Religion and delusion - psychiatric diagnosis

[AutSider]

whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com … it-is-one/

Quoting from the article:

The DSM of psychiatry, explained in the excerpt below, defines delusions in such a way that religion is really one of them. But then it exempts religion from the psychiatric diagnosis of “delusion” because it is widely held. Here’s an excerpt from Peter’s book, which I post with his permission (the bolding is Peter’s, but I would have bolded it, too!):

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), is the single most important text used by clinicians. It is the diagnostic rulebook. Currently, the DSM grants religious delusions an exemption from classification as a mental illness. The following is the DSM-IV’s definition of delusion:

“A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility. Delusional conviction occurs on a continuum and can sometimes be inferred from an individual’s behavior. It is often difficult to distinguish between a delusion and an overvalued idea (in which case the individual has an unreasonable belief or idea but does not hold it as firmly as is the case with a delusion)” (2000, p. 765).

Again, religion gets a pass in society. Why should someone’s belief be a delusion only if it’s held by a minority of people? In the important respect of being “an incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained,” and one that “defies credibility,” religion is a delusion. But note how religious faith is specifically exempted. Further, many individuals’ religious behaviors do indicate a delusional conviction (falling on one’s knees and talking to an imaginary friend, eating wafers, bowing toward Mecca five times a day, and so on).

Richard Dawkins’s book was properly named The God Delusion, although of course that angered the faithful, who don’t want to be seen as delusional. If 80% of the population suddenly became schizophrenic, would that no longer be seen as a mental disorder because it’s common?

What is important, I think, is not the frequency of a “disorder”—whether it deviates from the “norm”—but whether it inhibits one’s well-being or leads to behaviors that interrupt one’s life and rest on distorted views of reality (e.g., obsessive-compulsive disorder). The fact is that if, say, evangelical Christianity were the sole religion in the world, and was seen in only 2% of the population, the DSM would classify it as a delusional disorder.

In other words, what it means is that regardless of the fact that religious beliefs have all the same symptoms as other delusions, it’s exempted from being one simply because it’s named a “religious” belief and held by a group of people, and it would be impractical to declare a major group of people delusional (despite the fact that they are). It’s like saying “All beings with the attributes X, Y and Z are necessarily humans, except being 1984646, which isn’t.”

yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading

[omar]

Ok. Atheris, I’ll take the bait,

“A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility. Delusional conviction occurs on a continuum and can sometimes be inferred from an individual’s behavior. It is often difficult to distinguish between a delusion and an overvalued idea (in which case the individual has an unreasonable belief or idea but does not hold it as firmly as is the case with a delusion)”

First and foremost, how does this person KNOWS that this IS a FALSE belief? Who defines what “constitutes” as “incontrovertible and obvious proof”? What, pray tell, is “evidence to the contrary”?
As referring to a belief in something Higher? I don’t think that the quote can apply. If referring to an article of religious faith then I hold that the ability, or the pretension of having the ability to distinguish such a thing as a “false belief” is itself a matter of delusion and is, in at least some case, held almost as an article of religion, for it is based on little more than faith.

[Uccisore]

@Atheris

In other words, what it means is that regardless of the fact that religious beliefs have all the same symptoms as other delusions, it’s exempted from being one simply because it’s named a “religious” belief and held by a group of people, and it would be impractical to declare a major group of people delusional (despite the fact that they are). It’s like saying “All beings with the attributes X, Y and Z are necessarily humans, except being 1984646, which isn’t.”

yourlogicalfallacyis.com/special-pleading

 Religious belief isn't excluded because of special pleading, it's excluded because of it's means of transmission.  When everybody in your peer group and authority group is telling you that God created the universe or people go to Heaven when they die or stars are giant balls of burning gas billions of miles away, it's only natural to believe them because they are respected members of the community and you have independant way to discover they are wrong. "Delusional" is about judging a person's mental state, not the quality of their beliefs, and a person in a perfectly ordinary, healthy mental state will believe what they are told by figures of authority.  Now, if there was no such thing as Hindu, and a single person suddenly came up with all the hindu  tenets after being struck in the head by a fly ball, [i]that[/i] would be a delusional state because we'd be passing judgment on the mental state that lead to his beliefs, not the beliefs themselves.  You are, after all, talking about psychiatry, not epistemology.

