This is where I have a problem. There are no "healthy" versus "unhealthy" belief patterns. There are unhealthy beliefs, like the belief in justified murder, but you seem to be going beyond that.
I am being specific to patterns of thought, yes. Certainly things such as patterns of violence, for instance are different than simply an act of violence in and of itself. What I see fundamentalism as is much more a thought pattern or mode of thinking, than simply a single belief.
You mention that a belief pattern is unhealthy if it leads to black and white thinking and the belief that one has the truth and all others are wrong, you seem to be describing fundamentalism as deep passion and unshaking belief in one's ideas.
Not quite. First, I didn't intend to convey I believe that fundamentalism leads to black and white thinking and intolerance. It's really black and white thinking which creates fundamentalism itself and makes it attractive to those who have that mode of thinking already. Fundamentalist systems of belief simply
reinforce that pattern, not create it out of nothing. I think what best defines fundamentalism is that it keeps someone locked into bad patterns, rather than helping them to grow. It reinforces negative things which work against the individual.
As far as "passion", I hardly equate that with black and white thinking. I can be and am deeply passionate about the things I believe in, however I am also quite open and receptive to challenges. I grow though them. I consider myself a passionate explorer of ideas and understandings to expand myself with. The fundamentalist on the other hand is the exact opposite. They are closed into their beliefs, locked on them, and resist any and all challenges to them. They become irrational in defensive of their beliefs, as their beliefs are the very footing upon which they stand. It's all they have, and what you may mistake as "passion" in their "zeal" for their beliefs, I see as the opposite. I see their "passion" as sheer
fear and terror on their part they may be wrong. I see it as desperation. They need to be right, and hence why everyone else with a different perspective than their own must be demonized or destroyed. There's a radical difference between the two. The former is healthy, the latter is not.
This is something that simply cannot be treated as a mental illness. Passion that strong occurs not only in religion, but in politics, philosophy, and even in feminism, environmentalism, and in animal and human rights movements.
Again, there is a difference between being passionate about something one believes in, and being irrational and fanatical. The latter is a sickness, not healthy passion. It's like saying someone who has has OCD is just passionate. It's actually not passion at that point, but an illness. A healthy passion leads to one expanding one's self into others. An illness feeds upon itself and others. Fundamentalism is like vampirism. It feeds off others to feed itself. And it's like cancer in that it feeds off the host itself. It kills.
Unless someone's beliefs are showing true harm to themselves or others (god told me to kill/kill myself!), which is caused by a separate mental illness anyway, there is no reason to even consider a person's belief system to be a mental illness and treating it as such just begs for the beginning of the end of free thought.
Again, I never, ever said a belief system is a mental illness. I said how someone holds those beliefs is. Fundamentalism takes otherwise healthy beliefs and turns them into poison, both for the person holding them and those around them.
Nothing good comes from it. Therefore, it's an illness.
