Religion is a Mental Illness

First, I think it's important to establish some definitions.

Here's a definition of religion:

The last definition - pursuit or interested - is obviously hyperbolic. But religions need not involve gods.

A more useful description of religion that I've heard is that they have specific features:

A political group or fans of a particular sports team might exhibit one or more of these features, particularly the purity, but it's usually the mythology that makes it a religion.

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I feel like this question is sort of spanning a couple of definitions of "philosophy", in particular:

I've seen this before myself. People insist that Buddhism isn't a religion, it's a philosophy or a way of life. Xians do that too. It's not a religion, it's "a personal relationship with Jesus" or something.

With the "philosophy" angle, they're playing around with equivocation, the gray area that is the distinction between these definitions. This is justified in ways such as "Buddhism doesn't have a god," or "it's a way of knowing yourself and the world more clearly." The same justifications can be used to claim that Scientology is just a philosophy not a religion or religious cult.

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So, let's look at the "branch of philosophy" definition.

There's a saying that philosophy is questions that may never be answered, while religion is answers that must never be questioned.

Philosophy, in the sense of "branch of philosophy," doesn't make claims of truth. Because truth must be testable and verifiable. When that happens, it's no longer philosophy, it's psychology or cosmology or something else, whichever field deals with that particular domain of our natural world. There is no field that deals with testable, verified supernatural truth. By definition. (If it was testable and verifiable, it wouldn't be supernatural, it'd be a larger understanding of the natural world.)

If Buddhism is making truth claims, such as about karma or reincarnation or that suffering comes from desire or whatever, then it's not operating as a "branch of philosophy"; it's not being merely philosophical. If it wants to be regarded as such, then it can discard its truth claims - or we can.

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/buddhism

These people certainly are.

And we can see the features of moral community, meaning-making and mythology right here: they have the reason why your life isn't perfect, and the way to fix it, it's a path you need to follow closely, involving nothing more than the magic of meditation - functionally indistinct from prayer in this context - and kindness.

A simple early indicator might be that a philosophy, in the first sense, is probably a religion when it becomes certain.

That is, when it starts saying that something is true, and especially when the thing that is claimed to be true exceeds knowledge that is available and especially when it exceeds what is verifiable.

For example, that you can "see the nature of reality absolutely clearly, just as it is" without actually going out and exploring it with precision and detail, by simply sitting in your living room, meditating and being kind to the point of "Enlightenment" (their definition, offering an easy No True Scotsman). One need never touch a particle collider, look through a telescope or microscope, or waste time with maths on a whiteboard, let alone check your work.

Once you spot this certainty, you would then consider whether there's a sort of purported moral imperative to adopt this "truth", and whether this "truth" purportedly explains your - or even everyone's - life.

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In the "earnestly practiced" sense, something can be both a philosophy and a religion.

Remember the owner of the plumbing company who fired people who objected to being forced to pray? He ran his business with a Xian philosophy.

In this sense, pretty much anything can be a philosophy. "Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse." "Carpe Diem." "YOLO." "First, do no harm." "Leave the world better than you left it." "Sex sells." "Greed is good."

This isn't particularly useful to us, and we're better of just ignoring it entirely and considering whether it's religious rather than worrying about whether it as a ("personal") philosophy.

For that, we can return to the same religious features.

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Even if we put aside the moral community and meaning-making features, I've yet to see anyone describe Buddhism in a way that does not include at least some mythological, magical, supernatural and/or superstitious structure that pretty much defies everything we know about the universe and how it works.

With this in mind, I regard it as a religion. It may also be a personal philosophy, but it's not a "branch of philosophy" because it makes claims of "truth" and "reality."

Ones that it can't, and doesn't, justify. Or even rejects the notion it should have to, claiming to be "open minded" to some higher knowledge that every other school of thought is too limited to grasp. This refusal to justify also shoots down the other notion that's sometimes offered, which is that it's a predictor or source of scientific knowledge, such as the malleably vague "everything is one and the same."

I don't have a huge amount of experience with Eastern religions, so this is really just my impression, rather than an informed comparative religion thesis.

In short, not really.

Islam is derived from Xianity, Xianity from Judaism, Judaism from earlier Canaanite and Mesopotamian religions.

Ditto the Eastern religions have taken from and been influenced by other Eastern religions. Concepts of karma, reincarnation, dharma, and "everything is one" all seem to be borrowed from each other across Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism, Shintoism, etc. While their adherents would disagree, there's not as much daylight in between their core concepts as they might like to think.

