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Do you consider religious people delusional?

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75 comments (51 - 75)

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Well, we all are delusional in some aspect.
Many religious people want to feel like things will be OK when they die, want to feel like someone much bigger and stronger is looking out for them (the Bible says the opposite, but most people don't read it).

It's like the Christine Baranski quote in Bowfinger, "I think it was a beautiful lie.."

A beautiful lie that will be the downfall of a nation!

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I consider humans as a species delusional

Well, that's one way to avoid the answer

it's not avoiding anything. If all humans are delusional thinking they can treat the earth like its infinite then religious people are even more delusional.

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Yes, absolutely, Who could possibly think otherwise ? the following contributions are far better than I could offer.

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Completely!

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That would be affirmative.

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That would be affirmative.

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Of course

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No amount of consideration on my part is going to change the delusional thought process of a religious person. The comfort achieved by rationalization is difficult to overcome. When a person devotes themselves to the mantra, "It's God's plan," they have divorced themselves from responsibility and, by default, the consequences of they're action. They suffer, because the brought it on themselves. Of course, this does not apply to the pretenders, like 45 and his ilk.

Q-G-M Level 2 Mar 30, 2018

well said. I cannot endure it when a person says those words..."it's God's plan"...what an escape hatch that is!

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Depends on why they are religious? I know people who are "religious" because going to church is something that they've always done and it's how they learned to socialize. Being in those circles and socializing with familiar trappings helps them deal with the world. They are happy that the really complicated questions about reality can be put in a book so that they can go on with the daily mistrations of living in our world. It's easy because nothing really complicated has happened, nor have they experienced any hardships in their lives, to make them question what they get from their beliefs. I would say these people are not delusional.

I also know people who are religious because they strongly believe in the reality of their god, and the belief that their god actually interacts with them personally and with others in their lives. That their god does things for them personally based on a belief, prayer or offering of some sort despite the fact that there is no real evidence to support it. To me, that's delusional.

So, I find most religious people to be someplace on a spectrum of the non-delusional to the delusional and their position constantly moves based on what's going on in their lives in the present.

Finally, I find that the delusion, at least AFAIC, to be more related to their belief in a god than their tie to a religious organization.

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Some certainly are, but many are just going with what they've been taught and have been given no reason to question it.

That's what cause their delusion.

@calgirlblues agreed, but I think many, given a real chance, would see through the delusion. They just haven't had the opportunity.
It's like being stuck in a picture show and never being told that there are exits.

@scurry ...and where do you suppose a person would get a real chance? Certainly not at church. I know we can't force them to change. Most people know to look up for exit signs, LOL. I think the delusional ones are lost for good. At the least the ones I know who are entrenched into a life-long commitment to not looking for exit signs.

@calgirlblues Yes, some absolutely buy into it and are there for life. But some, as they learn, grow, meet others... go to college, travel... If they then start to look, they may be able to see that what they've been told isn't the whole story (or more accurately, was only a story).
Just saying that you can't really call an eight year old delusional if they haven't had a chance yet, even a sheltered teenager or young adult.
Different story for a thirty or fourty+ year old, for sure.

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Delusional people can be one's who think there are ghosts out there. If you think there are religious people and ghosts then they are one in the same.

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No. I consider them going through a developmental stage.

marga Level 7 Mar 30, 2018

Perhaps a stage that could bring us all down?

@calgirlblues Perhaps, who knows? After all, a toddler can burn down a house and all its occupants.

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Yup.

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Yes and no. Yes in that they believe in a non-existent creature or creatures. No, in that thye didn't invent those creatures, they've been brainwashed into believng in them. It's like Son of sam. He was delusional, in that he thought his dog was telling him who to kill. If his society had been,for generations, telling themselves that dogs run things, he'd merely be devoted.

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In one word...yes.

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define delusional ?
one's delusional is the other's delusional

Rosh Level 7 Mar 31, 2018
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I consider them weak.

Weak, but STRONG because they vote!

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Yes, they are delusional only in religion.

AND only because they can take us all down because of one vote!

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No. They have a belief system. One which has stood in the face of scientific and technological progress.

Their belief system is delusional. Same thing.

I disagree. You may not like their belief system or agree with it, but it’s a belief system. Which billions of people follow. I am not willing to call it a delusion, especially when so many educated and brilliant people that contribute positively to our society are of faith. I think it is insulting of us to call them that, it puts us on a completely antagonistic foot. Maybe some of you folks feel this kind of antagonism is healthy, permissible or even entertaining to you, but I do not.

Doesn't that make them delusional?

@jperlow, so, you believe what they believe is true, in other words. Or, that truth is relative and to those prople we are delusional, perhaps?

No it doesn’t make them delusional. Lots of people belong to some kind of faith, it doesn’t mean they completely lead their lives with it. Not even abrahamic faiths, all kinds. They may have varying reasons for their belonging, and may accept only certain tenets. It’s a very broad brush to call people delusional for having selective beliefs. They are closer to personality quirks. Frankly I’d rather have belief system quirks than be a total sociopath like some of the people sound like on this site.

That’s called delusional.

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Religion is based on fear and delusional in that sense. Most people here were once went along with Religion, are they delusional, ? Labels is such a wide brush.

A wide brush that could wipe us all out.

Religion dose more harm than good. Yet, there is a greater shift to people calling themselves spiritual rather than Religious, in which is harmless

Religion is a tool for Nationaism and NWO. When the Government takes half your money and Centro bankers put you and your children in debt for life, which most of us fight over daily. Wail, most are aware, yet this is the true slavery source we fear most. So much so people here on this site won't ask good enough questions about the dangers of this Greedy Corperationism take over, we actually suffer most from.

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yes but would never tell them that

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I think that there are some who are delusional. Others have had religion so embedded in their thought processes that they don't know any better. I used to be like that. The embedded one, not the delusional one. 🙂

An embedded one is an unbalanced one which is a delusional one

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I do but with the caveat that I think most people are religious by default. They don't really question it; so much as they just go along for convenience.

JimG Level 8 Mar 30, 2018

which is the very definition of delusional

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