The Delusion Issue, Some Basic Remarks
The question of the relation between religion and delusion was recently raised in this community. This is one of those regular themes that is periodically invoked, particularly by atheist critics of religion, so I think it's worth covering some introductory details that might help the matter be discussed more constructively in the future.
First, regarding the DSM. This is a manual produced, in multiple revisions, by the American Psychiatric Association. There's a few things to note about this: first, we have to recognize some very substantial differences between revisions, including basic methodological and theoretical points about what constitutes a mental illness. Second, it is a psychiatric text, not a psychological one or a psychotherapeutic one, although psychologists and psychotherapists are typically familiar with it. In the previous thread, one objection repeated several times was that the DSM was wrong because it included social thought in addition to psychological. While it's not clear that this is true in the way intended, if it were it wouldn't furnish an objection: it is, again, a psychiatric manual, and the biopsychosocial model has a long and esteemed place in psychiatry. Third, the DSM is not the universal standard in our understanding of mental illness. In much of the world, the WHO's manual, the ICD is used. In either case, the present DSM and ICD principally follow an epidemiological model, designed to reliably follow patterns of symptoms presenting in large populations. Psychotherapists working directly with mental illness tend to follow, conversely, a case formulation model. When we're assessing the psychological role of a given belief for someone, it is typically a case formulation we are after, so the DSM may be entirely the wrong resource in any case.
Briefly, about mental health professionals: a psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in mental health, a psychologist is someone with a doctorate (usually) in psychology, a clinical psychologist is a psychologist who has finished practica and internships in assessment and treatment of mental and (sometimes) neurological disorders. These are regulated titles, as are social workers and psychiatric nurses, who are also involved in mental health. Psychotherapist and psychoanalyst are generally unregulated titles, although there is fairly intensive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis training available (often for people with a background in one of the regulated mental health professions), which is where you learn case formulation.
One last note on these topics: another remark was that mental health diagnosis only concerned illness and not normality. This isn't true, and particularly case formulation approaches are appropriate for most populations. They try to determine the role of different beliefs, attitudes, values, etc. in a person's psychology, which of course we can do with the healthy as with the ill. Many healthy and successful people do see psychotherapists for a variety of reasons.
Closer to the point at hand now... one of the things Freud discovered early on was that a given belief can have entirely different roles within different people's psychologies. I have a patient, for example, who has the delusion that her dead sister lives down the hall from her and often comes in and eats some of her food. Now imagine if, as the aforementioned atheist critic does with religion, we wanted to inquire into the psychology of believing 'My sister lives down the hall from me and sometimes eats some of my food.' Based on my clinical experience, we'd have good reason to conclude that this is an unhealthy belief held by psychotic people. But now that's quite silly, isn't it? There are plenty of sisters who really live down the hall from people and really eat their food.
The problem is that we cannot determine on the basis of a given belief how it was formed, because it is formed differently in different cases. Again, the role of a given belief for one person might be quite different than its role for another person. My patient might have this belief about her sister as a result of repressed feelings for her family, while you have the same belief about your sister because it's true. To find out, we need to look at your individual history and psychology--we have to do a case formulation.
The same is actually true of physics or any other kind of explanation, once we realize just what we're asking. Suppose someone objected, "No, things always move because of force applied to them which overcomes friction! That's a universal explanation!" Similarly, people always believe things because of the mechanics of belief formation. But that's not what we're asking about when we ask, for example, whether a religious belief is delusional. We're asking why this particular belief is held. Similarly, if we asked why this particular curling stone is moving, not as a generic thing which moves, but as that particular stone, we have to answer that it does so because it was pushed by this particular curling player. There's a difference between looking for this historical data (e.g. a curling player pushes a curling stone) and looking for the universal mechanisms by which history unfolds (e.g. the force overcomes the friction).
When we ask "Is a religious belief delusional?" we do not mean "How are beliefs in general formed?" but rather "How was this belief in particular formed; i.e. was it formed via a pathological process or a normal one?" To answer this question, we have to actually get the data on how that particular belief was formed. We can't answer it in principle, we need to go find out!
Anthropologists and psychologists actually do this work, and there is a large literature on the culture and psychology of religion. It's a shame that much present atheist culture has an irrational bias against the social sciences and so remains ignorant of this important research. I hope people interested in the scientific study of religion will consider these issues and perhaps look into some of the fascinating answers which the social sciences have given.
On the normative issue... When we are doing case formulation looking for, in this example, a delusion, what we are after is the process by which a given belief or attitude was formed. It's not a question of whether the belief or attitude is wrong: a mental health professional's role is not to determine what is wrong and right, but to make people healthy so they can so for themselves! When a belief is widely held by in a person's cultural context, there's no need to appeal to an unusual process to explain how they could have adopted it. This doesn't mean that it's impossible for a delusion to be formed which is also a popular belief, but it is highly unlikely. The psychotic processes underlying delusions already exhibit a disconnected relationship with society, so that psychotic phenomena seem by nature strange and unusual. People who have a normative relationship with their culture may certainly form wrong beliefs, and they may engage in a number of maladaptive defenses with further implications for their values and beliefs, but they are not, by definition, inclined to psychosis.
