According to experts in psychology and medicine a person can become addicted to religion. Notice near the end of the article "If three or more symptoms of religious addiction have your name on them, then perhaps it’s time to begin a re-evaluation of the beliefs you hold dear."
If any of the standard criteria about addictions was applied to religion, a significant number of people may be considered addicted to their religion or belief system. Addictive personalities (which include impulsive, compulsive, and excessive tendencies) often substitute one addiction for another. In an attempt to stop drinking, they become obsessed with or addicted to religion or “The Twelve Steps� program. The question often becomes: Which addiction contributes to the least dysfunction of self, family and co-workers?
Not all addictions are negative or dysfunctional. Positive addictions enhance one’s productivity and contribute to one’s overall well-being. However, when a person’s belief system or religion contributes to a dysfunctional/unmanageable life, then it’s time for re-evaluation. From a wellness perspective each individual needs to take personal responsibility for assessing whether his/her religion (or belief system) is healthy or unhealthy, enhancing or dysfunctional. The hallmark of a well person is a belief system that has become an “at-one-ness� (functionally integrated) with how they conduct their day-to-day life. By contrast, others exhibit several of the symptoms of religious addiction.
Symptoms of Religious Addiction*
*Inability to doubt, think, or question information or authority. This is the primary symptom of any dysfunctional or unhealthy belief system. “Prize the doubt-low kinds exist without.� When you lose your ability to doubt and question, you have lost your God-given right to be human and can be easily led astray like sheep going over the edge of a cliff. Question authority. It’s healthy.
*Avoidance of personal responsibility. When you allow others to think for you and tell you what to do, you have given up another basic principle of being fully human and fully active.
*Black and white, right or wrong, simplistic thinking. This type of thinking makes life “easier.� You don’t need to wrestle with alternatives to complex situations. Life, however, presents many gray areas. Unfortunately, those who are trapped in the mindless mold of simplistic thinking are often at the mercy of anyone who presents black and white answers.
*Obsessive adherence to rules, regulations, routines, rituals; scrupulosity. Often these rituals perpetuate a lifestyle of non-thought. They tend to use thought-terminating clichés and rote responses.
*Bibliolatry – a worship of spiritual texts often to the point of manipulation or distortion. The focus is on the absoluteness of the spiritual writing – as documentation for their “right-ness.� “I didn’t say it – God did – and that finishes that!� Attitude. Appropriately they fit the definition of a religious fanatic: One who won’t change his/her mind – and won’t change the subject.
*Unwillingness to accept ideas that may present conflicts or challenges to beliefs.
*Miraculous (magical) thinking that God will make it right (or fix the problem) … if I just pray hard enough or donate more money, or …Rather than work toward a reasonable solution, they would rather live in the fantasy that God will always come through by finding them a parking spot, curing the cancer that resulted from excessive smoking, or ‘fixing’ an abusive spouse.
*Unrealistic financial contributions. Guilt-giving can go far beyond tithing (returning the first one-tenth of our resources to our Creator). Some see giving beyond the tithe a refusal to accept God’s blessings. But the televangelist chides you, as he holds up his arm with the $8,000 Rolex watch: “You’re not giving to me; you’re giving to God.�
*Progressive detachment from the “real� world. The belief that one is “in� the world but not “of� it gets reversed to no longer being in the real world. Private religious schooling is frequently used to extend the control and minimize influence from the “outside� world.
*Rejection of individuals on the basis of differing beliefs, gender, race, and performance of rituals. Religion is “man�-made. Women are unequal in the eyes of most man-made religions. Women are valued and respected as long as they know their place and do not assert themselves into visible leadership roles or violate the long-standing ‘rules.’ In some addictive religions it almost seems as if men gain a perverse pleasure in maintaining the submission-tradition of gender abuse. Why are the great teachings – “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free� – not applied here? Perhaps power, control, and superiority are the real issues in this addiction.
*Inability to laugh at religious (or sexual) humor. Allowing yourself to laugh about a topic implies immunity to that topic. Religious addicts are too committed to ‘lighten-up.’
*Believing that physical pleasure is evil and that sex is dirty. Religious leaders who created the concept of original sin tied it up with the act of sexual intercourse. They almost made it seem that, when God sanctioned the act of sexual union, He rather regretted it.
If three or more symptoms of religious addiction have your name on them, then perhaps it’s time to begin a re-evaluation of the beliefs you hold dear.
Healthy spirituality enlightens the mind by broadening the vision; it changes the heart for the better – to be more courageous and prudent – and transforms the will to be genuinely loving. On the other hand, unhealthy religiosity darkens the mind by narrowing the vision, hardens the heart with fear and foolhardiness, and transforms (individuals) to be selfish and hateful in general or at least towards people with a different belief system.
- N. S. Xavier, M.D. The Two Faces of Religion: A Psychiatrist’s View, 1987.
*Adapted from: Father Leo Booth. WHEN GOD BECOMES A DRUG: Breaking the Chains of Religious Addiction and Abuse. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1991.
Copyright, 1991 and 2006. “The Wellness Corner� is an on-going column by Dr. Jack D. Osman of the Health Science Department at Towson University.
http://pages.towson.edu/osman/wellness% ... ICTION.htm
Questions for debate:
Can a person actually become addicted to religion?
Is there a difference between being obsessed with religion and being addicted to religion?
How prominent do these conditions appear to be?
