiment proves true an entanglement...
This is evidence of something like consciousness that connects everything even before it exists, and without any transmission between the entangled receiver and the sender
Some studies show quantum entanglement may be able to predict a future event or that the future influences the past.
"scientists showed that future actions may influence past events"
Weird! Quantum Entanglement Can Reach into the Past
Physicists have found a way to connect two particles through quantum entanglement even after they may cease to exist.
These are obviously bold claims.
While this entanglement is probably not God it shows how universal connections can operate in ways we do not yet comprehend.
Keeping it simple we dont even know how our thoughts come about, so how can we then claim God is a delusion or that we know what God is.
We have at best a limited human understanding of what we are and none of what "God" really might be. We mostly define God by what we are or believe, which as we know is uncertain and changeable over time.
If we can now conceive that the future may influence the past, then its possible the universe may in some way be conscious, and effect and communicate with us and we with it even before existing.
Given what we now observe in quantum physics we could easily be a part of God and already connected with God without knowing it at the level of our mind.
Moving on I am not sure the article is really that serious in its intent to answer the question. I will write more later on this.
However the question is a good one to think about whether you are religious or not.
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
First lets clarify if we mean a human limited belief about God based on each religious culture, Bhuddist, Muslim, Christian, Hindu etc or do we mean something that is a universal God that may transcend everything.
It is almost guaranteed that any cultural human belief or understanding of God can only go so far within our physical existence, and so in that sense will be partly delusional and will change over time as humans evolve. Just as our understanding of what light is has evolved.
A God that exists outside space and time would be as difficult for us to understand as for our ancestors to know what we currently know about light. It is also likely that our knowledge of light is flawed or limited.
Look back at what we knew about radio waves, nuclear power or the light spectrum 200 years ago and then to now.
We can then see the scale of our delusional limitations about science and that we have not even touched on what God might be. In 200 more years our knowledge will almost certainly be exponentially greater that is if humanity has not destroyed itself.
A question I ask myself is why do some believe in a greater power or God?
It is likely that some religious or spiritual type practises lead us to a connection with a universal power which we then called God, but beyond that most have for now not been able to go further and most do not even think much about it, if at all, outside what they are taught.
Such a spiritual connection could have been triggered by an accident just like some scientific findings have been
People did not arrive at nuclear power without great effort and study outside the boundaries of what they knew.
Mastering the wheel or the compass was a big step that took 1000s of years so let us not be too delusional about our abilities to rapidly develop even simple fundamental concepts from scratch
We cannot yet communicate with life on this planet - is it delusional to think one day we may be able to do so ?
So is it then delusional to think there could be more than physical matter in the universe and that it is conscious and we are already connected to part of that non physical consciousness?
The answer to both questions is probably one day we will be able to communicate with the animals at least better than we do now, so it is also probable we will do so with God in whatever way God exists outside our current understanding of God.
Science already tells us that the Universe is very organized in ways beyond our understanding.
So let us keep an open mind that God exists, as the likelihood is we just have not been able to communicate properly with God and do not understand what God really is.
Coming back to the article itself I make the following observations as I said I would
I did not vote for Trump nor do do I go to church, however the way the article flows seems to imply a link between a God belief delusion, fervent Christians, Trump supporters and psychiatric delusion.
I think it is unnecessary to set or answer the question in this context and may even be unhelpful
I think it is odd to link the question
"Is belief in God a delusion ?"
with a CNN quote from a woman who says she would not catch the covid virus because she was “covered in Jesus’ blood”
It should also be said that this view is not widely held by most Christians around the world or many other faith believers in a God.
So "Is belief in God a delusion ?"
The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-5) definition of delusion says -
delusion excludes beliefs that are widely accepted.
This seems very subjective with a range of factors including - the localition and the date of the belief was held and how many people believed the idea.
Any of these can change something from an idea or religion to a delusion
Even the Drs knowledge of the the idea or religion it is argued can effect the determination of a mental health delusion into an illness requiring treatment to something that is acceptable.
