Is there a link between mental/emotional illness and/or drug addiction and religious extremism?

Question

I was thinking of american extreme right-wing conservative evangelical Christian religions. We can deal with the Muslim zealots some other time.

Answer 1

The congenital disorders of depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder all make people more likely to become addicted to drugs. There is a weak positive correlation between religious extremism and schizophrenia, and there is a weak negative correlation between religious extremisim and depression, anxiety, and OCD. Therefore, religious fanatics may be slightly LESS prone to drug addiction. Religious extremists are generally not mentally ill. If the religious extremists WERE mentally ill and/or prone to drug addiction, then they would not pose much of a threat, meaning that no action need be taken against them. What better way to perpetuate a problem than to belittle it?

As for the response below, there is no such thing, psychologically, as a 'spiritual breakdown', at least not among people that are not spiritual to begin with.

Answer 2

People have breakdowns all the time, both mental and physical. But the body has an uncanny way of bouncing back when it needs to heal itself. But a spiritual breakdown is different. It's the end of the line for many breakdowns. It's you against your maker, your demon. It's a scary place to be and their is only two ways out. Door one leads to a movie of a funeral. Your family is crying because they couldn't see the signs. In your confusion it dawns on you that the funeral is your own. The other door leads to a spirit. Any spirit. At that point in your life you will either drive a nail through your coffin or snag the arm of the first spirit that shows up in your Khalua and Coffee at 5:30am in the morning.
Any spirit. For some it's God, for others it's Galliano, for some it's hiking, for others it's heroin. When you're at the bottom of the barrel you'll do anything not to wind up under that barrel. So if anyone ever asks you this question you just asked us, feel comfortable knowing that you didn't have to go through it to get the answer.

I hope this answer just changed a life. Peace.

...and hey idiot up there, I'm sorry, you're right. Next time I'll use clever medical terms that manage to do only one thing and one thing only, to make you feel all worldly and knowledgable because you have a flimsy grasp on some words the would really help alot more only if they didn't exist. That would make you feel better, why would I want to do that? Get real.

Answer 3

I have come to believe the Mental illness "obsessive/compulsive disorder" is most definately linked to drug addiction and religious extremism.In the latter its much easier to mask the mental illness because it looks better if we are "very religious" and can fool a lot of people by throwing up a smokescreen of religion to hide our OCD

Answer 4

their blind loyalty may be cause for concern and it may seem that they are all mentally ill.....mmmm theyre just probably ADDICTED to their religion because it gives them satisfaction...but being extreme about religion can borderline insanity.....mmm..oh heck lets just call them all crazy!

Answer 5

yes