[AutSider]

@omar

Ok. Atheris, I’ll take the bait,

“A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility. Delusional conviction occurs on a continuum and can sometimes be inferred from an individual’s behavior. It is often difficult to distinguish between a delusion and an overvalued idea (in which case the individual has an unreasonable belief or idea but does not hold it as firmly as is the case with a delusion)”

First and foremost, how does this person KNOWS that this IS a FALSE belief? Who defines what “constitutes” as “incontrovertible and obvious proof”? What, pray tell, is “evidence to the contrary”?
As referring to a belief in something Higher? I don’t think that the quote can apply. If referring to an article of religious faith then I hold that the ability, or the pretension of having the ability to distinguish such a thing as a “false belief” is itself a matter of delusion and is, in at least some case, held almost as an article of religion, for it is based on little more than faith.

Bait? What do you mean by that?

You’re thinking about science from a religious point of view. Science doesn’t claim absolute knowledge, it avoids absolutes. It’s based on empirical data, observations. If a known mass murderer and rapist came into your house and tried to murder your family and rape your mother and wife because he claimed something higher ordered and allowed him to do it, would you believe him? You can’t prove him absolutely wrong, so are you the delusional one if you think you can distinguish his belief as false just because you can’t do it absolutely? If evidence is lacking, especially when circumstances dictate that it should be present, we can deem a belief false even if we can’t prove it absolutely, wouldn’t you agree? If not, does that mean you would believe the mass murderer and rapist and let him butcher your family and rape your mother and wife?

I said it in another thread, I’ll say it again… the best argument against religious belief is a practical example based on reality.

a person in a perfectly ordinary, healthy mental state will believe what they are told by figures of authority

It isn’t always when I post a smiley that I laugh, but this time… I really did, like a maniac, and almost for a full minute. Nice one =D>

[Artimas]

a person in a perfectly ordinary, healthy mental state will believe what they are told by figures of authority

More like question what they say or are being told you mean.

[phyllo]

You’re thinking about science from a religious point of view. Science doesn’t claim absolute knowledge, it avoids absolutes. It’s based on empirical data, observations. If a known mass murderer and rapist came into your house and tried to murder your family and rape your mother and wife because he claimed something higher ordered and allowed him to do it, would you believe him? You can’t prove him absolutely wrong, so are you the delusional one if you think you can distinguish his belief as false just because you can’t do it absolutely? If evidence is lacking, especially when circumstances dictate that it should be present, we can deem a belief false even if we can’t prove it absolutely, wouldn’t you agree? If not, does that mean you would believe the mass murderer and rapist and let him butcher your family and rape your mother and wife?

Whoa, talk about appeal to emotion.

Instead of evaluating some random hypothetical event, let’s consider your most basic claim : “Belief in the existence of a god is delusional.”

The minimum god is a creator of the universe. He creates and then does nothing. The evidence for it seems to be the existence of the universe.

Please show that belief in the existence of such a god is delusional.

[AutSider]

It’s an appeal to consistency and reality. I’m just checking if he is consistent in his request for absolute definitions of words for practical use. If he isn’t, then his criticism fails.

The minimum god is a creator of the universe. He creates and then does nothing. The evidence for it seems to be the existence of the universe.

Please show that belief in the existence of such a god is delusional.

What you described is deism.

Simple epistemological standard: That which can be asserted without evidence is dismissed without evidence.
If we were to spend our time constantly contemplating assertions made with no evidence backing them up, we would die of thirst, starvation etc. and never get anything done.

The universe isn’t evidence for a god no more than a burned finger is an evidence for a dragon burning my finger with his fiery breath. There are other, more reasonable explanations than just appealing to the mysterious and succumbing to psychological biases, indoctrination and peer pressure.

[phyllo]

What you described is deism.

You did say that deists are delusional.

Simple epistemological standard: That which can be asserted without evidence is dismissed without evidence.
If we were to spend our time constantly contemplating assertions made with no evidence backing them up, we would die of thirst, starvation etc. and never get anything done.

The deist says that there is evidence and you say that there is no evidence. Who is right?
One would need to examine the nature of evidence in general and the evidence pertinent to a specific claim.

