Latest / I Am Astrology Readings Podcast with Paul Heath / When Is a Belief a Delusion? Religion, Culture, and Mainstream Acceptance | Astrology Ride of the Day

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When Is a Belief a Delusion? Religion, Culture, and Mainstream Acceptance | Astrology Ride of the Day · I Am Astrology Readings Podcast with Paul Heath

• 0:00
  This is the central concept of both psychology and sociology, and it can be broken down in this way.
• 0:11
  Psychology and psychiatry have a specific definition.
• 0:17
  Sorry, Pisces rising for delusion.
• 0:21
  Anybody with Pisces energy.
• 0:23
  And I ain't talking about y' all right now.
• 0:26
  Oh, so what is delusion?
• 0:32
  A fixed false belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.
• 0:43
  And that is not in the line with a person's cultural or religious belief.
• 0:48
  Hey, Mental, you still in there?
• 0:49
  Mental.
• 0:50
  That line reminded me a beautiful lady.
• 0:58
  Yeah, Wasn't that beautiful when she said.
• 1:00
  When I answered the question, hey, what?
• 1:06
  Let's just say in the future they digging some stuff up and all of a sudden they dig us and stuff.
• 1:13
  That totally changes.
• 1:15
  What.
• 1:16
  What we know about religion and stuff.
• 1:19
  How does she respond?
• 1:20
  I don't care what they find.
• 1:24
  I don't care what they think of.
• 1:28
  I ain't changing.
• 1:29
  I love my Jesus.
• 1:31
  I ain't going nowhere.
• 1:32
  I was like, oh, God, She ain't care.
• 1:43
  I said, okay, I ain't taking it.
• 1:45
  I mean, they ain't digging right now.
• 1:47
  Well, what they are digging.
• 1:48
  I mean.
• 1:49
  And hey, I said something about the pyramid, and they just found some up underneath the pyramid.
• 1:55
  The last part of the definition is to.
• 1:59
  To your observation.
• 2:01
  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, the primary text for mental health professionals, makes a crucial distinction.
• 2:14
  Hey, y'.
• 2:15
  All.
• 2:15
  Hey, y'.
• 2:15
  All, Check this distinction out.
• 2:17
  Check this out.
• 2:19
  Watch this.
• 2:22
  If a person in a predominantly Christian society believes they.
• 2:31
  That they are the second coming of Jesus, it may be considered a delusion.
• 2:41
  So if I'm sitting up here thinking I'm the second coming of Jesus, everybody gonna think I'm delusional and crazy.
• 2:50
  But.
• 2:51
  However, if a person in that same society believes that Jesus is the son of God who rose from the dead and is not considered.
• 3:03
  That is not considered a delusion.
• 3:06
  That.
• 3:06
  Because it's a belief shared by a large mainstream religious community.
• 3:18
  So wait, if I sit up here and think that I'm Jesus, I'm crazy, but thinking the existence and he did all walked on water and all that.
• 3:31
  Oh, that ain't crazy.
• 3:35
  I told y'.
• 3:36
  All triggers wanted.
• 3:38
  The logic is that a delusion is by definition idiosyncratic.
• 3:47
  It's a private, unique belief that isolates the individual from the social reality.
• 3:55
  A religious belief, no matter how extraordinary and its context may seem to an outsider, is a shared and culturally sanctioned belief.
• 4:10
  It provides a sense of community, meaning and social support.
• 4:18
  The power of mainstream acceptance.
• 4:24
  Your point is that if religious beliefs were not mainstream.
• 4:30
  They might indeed be viewed through a clinical lens.
• 4:36
  The very fact that millions of people share these beliefs provides a social buffer that protects them from being diagnosed.
• 4:50
  You know what that means, child?
• 4:53
  You know what that really means?
• 4:54
  Just because a lot of people believe that you can get away with, you know, all right, that's a pass.
• 5:01
  Because it's.
• 5:02
  All of us believe that.
