I have heard the point argued many times by atheists that religion makes people crazy. There are countless examples of people who are religious doing crazy things, and there’s even proportionally more believers than atheists among the incarcerated when compared to the general population.
However, I find it unlikely that religion can spread mental illness. Instead, I think mentally ill people find something they can relate to in religion. What that says about religion is up to the observer, I suppose.
Case in point, Mr. Jose Mar Flores Pereira hijacked a Mexican plane yesterday. It’s significant because of why he did it. For one thing, the date was September 9th, 2009, or 9-9-9. If you flip that upside down (because crazy people have no problem making those kinds of leaps in logic), you get 6-6-6, the mark of the beast.
Since Pereira, who is also a Protestant priest, is the only one who could decipher this convoluted message from God, he does the only sensible thing. He hijacks a plane leaving Cancun, orders the pilot to circle the Mexico City airport seven times (I love this guy’s use of numerology), and demands to speak to Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon, in order to warn him.
The best part is that the President shows up! They land the plane without incident, most of the passengers don’t even know what’s going on, and they apprehend the guy without violence. They even pose him for the media:
However, I find it unlikely that religion can spread mental illness. Instead, I think mentally ill people find something they can relate to in religion. What that says about religion is up to the observer, I suppose.
Case in point, Mr. Jose Mar Flores Pereira hijacked a Mexican plane yesterday. It’s significant because of why he did it. For one thing, the date was September 9th, 2009, or 9-9-9. If you flip that upside down (because crazy people have no problem making those kinds of leaps in logic), you get 6-6-6, the mark of the beast.
Since Pereira, who is also a Protestant priest, is the only one who could decipher this convoluted message from God, he does the only sensible thing. He hijacks a plane leaving Cancun, orders the pilot to circle the Mexico City airport seven times (I love this guy’s use of numerology), and demands to speak to Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon, in order to warn him.
The best part is that the President shows up! They land the plane without incident, most of the passengers don’t even know what’s going on, and they apprehend the guy without violence. They even pose him for the media:
Now, this guy was a former drug addict and singer (I don’t know which is worse), so my guess is he was crazy before he found religion.
But wait… maybe crazy people aren’t finding religion. In fact, it stands to reason that crazy people would not collectively do something similarly because they are a diverse group who share only one thing in common: not being “normal” enough. Instead, religion seems to find crazy people.
Religion claims to serve the function of charity. However, I contend that it cannot be charity if they are doing good things with the ulterior motive of shoving their ideology up your ass.
Religion, here’s some advice: stop telling crazy people there are voices in your head who might be God. You’re only making yourselves look bad.
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