Abrahamism is somewhat unique in that it has consolidated all the various gods into a single deity who should be (but somehow is not) held responsible for everything, including all the randomness, inconsistency and unfairness in the world, where Eastern and the predecessors to Judaism, including Hellenism, had a whole pantheon of mercurial gods with their own domains and competing interests, priorities and relationships.

While the mythology of the polytheisms mostly plays out in some inaccessible godly realm, with the exception of the rebellion of Lucifer, Abrahamism plays out in the dusty, dirty, mortal human realm, where we can say that purported actions such as walking on water are idiotic and false.

Being set in our real world rather than Olympus or Takamagahara, and fleshing out the character list with humans - since heaven contains only the Abrahamic god and his remaining angel-slaves - Abrahamists have forgotten that their characters and mythology are fictional. They've confused characters such as Jesus, Moses, Abraham, etc, for literal historical figures. Whereas something like Hinduism is practically its own comic book superhero universe, and I don't think anyone is actually arguing about Historical Ganesh or Historical Inari Ōkami.

Across both Eastern and Western domains you've got a ton of magical thinking about how the world works, a lot of fixation on death and trying to imagine there's something after or beyond it in order to alleviate that fear, and a lot of superstition and unhealthy attitudes around virginity, sexual purity (for both men and women), and menstruation. In more modern times, Hinduism seems to have learned at the feet of Islam, and across the board, all these faith traditions are trying to pretend that their religion was right the whole time.

e.g. Muslims trying to pretend that the quran doesn't say that the Earth is flat and instead acting like "spread out" is a description of the oblate spheroid shape of the Earth; this gets worse when they try to insist it means "spread out" like an "ostrich egg".... which is a prolate spheroid, not oblate.

e.g. Hindus trying to pretend that the poorly-defined, unverifiable and unmeasurable concept of karma is basically the same thing as Newton's well-defined, detectable and measurable Third Law of Motion, or that their vague and poetic "everything is one" is the same as quantum mechanics.

As religiosity across the whole population appears to be dropping, average religiosity among individuals who are left naturally rises, and there's a certain desperation at trying to remain relevant, especially as COVID has shown the futility of these beliefs in gaining protection or relief from it.

There truly are dozens and dozens of them, all around the world. It's been going on for centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war#The_concept_of_%22Holy_War%22_in_individual_religious_traditions

And yes, even the Buddhists get in on the action.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Japan

Violence and religion go hand in hand. No, not all wars are or were religious in nature. Humans have been invading and attacking each other to acquire territory, resources and ensure the security of their own tribes and communities since the species arose.

But when you have divine knowledge that needs to be spread to others, or divine authority to carry out its will, the lives of those who stand in the way don't really matter.

Believers say all the time that non-believers are arrogant and selfish, because the believer is part of "something greater than ourselves," while non-believers are not.

Even though we can; whether that "something" is noble (e.g. the wellbeing of humanity, the planet) or indifferent and with no agenda (the universe itself).

Who are mere humans - heretics, no less - to stand in the way of a divine message, divine will, divine morality? To believe in "god" is to believe in "good," so those who don't aren't just outsiders, they're the enemy, resisting and fighting against "good." Believers are right and justified to destroy them.

As always, religion dehumanizes.

People try to dismiss the effect of religion in the Israel-Palestine conflict, that it's just territory, recognition and politics. However at the core, Islam declares the Jews to be "evildoers."

5.51

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/USC-MSA/Book-41/Hadith-6985/

The trees and stones themselves will betray the Jews on Judgment Day. Yes, talking trees and stones. Just like the talking snakes, bushes and donkeys of Xianity.

For their part, Judaism declares the Jews to be the Chosen People. Which we learn in the book they wrote.

When you're certain that you're Chosen by god - essentially, "on the right side of history" - what won't you be prepared to do?

The religions themselves make it nigh on impossible for any kind of accord to be reached, at least, little more than temporarily.

And, as always, to make the implicit explicit, no, this isn't the sentiment of every believer. But that comes in spite of religious doctrine, not because of it. The canon, the religion, the ideology says what it says.

Of course, even a "traditional" religion isn't required. As Stalin and Mao demonstrate, a pseudo-religion which worships a messianic figure installed through a cult of personality will do the same thing. Mao's "Little Red Book" acts as scripture, their visages were as prevalent as Xian crucifixes, and both are worshipped to this day, embalmed and on display for pilgrims to venerate.

