Religion and Mental Illness - Is This Proof That They Are Related?

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Thailand's love of the supernatural

The belief in kuman thong, to give them their full name, dates back hundreds of years. In the old days, practitioners would try to obtain a real dead foetus, bake it dry, and then lacquer and gild it. It was believed to have very strong magical powers, but needed to be carefully fed and clothed.

Or it could be that we're witnessing nature serving up another of its endless recipes for survival, and that only the environment knows for sure.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Thailand's love of the supernatural

The belief in kuman thong, to give them their full name, dates back hundreds of years. In the old days, practitioners would try to obtain a real dead foetus, bake it dry, and then lacquer and gild it. It was believed to have very strong magical powers, but needed to be carefully fed and clothed.

Or it could be that we're witnessing nature serving up another of its endless recipes for survival, and that only the environment knows for sure.

Misinformed or insane. That depends on the state of mind of the practitioner.
Mental Illness? Or is it bad
Draptomania? Homosexuality was also once a mental illness? Is Autism a mental disorder? It is classified as such.

 

[abaddon]

Or it could be that we're witnessing nature serving up another of its endless recipes for survival, and that only the environment knows for sure.

Reading Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris many many years ago was a revelation to me because he found quite plausible economic and social explanations for religious customs that on the surface seem crazy. The only example I can remember after all this time is Hindus don’t eat cows because cow crap is great fuel for fires and thus preserves forests (and I am likely remembering very incompletely). Might not work once they pass a critical point of too many cows or say “fuck it” regarding the taboo against cutting down trees, then it’s only just dogma and nothing more… but at one time it made great sense.

I have no idea about the Thai “kuman”, but I no longer just ethnocentrically leap to “it’s crazy” anymore now that I’ve seen anthropological studies successfully explain why many such crazy superstitions do originally have benefits.

The interesting thing is the intelligence behind the formation of superstitions and taboos wasn’t "‘rational" humans trying to figure things out with discursive thinking but rather it was “figured out” for them, almost like “the environment” really was doing the “thinking” for them.

 

[Malintent]

It's a "Chucky" factory!

The belief in the power of luk thep is very strong. When things go well for the owner, they worship them, but when things turn bad, they abandon them. Because they are afraid of what might happen, they leave them here, because they know we accept them, and the abbot is always careful to put them in an appropriate place.

 

[Underseer]

Thailand's love of the supernatural

The belief in kuman thong, to give them their full name, dates back hundreds of years. In the old days, practitioners would try to obtain a real dead foetus, bake it dry, and then lacquer and gild it. It was believed to have very strong magical powers, but needed to be carefully fed and clothed.

Or it could be that we're witnessing nature serving up another of its endless recipes for survival, and that only the environment knows for sure.

One religious practice is incredibly stupid, therefore religion is the same thing as mental illness?

Uh, surely you can see that the logic of this argument is bad. For one thing, you are committing a fallacy of composition. A sample size of one does not a correlation make.

 

[Ramaraksha]

Or it could be that we're witnessing nature serving up another of its endless recipes for survival, and that only the environment knows for sure.

Reading Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris many many years ago was a revelation to me because he found quite plausible economic and social explanations for religious customs that on the surface seem crazy. The only example I can remember after all this time is Hindus don’t eat cows because cow crap is great fuel for fires and thus preserves forests (and I am likely remembering very incompletely). Might not work once they pass a critical point of too many cows or say “fuck it” regarding the taboo against cutting down trees, then it’s only just dogma and nothing more… but at one time it made great sense.

I have no idea about the Thai “kuman”, but I no longer just ethnocentrically leap to “it’s crazy” anymore now that I’ve seen anthropological studies successfully explain why many such crazy superstitions do originally have benefits.

The interesting thing is the intelligence behind the formation of superstitions and taboos wasn’t "‘rational" humans trying to figure things out with discursive thinking but rather it was “figured out” for them, almost like “the environment” really was doing the “thinking” for them.

