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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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I mean, obviously the things people believe matters on some level- religious people exhibit better mental health than nones, and no one seems to dispute that- so there’s no reason to stop before political ideology, particularly one as all encompassing as US liberalism.

religious people exhibit better mental health than nones

Unless you consider their religious beliefs to be a form of mental derangement. For example, can someone who is convinced that a man 2000 years was literally god incarnate and rose from the dead really be called mentally healthy?

  • -16

Then the vast majority of the people on the planet for the vast majority of human history would be "mentally deranged", so what is mentally healthy? I think the query you're trying to pose here is whether intelligent and well educated people (that is, neither mentally disabled nor ignorant) can hold irrational beliefs, to which I would say yes.

For example, can someone who is convinced that a man 2000 years was literally god incarnate and rose from the dead really be called mentally healthy?

Yes. Even if we say that someone has major irrational beliefs, it does not follow that they are mentally unhealthy.

"Mental illness" is hard to define, but one plausible approach is a functioning account: a mental illness stops people from being able to carry out major life functions. Christianity doesn't do that, and hence Christianity is not a mental illness, even if Christian belief is irrational.

For example, can someone who is convinced that a man 2000 years was literally god incarnate and rose from the dead really be called mentally healthy?

Of course. Believing such things is a very common feature of a lot of stable civilizations in history.

Humans everywhere have had metaphysical beliefs of many sorts, and most of the ones that make it into long lived religions have to be healthy by the necessities of the memetic process.

Not believing in similarly silly things is actually a much better candidate for being a mental illness. And I say this as an atheist.

If you consider religious beliefs to be a form of mental derangement, you are going to have to put a lot more effort into justifying that position.

Otherwise, do not just post something that just looks like low effort dunking on your outgroup.

I'm just going to say, I don't think this mod action is necessarily wrong with the rules as written, but I think it's inconsistently applied. It seems to me that there are quite a lot of short, low-effort takes making fairly debatable claims that never get modded (yes, I sometimes report them--doesn't seem to matter).

Here's the thing - a lot of "low-effort" comments are borderline, which means they are judgment calls. I can't claim we're 100% consistent about them, and I don't think we can be. We try, but I definitely let some comments slide that @naraburns might not and vice versa, and there are comments that I might mod one day while on a different day I wouldn't bother.

There's always a balance between allowing too many low effort comments, and being too overzealous about smacking every single one.

I'm guessing that you report mostly comments saying things you disagree with and you think we're harsher on "your" side than the "other" side. I'm guessing you also know that posters on every side have constantly accused us of this since the Motte was created.

I've definitely reported posts whose "thesis" I agreed with, or agree with some of what they said, but then made big sweeping claims that aren't supported or attack strawmen.

Rather than "guessing" you could have maybe asked for more detail?

I'm guessing you also know that posters on every side have constantly accused us of this since the Motte was created.

I'm aware, and I didn't say it was bias, I just said it was inconsistent.

Rather than "guessing" you could have maybe asked for more detail?

So what specifically would you like us to do? If you don't think it's the result of bias, all I can say is that yes, sometimes a kind of crappy comment will get modded and sometimes it won't. There are a number of factors that go into "Do I think I need to put on my modhat for this one?" and some of them are just plain human inconsistency.

To be honest I probably would have had no objection if you left your post at the first 2 paragraphs, because I realize modding is hard, and would have left it alone unless I saw particularly egregious examples in the future. The assertion that I was just being biased because I provided feedback is what got to me.

Well, it's not. We're not going to allow "Religious people are crazy" as an unsupported opinion any more than we'd allow "trans people are crazy" or "wokes are crazy." You can hold those opinions, you can even argue them, but you can't just assert them as a demonstration of disdain.

Civilly.

I don't know ... From where I'm standing, @Goodguy was, in fact, civil and was unfairly modded. If you're not religious, religious actions sure look insane. He could have written an essay on why, but the theism-vs-atheism debates have all been done to death in the naughty aughties and should stay there. But it at least deserves a mention when people talk about mental health/sanity.

If you're not religious, religious actions sure look insane.

I am not religious, and a lot of religious actions look insane to me, but you cannot just say "Religious people are mentally unhealthy." That's a truth statement - specifically about your outgroup - that needs to be justified.

This is yet another "But my outgroup really is bad/wrong/stupid, I should be able to just say that without having to defend it!" gripe.

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Mental health as typically conceived hinges on whether your mindset impairs your day-to-day functioning. So by that metric, the answer to this is resoundingly yes:

can someone who is convinced that a man 2000 years was literally god incarnate and rose from the dead really be called mentally healthy?

I mean, obviously the things people believe matters on some level- religious people exhibit better mental health than nones, and no one seems to dispute that- so there’s no reason to stop before political ideology, particularly one as all encompassing as US liberalism.

Just a stray thought: has this been adjusted for some common measures of personality traits? It could be that a certain set of personality traits is the driver behind both areligiosity and unhappiness. See e.g. the old saw that wisdom makes miserable.

IIRC there are interesting differences between different types of religious people(particularly Protestant v catholic differences) which point to religion being able to have an impact on behavior and personality, so even if differences in religiosity are largely innate we should expect religion itself to have an impact.