Could old religions have started with a schizophrenia persons?

I've often wondered if ancient religions, and even those in the modern world, are started by people suffering from schizophrenia?

I read that book in the 1970s and was fascinated by his theory of a bicameral brain. Voices in two sides of the brain speaking to each other. I've often wondered if schizophrenia people have a recessed gene from the age of bicameral brains that has reappeared in them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29

I've often wondered if ancient religions, and even those in the modern world, are started by people suffering from schizophrenia?

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

I've often wondered if ancient religions, and even those in the modern world, are started by people suffering from schizophrenia?

I doubt it.

I think the core influence which results in religious thought (especially in primitive cultures) is the natural tendency of the human mind to anthropomorphize. When the human mind applies human intent and motivation to aspects of the natural world, supernatural beings result almost automatically. Once these ideas are formed, cultures amplify them through other natural human behaviors (like embellished stories and other motivations designed to give power to the individual telling the stories).

People with schizophrenia (and other unusual behaviors) may have reinforced some people's belief simply by providing a fertile ground for people pre-conceived notions to grow, but I don't think schizophrenia is the root cause.

The ideas on Bicameral thought are interesting, but purely speculative. I don't see how anyone could come up with any evidence to support the idea that human thought originated in that form. But we'll probably never know for sure.

There are several routes this answer could go.

1 Yes
2 No
3 Jesus was the son of God or he was the first sufferer of Theomania
4 Mohamed might have been using a hallucinagen or maybe the cave echoed
5 Joseph Smith was an inland pirate and Moroni was a guy with a map
6 L. Ron Hubbard was playing a practical joke on Hollywood
7 Some or all of them had some sort or real divine experience.

I like to think its the latter. Humans have a need for the divine, and if they cannot find it they sublimate something that isn't divine. The status of something is always elevated in a person's life. It is the core of the existential crisis. What will be divine (or carry the symbolic weight of the divine) in my life. So it makes no real difference if the people who started a religion were crazy or even flat out manipulative charlatans, the results fill a divine void in the hearts and minds of millions, so why denigrate progenitors of such religions, it does no good.

P.S. not trying to imply that you are trashing religious figures specifically.

What this means is that if God wanted to speak to someone today, he should call on a phone, so the recipient of God's message could put the phone on "speaker," so other people could hear the message. Otherwise, people today would say the person was just hearing voices.

A refinement could be that the recipient would first hear a recording, "To hear God in English, push #1."

I think you are wrong... First of all, the precursors of religion are animism and naturalism, last first, I guess....

Fido wrote:

I think you are wrong... First of all, the precursors of religion are animism and naturalism, last first, I guess....

Animism is an obvious result of anthropomorphic expression. As such, it is not a root cause. Naturalism is a philosophy and has a completely different definition.

Anthropomorphism is a predictable and reasonable reaction by the human brain to offer itself possible explanations whenever presented with an unknown. As such, it is very close to instinctual. This doesn't mean however that it can't be overridden by recognizing what is happening.

I sort of expect you are wrong...

I've often wondered if ancient religions, and even those in the modern world, are started by people suffering from schizophrenia? Early people lacked the knowledge in health and science and could be convinced that some people were seeing and hearing things that other did not. They were convinced that the unrealized mentally ill people's behaviors were attributed to gods and profits.

Through the centuries, people continued to believe the old stories. Clever, not-schizophrenia people, began to take advantage of the believers to give them wealth and power over them. Such manipulation is rampant throughout the world, especially in the United States and it's bible belt. We've seen tragic evidence of this manipulation over and over again.

More about schizophrenia:

http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/schizophrenia/sch_symptoms.html