• 5:05
  For example, a person who believes they receive direct commands from an individual being to speak to their community would likely be a prophet.
• 5:22
  All right, there will likely be a prophet in religious context if they believe they were receiving commands from an unseen book.
• 5:32
  Check this out.
• 5:36
  A person who believes they receive direct commands from an invisible being to speak to them, to speak their.
• 5:48
  To their community would likely be a prophet in religious context.
• 5:56
  But if they believe that they are receiving commands from an unseen alien to speak to a community of non believers, they might be considered delusional.
• 6:12
  When somebody says, hey, God told me to do this, we don't question that.
• 6:20
  But it.
• 6:20
  But if I.
• 6:21
  But if I say, hey, ET Told me to call home, you gonna tell me, think I'm sick?
• 6:27
  What the hell?
• 6:30
  If I start talking about Morph from Orc called me the other night, y' all gonna think I'm crazy.
• 6:40
  If I said I was hanging out with Howard the Duck, y' all might ask me what drug I'm on.
• 6:57
  Mort calling orson.
• 6:59
  Mort calling orson.
• 7:00
  Come in, orson.
• 7:10
  Oh, all right, let me get back.
• 7:17
  Someone who gives away.
• 7:19
  Someone who gives away all their worldly possession and lives a life of poverty and devotion to a spiritual cause, that person is called a saint.
• 7:34
  But someone who does the same for.
• 7:37
  For purely personal reason, unshared ideology might be seen as a severe mental breakdown.
• 7:49
  What's the difference between that dude under the bridge at the stoplight asking you with a cup asking you for some money, and when you go to church, the passing pan around.
• 8:06
  Ain't that pan handling.
• 8:07
  They got actual pan.
• 8:14
  The dude under the bridge got a cup.
• 8:16
  They got an actual pan.
• 8:18
  So that's actual panhandling.
• 8:21
  But it's okay for them because it's under the religious umbrella.
• 8:32
  The key difference in these scenarios is the presence or absence of socially accepted framework or for the belief.
• 8:45
  Mainstream religion provides that framework, complete with rituals, text, and community that validates that belief.
• 9:02
  He cut he cup handling, and in church they paying him.
• 9:07
  That's.
• 9:07
  That's the real paying handling.
• 9:09
  Huh?
• 9:15
  All right.
• 9:16
  The concept of.
• 9:18
  Hey, yeah.
• 9:22
  The concept of institutionalized.
• 9:25
  Institutionalization of unconventional beliefs is not just a theological theoretical one.
• 9:32
  It has a real and troubling history.
• 9:35
  In places like the former Soviet Union, psychiatric psychiatry was explicitly used as a tool of political repression.
• 9:51
  Dissenters who expressed views contrary to the state's official dogma were sometimes diagnosed with mental illness and confined to psychiatric hospitals like that.
• 10:09
  In this context, the state ideology as the mainstream belief and and any deviation from it was labeled as a sign of mental disorder.
• 10:28
  The historical example provides a stark illustration of how the definition of sanity and delusion can be a function of power and social consciousness consensus, not just objective clinical criteria.
• 10:48
  So to look so to directly address your point, yes, you are right.
• 11:00
  The mainstream nature of, of a belief system, especially one as widespread and historically embedded as religion, fundamentally changes.
• 11:17
  Those beliefs are perceived how those beliefs are perceived, it separates them from an individual isolating delusions and places them within a social, cultural or communal context that is considered normal.
• 11:41
  This is why people can hold beliefs that seem extraordinary.
• 11:57
  People can hold beliefs that are hope, that are seem extraordinary to others without being considered mentally ill.
• 12:10
  Y' all still with me?
• 12:13
  Holly, if you hear me, I appreciate it if, if y' all could tap some of them hearts down there for me, you know, I hope that mighty appreciate it.
• 12:24
  All right, y' all still here?
• 12:26
  All right, y' all ready to move on to the next section?