The universe isn’t evidence for a god no more than a burned finger is an evidence for a dragon burning my finger with his fiery breath. There are other, more reasonable explanations than just appealing to the mysterious and succumbing to psychological biases, indoctrination and peer pressure.

The fact that you evaluate the deist’s evidence as inadequate is much different from saying that your own evidence is “incontrovertible and obvious”. But that’s what was said in the original quote:
“…despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence”
Yeah, it would be great if the other guy’s ‘inadequate evidence’ automatically made your evidence extremely strong.

And even if you think that there are ‘more reasonable’ explanations for the origin of the universe, the evidence is lacking - it is certainly not incontrovertible or obvious.

Basically, you don’t have a reason to call deists delusional.

[Uccisore]

@Artimas

a person in a perfectly ordinary, healthy mental state will believe what they are told by figures of authority

More like question what they say or are being told you mean.

Yes, they will do that too. It would be closer to a disordered state if you only ever did one (co-dependence) or the other (paranoia).

[AutSider]

You did say that deists are delusional.

Perhaps to a minor degree. I’m primarily “attacking” religion, not deism.

The deist says that there is evidence and you say that there is no evidence. Who is right?
One would need to examine the nature of evidence in general and the evidence pertinent to a specific claim.

Now replace “deist” with “dragonist” (person who believes in dragons). The empirical verifiability and evidence available is exactly the same. No reason to believe in one and not the other.

The fact that you evaluate the deist’s evidence as inadequate is much different from saying that your own evidence is “incontrovertible and obvious”. But that’s what was said in the original quote:
“…despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence”
Yeah, it would be great if the other guy’s ‘inadequate evidence’ automatically made your evidence extremely strong.

And even if you think that there are ‘more reasonable’ explanations for the origin of the universe, the evidence is lacking - it is certainly not incontrovertible or obvious.

Basically, you don’t have a reason to call deists delusional.

Again, replace “deist” with “dragonist”. If I don’t have a reason to call deists delusional, I don’t have a reason to call dragonists delusional either. You’d have to set your standard of evidence extremely low in order for what you’re trying to do to work. Can we prove absolutely that dragons don’t exist? Does that mean a belief in them is rational and not delusional, even though there is no empirical data to support it? You, like omar, appear to be thinking in absolutes. Science doesn’t.

The weaker the deists evidence the stronger the adeists evidence, and the reverse. In other words, the better reasons there are to hold a belief X, the worse are reasons to reject the same belief, they are in an inevitable mutual relation.

[phyllo]

Perhaps to a minor degree. I’m primarily “attacking” religion, not deism.

If you are attacking religion then you are saying that belief in ritual and dogma is delusional. But not specific ritual and dogma like Eucharist or Jesus turning water into wine, because that would only apply to Christianity. So it would not constitute an attack on Judaism or Hinduism.
You have not presented any argument which attacks religion in general.

Again, replace “deist” with “dragonist”. If I don’t have a reason to call deists delusional, I don’t have a reason to call dragonists delusional either. You’d have to set your standard of evidence extremely low in order for what you’re trying to do to work. Can we prove absolutely that dragons don’t exist? Does that mean a belief in them is rational and not delusional, even though there is no empirical data to support it? You, like omar, appear to be thinking in absolutes. Science doesn’t.

Again you claim there is “no evidence”. But that’s just you saying it without examining the deist’s evidence and without presenting evidence for your position.

The weaker the deists evidence the stronger the adeists evidence, and the reverse. In other words, the better reasons there are to hold a belief X, the worse are reasons to reject the same belief, they are in an inevitable mutual relation.

There is evidence for a claim. There is evidence against a claim. There is not some magical inverse relationship there.

[AutSider]

If you are attacking religion then you are saying that belief in ritual and dogma is delusional. But not specific ritual and dogma like Eucharist or Jesus turning water into wine, because that would only apply to Christianity. So it would not constitute an attack on Judaism or Hinduism.
You have not presented any argument which attacks religion in general.

It’s an argument which attacks the core of any religion, religious belief itself. There are no religions without religious belief.

Again you claim there is “no evidence”. But that’s just you saying it without examining the deist’s evidence and without presenting evidence for your position.

Examined the evidence, found it lacking. Default position when evidence is lacking is disbelief. I don’t have to present evidence, I’m not one making the claim, I’m rejecting an unsupported claim. Absence of evidence is (weak) evidence of absence.

