Stockholm Syndrome and Religion.

Pompey Magnus · 15-02-2008 2:54pm #1

As I was thinking about the "Miracles" threat yesterday I began to consider the possibility that perhaps some or most religious people might be experiencing a variation of the Stockholm Syndrome.. This is a response not only to victims of hostage taking but also explains why battered wives return to abusive husbands.

To my (non-expert) mind it seems to make sense. Considering the two parties, God and the believer, there is an unequal distribution of power. The dominant character, God, has the power of life and death over the submissive character and regularly lets them know this. God has past form in carrying out attrocities but the believer not only defends Him but praises these actions as being for the greater good. They blindly ignore the hard, cold facts of mass genocide and murder commited by God and put their own spin on things to make God look like he was doing good (eg "the men, women and children of Sodom and Gomorrah were sinners and got what was coming to them"). As was discussed in the Miracles thread they acknowledge that God can intervene in their lives but cannot see how, if true, the very idea of miracles is a display of contempt by God on his children - constantly waving a cure in front of their noses and most often taking it away. Miracles are an immoral action by God because he offers hope to the desperate when he knows that he will deny it to them.

To me the idea that religion is a variation of Stockholm Syndrome seems to fit and may be an explanation for the way believers can blank out the horrible actions and just see the good, like a wife sees only the good in her brute husband who hits her and feels that she is the one in the wrong and that he is doing it for her own good. Might I be right or am I miles off?

Dades · 15-02-2008 3:37pm

Perhaps it's a domination thing with some people. Wouldn't see it as too common a cause myself though.
Interesting Freudian slip in your first line!

interestinguser · 15-02-2008 3:39pm

I'd doubt that it's a common cause but it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

robindch · 15-02-2008 4:28pm

The idea has come up a few times before, but I don't recall that any discussion developed, or that any of our religious friends thought that the comparison was applicable (AFAIR, misinterpreting it as a sleight against god, "god's not a terrorist!"). With so many memetic thought-barriers in the way, I reckon it's probably impossible to have any useful discussion about the topic with a religious person to whom it might apply.

Anyhow, I'm with the other replies on this one -- I think it's just one of lesser-trodden paths by which religion hijacks normal human behavior to keep itself "alive" within the minds of some people, though probably not many.

Pompey Magnus · 15-02-2008 4:59pm

I just reckon that there must be something in some way similar occuring psychologically which causes a strengthening of faith in the believer when terrible things happen to them. For example when someone develops a life threatening illness and then turns to religion for comfort believing that it is all part of God's plan, he knows best and that he acts in mysterious ways.