North Korea's Kim dynasty is an example of the same thing functioning in real time. The conflict between North Korea and, well, everybody, is essentially an intermittent pseudo-religious war.

Hope this helps in some way.

I’d guess it’s based on a need to believe, searching for external meaning, validation and purpose, using inconsistent skepticism.

Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t automatically mean you think rationally or logically. Atheism only deals with “do you believe in a god or gods?” It doesn’t prevent people believing in psychics, homoeopathy, ghosts, UFOs, astrology and other nonsense. It doesn’t even deal with why, and an atheist could actually have bad reasons for their disbelief.

This often seems to come from a rebellion against “organized religion” coupled with the fallacies of Appeal to Ancient Wisdom and/or Appeal to Nature. Rather than because there are good, reality-based reasons. Being fiercely skeptical of the authoritarian Abrahamic religions, while being credulous about other forms of magical thinking, because they’re perceived as untainted by Western, traditional, organised religions. The romance of the noble savages and their “other ways of knowing,” or reverting to the lost traditions that were overrun by the Xtians and Muslims. Not holding them to the same standard and not expecting the same work as far as justification.

As I often say, why you believe something is more important than what. When asked about other religious/belief systems, such as Shintoism, Hinduism and Buddhism, I’m very often told that they’re more peaceful, more beautiful, nicer, more interesting, but almost never that they’re actually true. Reality can be harsh and unpleasant sometimes, and if you believe things because they’re nice or beautiful, then there’s a tendency to not believe or accept the parts of life that aren’t the way you prefer them to be.

By the way, while you may respect the believers, you’re under no obligation to respect the beliefs, proselytising or not.

See also:

(Sorry, this question has been in my Inbox for quite a while.)

First, please read:

I don’t know how you got from multi-armed and elephant-headed creatures, reincarnation and past-lives, and the notion of a universe not just interested in but keeping tally of karmic accounting across those multiple lives… to “logical.” There’s nothing logical about the universe’s explosions, black holes and empty vacuum having some kind of opinion or record keeping about how often I’ve held the door for people or how many times I’ve flipped the bird to someone in traffic.

(You might like to watch season 3 of The Good Place, BTW.)

With something like Newton’s Third Law of Physics, which is often classically described as “equal and opposite reactions”, this is detectable and demonstrable to the point of being measurable. We have formulas that calculate this. Superstitions like karma don’t get to ride on the coat-tails of legitimate physics, claiming to represent the same thing by being cast as simple “cause and effect” while disregarding the “magic” aspect. If they’re the same, lets see their mechanisms and formulas. How do we detect how and when an event is karmically delivered, and how do we measure the attributes being re-balanced. And how can we detect when something is not karmic reaction?

These religions have claims that are as extraordinary as the Jesus-claims of Xtians, including Hinduism’s own creator (and destroyer) gods and Buddhism’s realms, ghosts and mysticism (unless you go the new-gen full-blown Marxist route), which require substantiation just like YHWH, Kite-Boy and heaven.

The bible says that Rome exists. This is accurate. Stoning someone to death will kill them. This is accurate (duh). The bible also names a number of kings and pharaohs who have been verified. That doesn’t mean that its additional claims of a magical man who took a long weekend nap to cure an invisible disease inflicted by his sky daddy’s incompetence – are also true.

The Titanic was a real ship, and the cities it was traveling from and to are real as well. That doesn’t mean Leonardo DiCaprio died on it. Washington D.C., New York, Sydney and London exist. This doesn’t mean the film Independence Day is true. Fictional stories can be set in the the real world. Or rather, a fictional version of our real world.

The bible also describes things as falling to Earth. This is scientifically accurate. It reflects a recognition of gravity. The bible also says that among the things that fall to Earth will be stars. This is scientifically ludicrous.

The Quran describes humans reaching the moon, seemingly foreshadowing what we know about the moon not being a light embossed into the moving sky. This is both scientifically and historically accurate, as we have reached the moon, even planting a reflector on it. Except that the Quran also says that Muhammad flew to the moon and cut it into two, which is possibly the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.

We know a great deal about the way the brain works. We know that a religionist’s ideas about what their deity wants originate from their own ego, that people with split-brain conditions can exhibit different preferences, thoughts and ideas on each side of the brain, and that consciousness is dependent upon the physicality of the brain and the human body. We know that memories are stored as protein molecules, for example. We know this through scientific inquiry, evidence and research. Thus, ghosts, reincarnation or past lives are no more scientific than heaven, hell and Xtian souls.