There is evidence for a claim. There is evidence against a claim. There is not some magical inverse relationship there.

Who said anything about magic? Atheism and theism are mutually exclusive. They can’t be equally rational to hold, evidence has to lean more one way or the other, even if it is the mere absence of evidence.

[phyllo]

It’s an argument which attacks the core of any religion, religious belief itself

You haven’t done that.

Examined the evidence, found it lacking. Default position when evidence is lacking is disbelief. I don’t have to present evidence, I’m not one making the claim, I’m rejecting an unsupported claim. Absence of evidence is (weak) evidence of absence.

You’re claiming that people who are deists, theists or religious are delusional. By your own definition, you need “incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence” to make that claim.

In general : Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
It may be evidence in special cases. Depends.

Who said anything about magic? Atheism and theism are mutually exclusive. They can’t be equally rational to hold, evidence has to lean more one way or the other, even if it is the mere absence of evidence.

That’s because you see everything as a simple dichotomy. You see only true and false cases. In fact, there are also ‘unknown’ and ‘unknowable’ possibilities. The origin of the universe falls into the unknown case and maybe into unknowable.

[Uccisore]

@Atheris

You did say that deists are delusional.

Perhaps to a minor degree. I’m primarily “attacking” religion, not deism.

That’s why your thread doesn’t make any sense. A believe system can’t have or be a psychiatric state. You have to know the mentality of the person that has the belief and the way in which they justify the belief and the conditions under which they acquired the belief. Belief in leprechauns isn’t a disordered state if you have strong evidence for leprechauns, or if it’s taken for granted by everybody around you that leprechauns are real, and so on.

[AutSider]

So what you’re saying is that it’s completely dependent on contingent circumstances? Such as, if everybody but crazy people were slaughtered whatever beliefs are harbored by crazy people are by definition not delusional anymore because they have become the new norm, even if they have been previously deemed delusional? Wouldn’t expect such epistemological relativism from you, and I don’t think that’s very scientific either.

[Prismatic567]

@Uccisore

@Atheris

You did say that deists are delusional.

Perhaps to a minor degree. I’m primarily “attacking” religion, not deism.

That’s why your thread doesn’t make any sense. A believe system can’t have or be a psychiatric state. You have to know the mentality of the person that has the belief and the way in which they justify the belief and the conditions under which they acquired the belief. Belief in leprechauns isn’t a disordered state if you have strong evidence for leprechauns, or if it’s taken for granted by everybody around you that leprechauns are real, and so on.

An illusion occurs when a thing [internal or outer perception] is taken as the real thing.
For example a coiled rope in a shaded place perceived as a real snake that invoke real fears and terrors is an illusion.
A schizophrenic [regularly] insisting the image in the mind is the real thing or person out there and interact with that illusion as if it is real.

An insistent and persistent claim an illusion is really real is a delusion.
[within general knowledge or the psychiatric framework].

If a belief system that has its main principles asserting illusions are real, then such a belief system has the properties of ‘delusion.’ Semantically and epistemologically such a proposition is very sound.
The believers [not necessary all] of such a belief system would be considered delusional if they hold on to such a belief literally and dogmatically. Those who do not necessary hold on to its main principles seriously may not be considered highly delusional.

The psychiatric community may exempt religion [theistic or otherwise] and religious beliefs from being categorized as delusions for their own reasons.
However from a philosophical, epistemological and semantic perspectives, those beliefs that are within its respective definition are still considered illusory and delusional.

Thus theistic religions are delusional if it insist their illusory God is real, authored a holy texts via his messenger and believers acting literally to the commands of God via the holy texts.
Believers who take the holy texts literally and believe the same as dictated by their holy books are also delusional from the philosophical and epistemological perspective, though exempted by the psychiatric community.

Note the are types and degrees of illusion and delusion. Believing in ghosts or UFO [empirical illusion] is a lesser degree than that of the transcendental illusion of a God.

Like the DSM-IV [I think now it is DSM-5?] generally we should not regard all theistic and other believers as delusional, but only when it is necessary to press the point for specific purposes.

[Uccisore]

@Prismatic567

An illusion occurs when a thing [internal or outer perception] is taken as the real thing.
For example a coiled rope in a shaded place perceived as a real snake that invoke real fears and terrors is an illusion.
A schizophrenic [regularly] insisting the image in the mind is the real thing or person out there and interact with that illusion as if it is real.

