Comment by sqeaky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sqeaky | Hacker News Reader

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> Equally binding a view of mental health to religion seems a stretch. Perhaps you have experienced that, but I suspect that connection is not universal.

I am saying that in the US the stigma against taking mental health seriously is structural. Consider the amount of voters who think demonic possession is real (tens of millions of people) don't vote to fund mental health services. There are millions of our fellow Americans who are real people and think mental illness is punishment from god or think homosexuality or transexuality is a choice and a sin. We shouldn't start on abortion, but every argument against choice has its roots in religion.

These people have made a huge impact on healthcare and baked in tons of little decisions into healthcare that impact all of everytime we interact with the healthcare system. Live in a state where depression meds aren't covered, or maybe only some are? Might be them?

Clearly I am discussing in the US context, as such buddhism isn't a practical and a corner-case. You can pretend I am not referring to it (even though reincarnation is clearly problematic for people attached to this life based on evidence).

Narrowing the context from "religion" to US Christianity certainly changes the scope of your comment.

Certainly the US Christian approach to mental health US not reflective of non US Christians and certainly not other religions.

My experience of US Christians is that most operate in good faith, and are as open to good mental health as any other group. Some proportion, a particularly vocal portion, have weird views about lots of things.

> My experience of US Christians is that most operate in good faith, and are as open to good mental health as any other group. Some proportion, a particularly vocal portion, have weird views about lots of things.

People who think demonic possession is real (again, I am asserting tens of millsions of americans and probablly close to a billion worldwide) are operating in good faith. They actually think that stuff is real and think that locking up or torturing mentally ill people is a good solution. They honestly that actually think torturing people to remove demons is good because they believe in things like souls and think these have a role to play in medicine.

> Narrowing the context from "religion" to US Christianity certainly changes the scope of your comment.

Yes, it does, but this US centric very capitalistic place to discuss tech stuff. So I am just trying to exclude fantasy because with how much we know it can't help more than it hurts.

Was your original comment talking about ‘religious people’, or ‘American Christians who believe in demonic possession’? You seem to be shifting the subject to a favored target, rather than discussing the comment you originally replied to.

That’s the problem with HN comment threads: if you try to make a general point and use broad generalities, people will object and point out counterexamples to nit pick against those generalities. But, instead if you go into specifics, people will nit pick those specifics. You can’t win. It’s an inevitable part of arguing with software engineers who get paid to find the missing negative sign in 1M lines if code: you’re going up against pedants and nit pickers.

I understood OP’s general point as: bringing religion, particularly US Christianity, into life and death decisions is fraught due to its practitioners’ general and typical inability to separate fantasy from reality. With the disclaimer that there are always degrees and exceptions. Sure, it’s a spicy take, but I don’t think he needs to get piled on like he has in this thread.

> practitioners’ general and typical inability to separate fantasy from reality.

i don't think that is proven, nor true. simply begging the question.

to hear you debate, it's as if you believe that generally anyone in the role of chaplain, minister, priest is obviously a schizophrenic nut job (general and typical inability to separate fantasy from reality). one of these days, i hope, you will find out that there are people, of all religions, that live for nothing except to help others. why insult them?

I'm a Christian, I lived in the USA for ten years, and AFAIK I never met a single Christian who would deny that mental illness is real or who would say that locking up or torturing mentally ill people is a good thing. And I expect most of them believe that demonic possession can also happen. These are not mutually exclusive beliefs.

I feel like this may be a regional thing. If you don't live somewhere with a lot of Pentecostals this would definitely seem abnormal. I would say the majority of Pentecostals I know effectively believe that most major mental health problems are the result of demonic possession and should be treated with exorcism

Do please note that I never said all Christians. But the label Christian does include you and tens of millions of people who think that the universe is 5,000 years old and that at some point in Real History there was a talking snake and fruit that altered consciousness for the rest of all history. If you need help finding such people do a search for young Earth creationist and a note that they routinely publish best-selling books and have their own churches, their own podcasts, and their own documentaries. But most relevant to this conversation they have their own politicians and lobbyists, many of them.

So anytime you bring up your religion I can't tell which end of this gradient you're on. And it's also a gradient that you're choosing to be on and a gradient that you're choosing to bring up.

If you don't think the fantastical elements matter then don't bring them up and don't defend them. If you do think of the elements matter, then I humbly request evidence and will change my mind when you present it. If you want to discuss reality then we can do that without any religion being involved, and that is sort of what the laws of most reasonable places demand when making policy. And if you think that the Fantastical parts of religion haven't impacted law in your area than either you're a very lucky person and don't live in any country I'm aware of or you simply haven't realized how much religion has made your country worse.

Yes, I do believe in some things you would call fantastical. https://www.amazon.com.au/Resurrection-Christian-Origins-Que...

> you simply haven't realized how much religion has made your country worse.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Dominion-Christian-Revolution-Rema...

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