Faith and Madness

"We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no
rational justification.  When their beliefs are extremely common we call
them 'religious'; otherwise, they are likely to be called 'mad,'
'psychotic,' or delusional.'  Most people of faith are perfectly sane, of
course, even those who commit atrocities on account of their beliefs.  But
what is the difference between a man who believes that God will reward him
with seventy-two virgins if he kills a score of Jewish teenagers, and one
who believes that creatures from Alpha Centauri are beaming him messages of
world peace through his hair dryer?  There is a difference, to be sure, but
it is not one that places religious faith in a flattering light.

"It takes a certain kind of person to believe what no one else
believes.  To be ruled by ideas for which you have no evidence (and which
therefore cannot be justified in conversation with other human beings) is
generally a sign that something is seriously wrong with your
mind.  Clearly, there is sanity in numbers.  And yet, it is merely an
accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe
that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is
demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with
you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window.  And so,
while religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely
are.  This is not surprising, since most religions have merely canonized a
few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down to
us as though they were primordial truths.  This leaves billions of us
believing what no sane person could believe on his own.   In fact, it is
difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness
than those that lie at the hear of many of our religious traditions."

Sam Harris, The end of faith: religion, terror, and the future of reason,
2004.  W W Norton, New York, p 72.

People Who experience mood swings, fear,
voices and visions: each other on the internet
www.peoplewho.org