JOURNALIST LAMENTS: WE ‘WON’T BE FORCING THE FAITHFUL INTO STRAIGHTJACKETS ANY TIME SOON:’

The Atlantic writer Jeffrey Tayler is annoyed at the “educated elite” in our country. Why have they not risen to the occasion and labeled passionate religious belief a mental illness?

The writer’s disappointment followed the release of an article on The News Nerd entitled “American Psychological Association to Classify Belief in God as a Mental Illness.” In the story, Psychologist Dr. Lillian Andrews had stated: “The time for evolving into a modern society and classifying these archaic beliefs as a mental disorder has been long overdue.”

Yet the article, it turned out, was a hoax.

Alas for Mr. Tayler. Indeed, the journalist had already treated religion as a mental illness before this study had seemed to confirm it. Yet, “the hour was not nigh,” he wrote sadly. “Psychologists were not yet ready to diagnose firm belief in God as what it is: an unhealthy delusion.”

It’s probably for the best that Tayler’s article ran in Salon, as the Atlantic can be extremely favorably inclined towards organized religion – if the price is right.