The livescience article sets out
"If sustaining a belief impairs your daily functioning and disrupts your social relationships, then your belief is more likely to count as a delusion"
This would mean that those who said the Earth went round the Sun when the majority disagreed were delusional, and the political victors of a war or an election would flip flop between normal and delusional depending on outcome.
For each group to switch from or to the delusional group depending on circumstances makes little medical or common sense
While I understand these examples are obvious to us as being not applicable to mental illness they serve as examples of why the logic of looking at God as a delusion by reference to psychiatric medicine or even the human condition is so questionable.
There is no independent blood test or other such independent medical test which can independently identify that a delusion or other mental illness exists
Psychiatric medicine is almost always based on a subjective judgement of a doctor or doctors and can do little to predict what will happen to people except in extreme cases and based on past observations.
To use a tool that provides mostly subjective and changing results to clarify if God exists seems illogical
Let us be clear the article says some conditions considered mental health issues by a doctor can be redefined as not requiring treatment by the same doctor because of a patients cultural background.
If conclusions are based on what is culturally accepted this maybe helpful in treating someone, but its not the same as looking at a broken leg which is broken regardless of cultures and over all time.
We know that much is not understood about how to heal mental health conditions with drugs or even what really causes mental health conditions.
We know that some people do not respond to mental health drugs, while some mental health patients condition worsen with treatment, and some treatments have been linked to significantly higher suicide rates. Yet we still do not know medically why this happens - we can only really guess
However medical research shows regardless of environment, people and animal health outcomes are altered positively if they are treated with love and compassion. This shows how little we really know about ourselves or animals
Further it seems odd this area is not heavily researched, but probably because drug companies have no commercial interest in this outcome and may even wish to supress such alternative and cheap treatments
The Rabbit Effect
This groundbreaking and life-changing work based on the latest research effectively demonstrates “the profound impact that love, connection, and ki...
This all shows that using psychiatry as some sort of basis for trying to argue God is a delusional belief is very flawed.
Whether God exists and if so in what form is not scientifically known and for now and maybe always is a decision for each person to determine themselves how far they wish to proceed in a way that does no harm to others.
Maybe our discovery of what God is, is part of our human journey, just like learning about war, hate, love, compassion and science
When a belief in God or Science provides a framework for people to live at peace with themselves and others it seems to me such mechanisms should be respected, explored and encouraged and where it causes conflict humans should educate, understand and help bring about positive change rather than dismiss or ridicule such differences or lack of knowledge about God or Science
In the end we will probably find that there is no real difference between Science and God, its just our current understanding of both is very limited and we cannot see the wood for the trees.
God and Science do not have to be mutually exclusive
Notes
The UK NHS states about Psychiatric medicine and DSM-5
There are two main interrelated criticisms of DSM-5:
Conclusion
- an unhealthy influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the revision process
- an increasing tendency to "medicalise" patterns of behaviour and mood that are not considered to be particularly extreme
Our knowledge about the Psychiatric mind is dwarfed by our understanding of the rest of the body. We have tools that can confirm a diagnosis of a sprained ankle or a damaged lung with pinpoint accuracy. No such tools currently exist to accurately diagnose a "damaged" mind.
It could be that our current models of human psychology could be as flawed as the "four humours" model of medieval medicine.
Criticisms of the DSM-5, such as the issue of medicalising mental wellbeing, are legitimate areas of debate. This debate is to be welcomed if doctors are to appreciate the scale of the challenges of better diagnosing, treating and caring for people with mental health conditions.
These challenges are likely to persist in the decades to come.
Rather than seeing the DSM-5 as the “Psychiatric Bible”, it may be better to think of it as a rudimentary travel guide to a land we have barely begun to explore.
News analysis: Controversial mental health guide DSM-5
Sixteen years in the making and weighing in at over 800 pages the publication of the new version of the so-called "Psychiatric Bible" – the DSM-5 – has led to claims the diagnostic manual is over-medicalising normal human behaviour and moods…
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