A Religious "Overdose"

(This article is previously published in Indonesian on 7/3/2005)

Fulan was an employee at a government office who had graduated from a state university. Several months ago, he was dismissed as he had become engaged in disputes about religion with his colleagues too often.

The problem started when Fulan became overly involved in religious activities. In his ever growing fantasy, he came to present himself as the only pious Muslim at work (salafush shâleh) and as the only person there who had a ticket to heaven.

Though his colleagues and his wife were disturbed by Fulan’s mental turmoil, he himself did not regret losing his job or his mental changes. He still persisted in his beliefs and interpreted such trials as the result of his struggle. Although his wife and children suffered the consequences, to him it did not matter. When his wife began to complain that Fulan’s behavior was becoming more and more authoritarian and violent, he ignored her, frequently leaving his home and neglecting his responsibility to take care of the household expenses.

It is hard to find adequate language to explain what happened to Fulan though an understanding of the psychology of religion may help. Religion according to psychologists can be the source of many problems ranging from mental disease to orthodoxy, dogmatism, racial presumption, and violence. In fact, a dogmatic, orthodox and overly pious religious perception correlates significantly with emotional disorder. On the contrary, as Jalaluddin Rahmat writes in Psikologi Agama, mentally stable people tend to be lenient, open-minded, tolerant, and open to change. In contrast, religious persons tend to be rigid, introverted, intolerant, and incapable of change.

In the above view, psychologists have an extreme and negative perception of religion. However, this framework is still relevant for explaining Fulan’s condition which is common among religious zealots. Using medical terminology, we can understand Fulan’s experience in terms of it being an illness from an overdose of religion which caused an extreme change in his religious perspective, attitude and behavior. In his case, religion which should have been a form of medicine (syifa) but it became a poison instead because of over-dosing. This incident became a topic of discussion during Liberal Islamic Network’s fourth anniversary.

The problem is that such religious overdoses can become social epidemics and culminate in international tragedies as Ioanes Rakhmat pointed out for the case of Christian Zionism. Rakhmat believes that the Christian Zionist Movement is suffering from a religious overdose since they have used religion as a reason for war and sponsored hatred for other religions and races. Taking a different approach, Lies Marcoes, another speaker in the discussion, asserted that an overdose of religion – just as is the case with drugs - will eventually destroy the victim’s mind.

Indeed, it is because of these destructive effects of being overly pious that religious treatises have long warned adepts to beware of overdosing on religion. Thus it is that in Islam, the Qur’an and Hadits warn disciples not to exaggerate their religiosity: lâ taghlû fî dînikum.

[Novriantoni]