If I look over in a dark corner, see a coiled thing, and conclude that it's a snake, and go on my whole life thinking it was a snake (perhaps I never go over there again), and it turns out it was a rope, I am merely wrong, I'm not in a weird disordered psychological state. 
I think there more wrong with a schizophrenic than him merely finding himself in this situation somewhat more often than the rest of us, or else people who live in foggy parts of the world or people with bad eyes would be schitzophrenics. So clearly it relates not to the fact that they are wrong or how often, but to what it is about their brains or their minds that makes them wrong. Not sure if you disagree with that or not. 

An insistent and persistent claim an illusion is really real is a delusion.
[within general knowledge or the psychiatric framework].

If all you mean by ‘delusion’ is ‘anytime somebody is wrong about something they saw’ as is clear from your coiled rope example then fine, but atheris is clearly meaning something stronger than that.

If a belief system that has its main principles asserting illusions are real, then such a belief system has the properties of ‘delusion.’ Semantically and epistemologically such a proposition is very sound.

See above. If a belief system has a main principle that a person saw a coiled rope when they really saw a snake, then that belief system is merely incorrect about a thing that happened. If you want to call that ‘being delusional’, then I can’t stop you, but the term has a completely different connotative definition to the rest of mankind.

The believers [not necessary all] of such a belief system would be considered delusional if they hold on to such a belief literally and dogmatically.

I don’t know what it means to hold onto beliefs literally or dogmatically. As far as I understand everybody who believes something believes it literally, and ‘dogma’ refers to a kind of proposition, not the way in which it is held.

Those who do not necessary hold on to its main principles seriously may not be considered highly delusional.

This doesn't follow at all from what you've argued.  If I see a rope and think it's a snake, then sure, go on and call me delusional in your mild "he was wrong about something he saw" sense. But if I go on and tell other people I saw a snake and they believe me, calling THEM delusional makes no sense to me whatsoever. 

Thus theistic religions are delusional

Only people can be delusional, not creeds or systems or stones or anything else. You can’t tell if a person is delusional based on what they believe without knowing how they came to believe it, and how they defend the belief from criticism.

Believers who take the holy texts literally and believe the same as dictated by their holy books are also delusional from the philosophical and epistemological perspective,

The idea that there is such a thing as ‘the philosophical and epistemological perspective’ is just nuts, but that’s probably a subject for a different thread.

Note the are types and degrees of illusion and delusion. Believing in ghosts or UFO [empirical illusion] is a lesser degree than that of the transcendental illusion of a God.

Without knowing the individual reasons why a person came to believe in a ghost or a UFO or a God, this claim is without merit. If I tell you I saw a ghost, and you come to believe their are ghosts based on my say so, you may be many things but suffering from an illusion or a delusion is not one of them. That doesn’t even meet the rather odd definition you yourself set up.

You and atheris are plainly just trying to claim somebody is mentally disabled every time they are incorrect. Like most atheistic arguments, this suits your ends well as long as you’re discussing God on a message board, but you seem to give little to know thought of the implications of such bullshit on the real world. I think it’s because to the atheist, all this talk of philosophy and epistemology is just that- talk. You are about as far from trying to understand the world with the above polemic as I am from being a motocross professional.

[Uccisore]

@Atheris

So what you’re saying is that it’s completely dependent on contingent circumstances? Such as, if everybody but crazy people were slaughtered whatever beliefs are harbored by crazy people are by definition not delusional anymore because they have become the new norm, even if they have been previously deemed delusional?

Sort of. If everybody but crazy people were killed, those crazy people would continue to be crazy. But if they told their crazy ideas to their perfectly ordinary children, those children wouldn't 'catch crazy' from their parents simply because they believe something that isn't true. In other words, believing in angels because you were hit in the head with a brick and saw angels is different from believing in angels because somebody who was in in the head with a brick told you there were angels and you were in a position to trust them; belief as a result of head trauma would have a psychiactric diagnosis, belief as a result of trust does not.

[Moreno]

“A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility. Delusional conviction occurs on a continuum and can sometimes be inferred from an individual’s behavior. It is often difficult to distinguish between a delusion and an overvalued idea (in which case the individual has an unreasonable belief or idea but does not hold it as firmly as is the case with a delusion)” (2000, p. 765).

