5 reasons atheists shouldn’t call religion a mental illness [View all]

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http://chrisstedman.religionnews.com/2014/02/24/5-reasons-atheists-shouldnt-call-religion-mental-illness/

Chris Stedman | Feb 24, 2014
Chris Stedman is the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University, Coordinator of Humanist Life for the Yale Humanist Community, and author of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious.

A few days ago, in a post on faith healing, American Atheists president Dave Silverman wrote: “We must recognize religion as brainwashing. We must recognize the (hyper) religious as mentally damaged.”

He’s not the first to equate religion with mental illness or “mental damage.” Bill Maher has called religion “a neurological disorder.” Sam Harris wrote in The End of Faith, “it is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.” Facebook groups claiming religion is a “mental disorder” or “mental disease” boast hundreds of members, and a list of “7 reasons why religion is a form of mental illness” has been shared on a number of atheist blogs.

It seems clear to me that religion isn’t a form of mental illness, and that calling it one reflects a shallow understanding of both mental illness and religion—or, worse still, a knowing attempt to use mental illness as an insult.

While this discussion is worthy of lengthy consideration, I consulted with two atheist activists and compiled five reasons atheists should avoid this problematic parallel:

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