As a Hindu let me enlighten you if i can. First of all please give some credit to others intelligence, you are not the only bright one in this world.
If you care to look up Hindu God images - google them - you will find one thing in common - ALL of them are accompanied by animals - India has 1/3rd the land of the US and 3 times the population but while the US has killed off all its big wild animals - in India we still set aside a home for elephants, rhinos, tigers and lions - all big animals that need a lot of land - it is because of this Hindu view that all nature must be respected - here in the US if a wolf were to kill a farmer's livestock, a hunting party would be organized and hundreds of innocent wolves would be killed - in India if a snake were to bite and kill a person, there would be no hunting parties - it would be accepted as nature's way - maybe the places would be cleared of grass so that the snake would not traverse over to living areas but that's about it

Second in the Vedas two things are praised - one is Fire and the other is the Cow - if you study evolution particularly Stephen Jay Gould he talks about punctuated equilibrium - evolution is static most of the time but then some times takes leaps and bounds - that happened in two instances in human history - first when they learned to control fire - before that humans huddled inside caves living in fear of tigers and lions - always keeping watch - their only defense being strength in numbers and noise - but then once they learned to control fire, suddenly every wild animal learned to be scared of them - now they could freely go about, lie outside without fear - they began to become masters of the earth

The second great leap happened when they discovered Agriculture - instead of a nomadic life, following the herds - now they could stay at one place, grow food for throughout the year and suddenly find time to.....discover art, culture, invent! Because of the huge number of people in one place, it meant not everyone needed to be a farmer - now a guy could make a living sewing clothes, being a policeman, even an artist! Inventor! A King! And from there on we reached where we are at now!

And do you know the one animal that helped make all this possible? The Cow! This mute animal uncomplainingly helped plough our fields, gave us milk, meat and hide to make shoes and keep us warm.

Hindus said, let us thank this dumb animal.

Also, one last thing - less animal suffering - India is heavily vegetarian - much less animal suffering - go to PETA site - watch what horrible things we are doing to animals, please

 

[Underseer]

Reading Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris many many years ago was a revelation to me because he found quite plausible economic and social explanations for religious customs that on the surface seem crazy. The only example I can remember after all this time is Hindus don’t eat cows because cow crap is great fuel for fires and thus preserves forests (and I am likely remembering very incompletely). Might not work once they pass a critical point of too many cows or say “fuck it” regarding the taboo against cutting down trees, then it’s only just dogma and nothing more… but at one time it made great sense.

I have no idea about the Thai “kuman”, but I no longer just ethnocentrically leap to “it’s crazy” anymore now that I’ve seen anthropological studies successfully explain why many such crazy superstitions do originally have benefits.

The interesting thing is the intelligence behind the formation of superstitions and taboos wasn’t "‘rational" humans trying to figure things out with discursive thinking but rather it was “figured out” for them, almost like “the environment” really was doing the “thinking” for them.

As a Hindu let me enlighten you if i can. First of all please give some credit to others intelligence, you are not the only bright one in this world.
If you care to look up Hindu God images - google them - you will find one thing in common - ALL of them are accompanied by animals - India has 1/3rd the land of the US and 3 times the population but while the US has killed off all its big wild animals - in India we still set aside a home for elephants, rhinos, tigers and lions - all big animals that need a lot of land - it is because of this Hindu view that all nature must be respected - here in the US if a wolf were to kill a farmer's livestock, a hunting party would be organized and hundreds of innocent wolves would be killed - in India if a snake were to bite and kill a person, there would be no hunting parties - it would be accepted as nature's way - maybe the places would be cleared of grass so that the snake would not traverse over to living areas but that's about it

Second in the Vedas two things are praised - one is Fire and the other is the Cow - if you study evolution particularly Stephen Jay Gould he talks about punctuated equilibrium - evolution is static most of the time but then some times takes leaps and bounds - that happened in two instances in human history - first when they learned to control fire - before that humans huddled inside caves living in fear of tigers and lions - always keeping watch - their only defense being strength in numbers and noise - but then once they learned to control fire, suddenly every wild animal learned to be scared of them - now they could freely go about, lie outside without fear - they began to become masters of the earth

The second great leap happened when they discovered Agriculture - instead of a nomadic life, following the herds - now they could stay at one place, grow food for throughout the year and suddenly find time to.....discover art, culture, invent! Because of the huge number of people in one place, it meant not everyone needed to be a farmer - now a guy could make a living sewing clothes, being a policeman, even an artist! Inventor! A King! And from there on we reached where we are at now!

And do you know the one animal that helped make all this possible? The Cow! This mute animal uncomplainingly helped plough our fields, gave us milk, meat and hide to make shoes and keep us warm.

Hindus said, let us thank this dumb animal.

Also, one last thing - less animal suffering - India is heavily vegetarian - much less animal suffering - go to PETA site - watch what horrible things we are doing to animals, please

He was simply pointing out that there is a valid, non-religious explanation for many religious practices.

If you really want to discuss the details of your religion, we would be only too happy to talk about the sea of butter and the sea of liquor floating in outer space.