BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Baptist Poll: Christianty and the Mentall Ill

This is very interesting because many in our church have mental illnesses. Unfortunantly, others have preconceived ideas about them. They function better than many "normal" people I know. One woman has been cured by Christ and the doctors are amazed that she is no longer bi-polar. The others are given strength to function and face many of their issues head on like social anxiety disorder. Mental illness is so much like physical illness. It can be cured by a miracle. It could also remain with us as we closer to God. And to be honest we might all be diagnosed with a mental illness when we are PMSing

Michelle, I completely agree with all the points you've made. I've known a few people faking mental illness just so they don't have to work or simply for attention, this of course then make it much more difficult for people who genuinely are very ill with a psychological illness’ to get help. Also, a lot of people do need to be given medication, if someone broke their leg, you’d give them medication – it’s exactly the same thing. The body is ill, or more precisely, the mind. People have committed suicide over getting no help and feeling so isolated by mental illness. This is a very personal subject for me as well.

I disagree with a lot ancientflaxman has written, and I find it worrying that people still believe that someone can be healed via healings like that he has described. I think these things can help, I've known them to help certain people, especially if the person being healed has complete faith in the idea. I've also known, and do know, extremely mentally ill people that can't be cured with a few prayers - because it goes much deeper than that, and science and chemistry does have to come into it. I don't see why science and Christianity can't work together? God obviously gave us science to discover these things to help our fellow man - so to ignore our own intelligence I would feel is wrong. It's like saying that you can make someone see who is blind – if any individual could be proved to do this – they would have a queue a mile long of people begging to be healed of their ailments. I feel that because mental illness can't be seen by the eye, some people don’t take it as seriously as physical problems and personally I still think there's a stigma attached by a lot of people too – which in this day and age is unacceptable. I know a lot about it - it's a terrible thing, and opinions that it can be miraculously cured infuriate me - if that were the case, where's the queue? I'll go join it with several other people I know, whose mental illnesses have ruined or at least tainted their lives immensely.

There were a few odd choices in the poll, a few I think must have been phrased wrong, but perhaps it wasn't edited correctly. I don't like the term 'mental illness' because I think it brings up other negative connotations, I prefer ‘psychological’ but that’s another point entirely.