Even a stopped clock gets the time right once (or twice) a day. I’m willing to bet that every religion gets at least a couple of things scientifically correct - not revealed, new knowledge, of course, but contemporary understanding for the time it was written (retelling, not revelation).

But “some” doesn’t help us at all. Why, other than convenience and comfort, would we look only at the “hits” and not also the “misses,” where Buddhism and/or Hinduism spouts something scientifically ludicrous? Ignoring all the evidence that doesn’t support your claim is called confirmation bias.

This is, quite frankly, meaningless to me. What are you even saying or talking about? One what, and the same what as what? I honestly haven’t the faintest idea what this either means or proves.

I can think of a half-dozen different ways to interpret this platitude and a half-dozen scientific claims you could then mash into those interpretations, in order to come to the conclusion this vague, generic cliche predicts evolution, quantum theory, cosmology, artificial intelligence and even organ transplants.

Which specific scientific process are you likening it to? If it’s scientifically accurate, where are the formulas, mathematics, verifiable processes? Or, as with Islamic Science, is it retroactive interpretation with 20/20 hindsight?

How is Buddhism and Hinduism any different? That’s an actual question. And show your work.

How, exactly, did they determine they were “truths”? Again, show your work. Be specific so that others can undertake the same process and come to the same conclusion.

As best as I can even tell, “everything is one and the same” is not a truth, it’s just vague poetry masquerading as depth, designed to elicit a subjective inference from the listener – which is something that has also been studied: “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit.” It’s as generic as a psychic cold-read.

You previously described how “some of their beliefs are scientifically accurate” (emphasis by me). Do we determine “truth” by looking at only “some” of the evidence, “some” of the facts? Just the bits that say what we want them to say? Is cherry-picking as skilfully as a Xtian and conveniently disregarding the awkward, nonsensical bits how we determine “truth”?

Here’s a truth for you: You’re now one day closer to eating your next pizza. You’re also one day closer to eating your final pizza.

These are some sites where you can discover your own (randomly generated) deep, meaningful insights:

“Hidden meaning is inherent in visible experiences”

“Consciousness consists of chaos-driven reactions of quantum energy. ‘Quantum’ means an unfolding of the amazing. By flowering, we believe.“

“Passion is the deeper meaning of starfire, and of us. The infinite is buzzing with ultrasonic energy.“

“The cosmos quiets immortal balance”

“A formless void is reborn in infinite molecules”

I think we all need a moment to breathe and absorb.

Seriously. Go generate a few quotes and tell me honestly if you can tell the difference between your thing and theirs.

I’m going to steal borrow a helpful list here, which is Xtianity/bible-centric, but still relevant:

Can you similarly meet these criteria with Buddhist or Hindu “knowledge”?

Again, I’m going to be blunt; what I’m hearing is a bunch of flowery… stuff… that is wrapped in an expectation that it gets a free pass due to being relatively exotic to western individuals (US, UK, AU, NZ, EU); not being the classic, violent Abrahamic religions; being vague and pseudo-intellectual enough to let the listener invent their own meaning (Stone Soup-style); and being passed off as “ancient knowledge.”

None of that means anything whatsoever in terms of their obligations to substantiate its extraordinary, un- and super-natural claims.

Exactly like all the others.

Sorry for being lazy, but I’m just gonna: https://religion-is-a-mental-illness.tumblr.com/post/177232121982

It’s based on unsubstantiated magical thinking, such as rebirth, the notion that the universe is keeping score, realms involving supernatural things (e.g. ghosts), and has a hand in pseudoscientific “alternative medicine.” Gods are not the sole metric.

All of these things need to be substantiated in the exact same way heaven, prayer, souls, and holy water, need to be substantiated.

There is no difference in its obligations in this regard just because it’s from some other country and seems exotic and different from boring old Xtianity, because that would be some form of “noble savage” meets “ancient wisdom/age/tradition” special pleading.

And I’ve seen nothing which indicates Buddhism has faired better in its magical claims than any of the other religions.

As far as specific objections, “alternative medicine” puts people’s health and wellbeing in jeopardy; rebirth/reincarnation takes the focus off people living full lives in the one and only life we can confirm exists; and kharma turns unfavourable random chance into something you deserve because you were bad.