Religion
In reply to the discussion: Religious Belief = Mental Illness: A More Venomous Response [View all]Brettongarcia
(2,262 posts)Should I call him and tell him that you think he is an inconsequential crank?
What is the author saying? His abstract specifically cited Freud as saying that all of religion is delusional. The writing is also consistent with suggesting all religion, or whole religions, are bad.
I've not only read liberal theologians; I've met and spoken with at least one of those you mention (Borg). And many more current ones.
It's a common delusion among liberal believers that liberal theology is much, much more defensible than Fundamentalists'; but its not. See our referenced literature above: where yet another article suggests that even liberal "spiritual" religion does not help us much; and can even make things worse.
Why do liberals miss the critical side of much of the relevant literature? The problem I have come to see, is that many believers don't really appreciate some of the nuances of language, especially in theology. Religion is often highly controversial; say the wrong thing and you can be killed as a heretic in many eras and places; for that reason, religious writers often speak in a very veiled, equivocal way. Even the language of the Bible is "poetic," or equivocal.
In particular, believers should learn to notice that there is often a critical sub-text in writing by and about religion.
That might be why you apparently missed the full import of that side, of our present author's abstract.Believers often tune this out. The problem is simply, Denial. Believers have been trained all their lives to absolutely believe and trust and follow their religion. Whenever there are any signs of false things in their belief? They go into denial.
Leon Festinger - a famous psychologist - rightly noted that when cult believers' prophesies did not come true, they responded with rationalizations and so forth. I suppose that's a variation on Denial.