#i can talk about and analyze my feelings clinically but i cant actually feel them fully

[e-kidd-online]

Um. Is it possible to be in a semi-perpetual state of autistic burnout.

[automatismoateo]

Why is religion not considered a mental illness given how many criteria of mental illness it fulfills? via /r/atheism

Submitted May 02, 2017 at 10:18PM by rejectedstrawberry (Via reddit http://ift.tt/2pFiOsQ) Why is religion not considered a mental illness given how many criteria of mental illness it fulfills?

I got banned from r/explainmelikeimfive for 56 days for this post, So i guess im asking my question here

this is NOT to shit on religious people, i am genuinely curious.

so ive been thinking about this and i cant wrap my head around how accepted religion is as a normal day to day thing, when things like schizophrenia are not. it appears that the only practical difference between many mental illnesses and "cultural practices" is how socially accepted they are.

definition of mental illness from DSM-4 (i did not use 5 as its significantly longer, and essentially the same for this posts purposes)

A mental disorder is a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom

It appears to me that religion hits many of these points overall;

a lot of religious people feel significant distress if they do not perceive themselves as good followers/believers of their religion, a lot also fear going to hell, something that we have 0 proof of existing.

many religious people who rigorously follow their doctrine lose a lot of freedom of what they can actually do, If by some means they do something that is not acceptable in their religion this often leads to emotional suffering - a little bit like OCD. This goes as far as causing distress from even having unacceptable thoughts. Religious people also tend to stop "thinking", their worldview becomes very black and white and often entirely dictated by what is written in their religious text, this is very noticeable in religions like islam, less so in others for the moment.

many religious people act horrendously towards their fellow human beings - much like someone having a violent psychotic episode, going as far as shunning people who may be LGBT or otherwise not following their faith, raping them, killing and torturing them - something that a sane human being would not do.

the definition of delusion is believing in something that is not true and ignoring evidence to the contrary; there is no evidence that any god of any religion exists, that there is an afterlife, or absolutely anything reinforcing any religion on the planet. Nevertheless people choose to believe what various writings say at face value without being able to critically analyze its content, and not only that but they actually do what the text tells them to do. To me it seems like this is either pure delusion, or alternatively underdeveloped brains not being capable of critically analyzing content they read. many religious people cannot be convinced rationally that god is not real as there is no evidence to suggest otherwise as they either ignore you, dont believe you, or flat out attempt to kill you in some cases.

Some religious people claim to hear the voice of god and that their actions are guided by god. This is essentially schizophrenia, if i told a psychiatrist that a chair is talking to me, i would be diagnosed as schizophrenic, but claiming that it is gods voice is considered acceptable.

many religious people care a surprising amount of what other people do with their lives, even going as far as cutting family members (even children) out of their lives if they do not live as the parents religion says they should. While i cant find a specific disorder to link this behaviour to, im willing to bet that extreme control issues are generally considered mentally unhealthy, theres probably even a disorder for this.

From what i can see, the only reason religion is not considered a mental illness, is simply that it is common enough and socially acceptable enough where people dont wish to upset the religious people.

edit: "not all religious people are like that" is NOT an argument, a psychotic person who isnt violent is still psychotic. a depressed person who is smiling is still depressed.