Neurosis

neurosis
n : a mental or personality disturbance not attributable to any
known neurological or organic dysfunction

You asked me:

Are you suggesting that Faith in Christ is a "universal neurosis?"

I don't believe that it is. I choose to believe otherwise.

But it is an interesting hypothesis don't you think? I wouldn't personalize it to Jesus though, imagine a professor setting an essay for University students:

"Religion is the opiate of the masses" - discuss.

The evidence for a positive viewing of this hypothesis is (to me) at least three-fold, I have found many examples of the following:

1. People have come to religion through some major life event (illness, loss of loved one (often a parent when the religious devotee was very young)). Something that causes a mental disturbance.

2. Many people say "I'm so glad I found religion otherwise my mind would be in an awful state". (And I have snippets of Bagwell-on-the-blog saying just this).

3. Some are brainwashed into believing in whatever (Allah, Koresh, Moonies and dare I say it Jesus - etc)

Do you see the connections that I am making here? Again it's a numbers game, probability and statistics. What we choose to believe is affected by probability and statistics, it is a faith thing and therefore in the "mind" camp - belief in a superbeing that is unprovable (in this life) - could it be defined as a neurotic condition?

Perhaps a better question is "Is having faith in a religion the result of some sort of neurosis?"

Also take your original question:

Are you suggesting that Faith in Christ is a "universal neurosis?"

And let's say a positive answer to this was very bad, so one scores a zero for saying "yes".

Now change your original question to:

Are you suggesting that Faith in Allah is a "universal neurosis?"

Now is a positive answer to this new question just as bad (still a score = zero for saying "yes"?)