This exempts all sorts of beliefs: ideas people have about the opposite sex, political convictions, ideas about what the self is, what helps the self, folk wisdoms…and much more. The bulk of stuff discussed in forums across the internet including this thread.

Again, religion gets a pass in society. Why should someone’s belief be a delusion only if it’s held by a minority of people? In the important respect of being “an incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained,” and one that “defies credibility,” religion is a delusion…

Because the DSM is intended to work as part of a system for helping people who are suffering. It is not a philosophical text or a science journal. It contains and is built on a lot of poorly thought out philosophy, but that’s another issue. The DSM itself has contained many delusions, in the sense you want to use the term. This can be seen as acknowledged over time by the changes in it, where consensus amongst psychiatrists changed over time. Further the whole physicalist individual approach contains philosophical delusions. Think about the naive sense of causation psychiatrists and pharma have. Talk about deluded.

In other words, what it means is that regardless of the fact that religious beliefs have all the same symptoms as other delusions, it’s exempted from being one simply because it’s named a “religious” belief and held by a group of people, and it would be impractical to declare a major group of people delusional (despite the fact that they are). It’s like saying “All beings with the attributes X, Y and Z are necessarily humans, except being 1984646, which isn’t.”

I dunno it seems like someone called you on the issue of proof that the beliefs are false. These seem to be lacking. Apart from the mote in the eye issues of wanting a very odd metaphysics - physicalism, especially the kind put forward by pharma - to be a neutral authority figure for what is delusion and what is not.

You’re just pissed off that your metaphysics and epistemology is taken as the Bible.

You miss something when you bring in the issue of everyone being schizophrenics. If they were doing fine, then there would be no need for diagnosis and treatment. That mental illlness would not be a mental illness, for the functional outlook of things like the DSM. It would be working or at least not interfering with a good life. Of course most people diagnosed - over a long period of time - as schizophrenic, are suffering immensely and have trouble with basic life stuff like jobs and hygiene and being social and so on. Something that religious people as a whole do not have issues with. In fact scientific research seems to support that theists are healthier. This of course does not mean they are right.

It’s a bit like you are upset that a physics text has not explained why your girlfriend should be nicer to you. YOu are making a category error
and also hitching yourself to a philosophical system that itself has many weak areas, unjustified assumptions and so on.
Even if psychiatry, the DSM and the pharma approach was scientific, which it is not, this would not make it exempt from philosophical critique - for example as having a metaphysics it holds dear.
But the DSM comes from its own bizarre culture. It certainly uses scientific research - much of it biased by pharma - but it is hardly science.

[omar]

Hello Atheris,

You’re thinking about science from a religious point of view. Science doesn’t claim absolute knowledge, it avoids absolutes. It’s based on empirical data, observations.

Physical constants, like the speed of light assume a constant and universal quality. It says that the speed of light is absolutely such and such, everywhere and every-when. Theories that have argued the contrary, that is that the speed of light is not constant, that there is no absolute value, have been met with resistance by the scientific community.
Any constant used in mathematical equations cannot be based, by definition on empirical data. See Hume on that part of the argument. Universality, constancy, are inferred from observation, not observations (or part of the empirical data) themselves.

If a known mass murderer and rapist came into your house and tried to murder your family and rape your mother and wife because he claimed something higher ordered and allowed him to do it, would you believe him? You can’t prove him absolutely wrong, so are you the delusional one if you think you can distinguish his belief as false just because you can’t do it absolutely? If evidence is lacking, especially when circumstances dictate that it should be present, we can deem a belief false even if we can’t prove it absolutely, wouldn’t you agree? If not, does that mean you would believe the mass murderer and rapist and let him butcher your family and rape your mother and wife?

What is godly? Can we distinguish a man of God; a prophet? To me, a man that becomes a messenger of God is a man set apart from mere life. If he murders and rapes, then there is nothing special in him, in my opinion. I would blast the mother fucker on the spot. People seem to think that it is enough to say: “Lord, Lord!!”; but he might very well say: I never knew you. It is not enough to speak in tongues on Sunday and rape and murder on Monday. God wants, in my opinion, what is hard. Killing and raping? That is just as easy as giving in to the beast within.