Religion & Insanity – The Blue Grass Blade, 4/5/1908

Religion is now held to be an antidote for insanity. Instead of being an efficient cause, it is actually declared to be a
cure, and more, a preventive. Never was a statement made more at variance with fact than one that appeared in the
Western Christian Advocate of Cincinnati, accredited to Dr. A. B. Richardson, who is reported to have considerable
experience with those mentally unsound. According to the published account, he has said, among other things: “The
good cheer, bright hopes, rich consolations, and glad songs of religion are such an antidote for the causes of insanity
that thousands of people in Ohio are preserved from insanity by them. But for religion the capacity of hospitals would
have to be doubled in order to accommodate insane patients.” If Dr. Richardson ever made such a statement, we pity
him, and still more pity the patients under his care. History an experience both give him a direct negative. So common
has the affliction become that alienists have classified “religious mania” as a disease of the mind by itself. There are
thousands of patients in the asylums of the country today suffering from this particular malady. Only a few years ago,
while on a visit to Columbus, Ohio, a personal inspection of the asylum was made. In that magnificent institution were
a large number of patients suffering from a dementia caused by religion, and so classified, while one man, confined
in the dangerous ward, carried his mania to the extreme of refusing to do any of the work of sweeping or cleaning up
the ward on the ground that he was “Jesus Christ” and did not have to work. The very language quoted indicates that
Dr. Richardson is not an impartial witness. It is easy to perceive that he is of such a decided religious temperament
that he would not admit truth upon such a subject. Fortunately, there are many people who know better, and a large
number have come to regard all phases of religious manifestations as a disease in itself—a sort of mental and moral
mania, a delirium tremens caused by superstition.

But who has heard of any “good cheer” being derived from a belief in hell? If there are any “bright hopes” in religion,
they must come from the lurid glare of hell’s incessant fire. What “rich consolations” are offered to a believing mother
when she knows, or believes, that her unbelieving son is doomed to everlasting torment? What are the “glad songs”
of religion? We have failed to find them. It is a noteworthy fact that Dr. Richardson is at variance with other leaders of
religion, for we have that in a recent debate covering the alleged punishment of the wicked between Rev. C. T. Russell
and Rev. L. S. White, representing different religious factions of the Christian church, the former, a man of years and
experience, held: “The belief that the Bible teaches hell is a place of torment has caused many persons to go insane
and is responsible for much misery.” That is our contention, and statistics prove that many persons have gone insane
because of such a belief. With all the respect due to Dr. Richardson.