Okay, I’m a hard atheist (meaning I have a positive belief that no gods exist), but I’m not really using that to make this point.
People who actually believe this kind of thing should be considered candidates for clinical treatment. This is not “I believe that Jesus was god” level stuff. This is complete tinfoil hat levels of crazy. If they didn’t get a free pass because their beliefs are considered a religion, I honestly think we’d have a lot more people in treatment.
I don’t know if the Pat Robertsons of the world actually believe this kind of crap or not, but some people obviously do. There’s a hypothesis you occasionally see floated that the Nigerian prince scam emails are written that badly on purpose because you know if someone falls for them, they’ll fall for anything. I really have to wonder if that’s what’s going on here.
People believe all kinds of whackadoodle shit that has nothing to do with religion and they don’t get committed for it, because just believing wrong things isn’t the sole criterion for that sort of thing. Also involuntary committal is basically a kind of prison that requires no crime and no prescribed sentence length, which has been enormously abused over the years. Lowering the barrier to that is not a good idea.
If you meant “candidates for clinical treatment” in some way other than involuntary committal then it wouldn’t work because people who believe things… believe them. They don’t see their beliefs as a problem requiring treatment.
And really even treatment is just to enable people to function in society.
You can believe that the dishes and shirts that you bought from the thrift store have demons in them all you want as long as you go to work and pay your taxes and aren’t a danger to yourself or others.
Speaking for myself, my house is almost completely full of thrift store things and I have no demons here whatsoever.
Maybe I’m just lucky, or maybe Pat Robertson doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.
The phrase that I circle back to specifically in the Christian religion about these sort of things is that the wicked see evil everywhere, because you see what’s inside yourself.
Yes. I use the term “hard atheist” because in my experience that’s the term that people who aren’t necessarily familiar with atheism get on the first read. I think I first came across it being used by Dennett or one of those guys, but I can’t remember at this point.
Okay, I’m a hard atheist (meaning I have a positive belief that no gods exist), but I’m not really using that to make this point.
People who actually believe this kind of thing should be considered candidates for clinical treatment. This is not “I believe that Jesus was god” level stuff. This is complete tinfoil hat levels of crazy. If they didn’t get a free pass because their beliefs are considered a religion, I honestly think we’d have a lot more people in treatment.
I don’t know if the Pat Robertsons of the world actually believe this kind of crap or not, but some people obviously do. There’s a hypothesis you occasionally see floated that the Nigerian prince scam emails are written that badly on purpose because you know if someone falls for them, they’ll fall for anything. I really have to wonder if that’s what’s going on here.
People believe all kinds of whackadoodle shit that has nothing to do with religion and they don’t get committed for it, because just believing wrong things isn’t the sole criterion for that sort of thing. Also involuntary committal is basically a kind of prison that requires no crime and no prescribed sentence length, which has been enormously abused over the years. Lowering the barrier to that is not a good idea.
If you meant “candidates for clinical treatment” in some way other than involuntary committal then it wouldn’t work because people who believe things… believe them. They don’t see their beliefs as a problem requiring treatment.
And really even treatment is just to enable people to function in society.
You can believe that the dishes and shirts that you bought from the thrift store have demons in them all you want as long as you go to work and pay your taxes and aren’t a danger to yourself or others.
Speaking for myself, my house is almost completely full of thrift store things and I have no demons here whatsoever.
Maybe I’m just lucky, or maybe Pat Robertson doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.
The phrase that I circle back to specifically in the Christian religion about these sort of things is that the wicked see evil everywhere, because you see what’s inside yourself.
That’s called a gnostic atheist.
Yes. I use the term “hard atheist” because in my experience that’s the term that people who aren’t necessarily familiar with atheism get on the first read. I think I first came across it being used by Dennett or one of those guys, but I can’t remember at this point.