First, regarding the DSM. This is a manual produced, in multiple revisions, by the American Psychiatric Association. There's a few things to note about this: first, we have to recognize some very substantial differences between revisions, including basic methodological and theoretical points about what constitutes a mental illness. Second, it is a psychiatric text, not a psychological one or a psychotherapeutic one, although psychologists and psychotherapists are typically familiar with it. In the previous thread, one objection repeated several times was that the DSM was wrong because it included social thought in addition to psychological. While it's not clear that this is true in the way intended, if it were it wouldn't furnish an objection: it is, again, a psychiatric manual, and the biopsychosocial model has a long and esteemed place in psychiatry. Third, the DSM is not the universal standard in our understanding of mental illness. In much of the world, the WHO's manual, the ICD is used. In either case, the present DSM and ICD principally follow an epidemiological model, designed to reliably follow patterns of symptoms presenting in large populations. Psychotherapists working directly with mental illness tend to follow, conversely, a case formulation model. When we're assessing the psychological role of a given belief for someone, it is typically a case formulation we are after, so the DSM may be entirely the wrong resource in any case.
Briefly, about mental health professionals: a psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in mental health, a psychologist is someone with a doctorate (usually) in psychology, a clinical psychologist is a psychologist who has finished practica and internships in assessment and treatment of mental and (sometimes) neurological disorders. These are regulated titles, as are social workers and psychiatric nurses, who are also involved in mental health. Psychotherapist and psychoanalyst are generally unregulated titles, although there is fairly intensive psychotherapy and psychoanalysis training available (often for people with a background in one of the regulated mental health professions), which is where you learn case formulation.
One last note on these topics: another remark was that mental health diagnosis only concerned illness and not normality. This isn't true, and particularly case formulation approaches are appropriate for most populations. They try to determine the role of different beliefs, attitudes, values, etc. in a person's psychology, which of course we can do with the healthy as with the ill. Many healthy and successful people do see psychotherapists for a variety of reasons.
Closer to the point at hand now... one of the things Freud discovered early on was that a given belief can have entirely different roles within different people's psychologies. I have a patient, for example, who has the delusion that her dead sister lives down the hall from her and often comes in and eats some of her food. Now imagine if, as the aforementioned atheist critic does with religion, we wanted to inquire into the psychology of believing 'My sister lives down the hall from me and sometimes eats some of my food.' Based on my clinical experience, we'd have good reason to conclude that this is an unhealthy belief held by psychotic people. But now that's quite silly, isn't it? There are plenty of sisters who really live down the hall from people and really eat their food.
The problem is that we cannot determine on the basis of a given belief how it was formed, because it is formed differently in different cases. Again, the role of a given belief for one person might be quite different than its role for another person. My patient might have this belief about her sister as a result of repressed feelings for her family, while you have the same belief about your sister because it's true. To find out, we need to look at your individual history and psychology--we have to do a case formulation.
The same is actually true of physics or any other kind of explanation, once we realize just what we're asking. Suppose someone objected, "No, things always move because of force applied to them which overcomes friction! That's a universal explanation!" Similarly, people always believe things because of the mechanics of belief formation. But that's not what we're asking about when we ask, for example, whether a religious belief is delusional. We're asking why this particular belief is held. Similarly, if we asked why this particular curling stone is moving, not as a generic thing which moves, but as that particular stone, we have to answer that it does so because it was pushed by this particular curling player. There's a difference between looking for this historical data (e.g. a curling player pushes a curling stone) and looking for the universal mechanisms by which history unfolds (e.g. the force overcomes the friction).
When we ask "Is a religious belief delusional?" we do not mean "How are beliefs in general formed?" but rather "How was this belief in particular formed; i.e. was it formed via a pathological process or a normal one?" To answer this question, we have to actually get the data on how that particular belief was formed. We can't answer it in principle, we need to go find out!
Anthropologists and psychologists actually do this work, and there is a large literature on the culture and psychology of religion. It's a shame that much present atheist culture has an irrational bias against the social sciences and so remains ignorant of this important research. I hope people interested in the scientific study of religion will consider these issues and perhaps look into some of the fascinating answers which the social sciences have given.
On the normative issue... When we are doing case formulation looking for, in this example, a delusion, what we are after is the process by which a given belief or attitude was formed. It's not a question of whether the belief or attitude is wrong: a mental health professional's role is not to determine what is wrong and right, but to make people healthy so they can so for themselves! When a belief is widely held by in a person's cultural context, there's no need to appeal to an unusual process to explain how they could have adopted it. This doesn't mean that it's impossible for a delusion to be formed which is also a popular belief, but it is highly unlikely. The psychotic processes underlying delusions already exhibit a disconnected relationship with society, so that psychotic phenomena seem by nature strange and unusual. People who have a normative relationship with their culture may certainly form wrong beliefs, and they may engage in a number of maladaptive defenses with further implications for their values and beliefs, but they are not, by definition, inclined to psychosis.