Peter, you've missed your vocation old mate. We don't need to treat the mental disorders of the mentally unwell with medieval medicine/chemicals!

Just give them a heaping helping of your pulpit pounding sermons and they'll be instantly cured!

Think of the money the taxpayer could save with this new space age medicine/alternative remedy delivered straight from the creator via you as the instrument of God!

Knowing every word you speak herefore, has a foundation of irrefutable truth!

Oh, behold the lamb who spilled his blood so we might live!

Bless you, Peter, God Loves you!

I mean, anyone who believes they need a physiologist, needs to have their head read.
Alan B.

In short, the answer is in traditions and "teaching your children well"!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wLX2jjg4kWs

The term "Individual freedom" remains ambiguous so long as the individual remains undefined.

- And so it better be:

Let those who believe in the freedom of one's senses, use this "Individual freedom" to let their senses enjoy the objects of the world as they please.

Let those who believe in the freedom of one's mind, use this "Individual freedom" to let their mind enjoy its favourite thoughts and fantasies.

And let those who long for God, for their individual souls to merge in the soul of the universe, use this "Individual freedom" to practice their religion unhindered.

The author is thus short-sighted in condemning individual freedom, which is also a requisite for religious freedom: please do not take it for granted, but be thankful to God for living in a part of the world that tends to respect individual freedom!

How about a challenge to some of the presumptions.

Anxiety and depression:

On this one, not everybody is a slave to this state of mind. I think you would be somewhat hoodwinked to believe that.
And to believe that a spiritual belief will circumvent it's ill-effects, also lacks evidence.

Anxiety and depression are states of mind NOT helped by introversion. Spiritual reflection requires a strong mind to resist the temptation to despair, as the view of which is inward.

I'm not sure that the mission of Christ was focused on the mental health benefits to his followers, for one example.

Trauma:

Living is traumatic to a greater or lesser degree. The effects of trauma on the brain are well known. They a life changing.
Humans, as the animal we are are no different in response to it, as are any other animal.
Pain and suffering are a tool of nature enabling its creations to survive in a hostile environment.
Our defence is innate. We congregate for safety.

Addictions:
Addiction is an obsessive response to a given stimulus. Life is addictive. If we are to obsess with it, we are doomed to follow "stupid" to its messy end.

Regrets:
That's obsessing with life. Move on!

Success:
Those with a sense of appreciation are in a superior position. It's called humility.
Humility is a condition which controls the ill effects of ego.
Christianity is a superior path to follow on this score. It teaches humility and a bowing down before a superior creator. A thankfulness for his recognition.
It teaches the "importance" of service to others.
Care and concern are innate human characteristics, the recognition of their importance are positives of a Christian belief, not a gift of them.

Dan

"There is no quid pro quo to faith."

I'm fairly sure The Anglican Church was created with Oliver Cromwell and King Henry the 8th;
King Henry the 8th wanted a way to get rid of his wives by beheading them so he could update to newer models.

'King Henry the 8th wanted a way to get rid of his wives by beheading them so he could update to newer models.'

probably as wicked as murdering unborn babies by the sound of it.

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Dear Peter,

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You ask :

« There is little possibility that we will revert to a time of superstition … will we suffer more from the diseases of existential dread ? Are the drug culture, our materialism and the rise of anxiety and depression symptoms of unmanageable freedom and lack of orientation? Do we need a transforming figure who will set us free from the false freedom that we have embraced ? »
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The Pew Research Centre estimated that, in 2010, 84% of the world population was religiously affiliated. I don’t think this can be interpreted as a sign that people are no longer superstitious. Quite the opposite. Much of humanity has never ceased being superstitious and, apparently, “need a transforming figure to set them free …”.

The OED defines “superstition” as :

« Excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural »

In “Of the Nature of the Gods”, Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC), considered to be a model of Classic Latin, had this to say :

« … for our ancestors, as well as the philosophers, have separated superstition from religion. They have prayed whole days and sacrificed, that their children might survive them (ut superstites essent,) were called superstitious, which word became afterwards more general; but they who diligently perused, and, as we may say, read or practised over again, all the duties relating to the worship of the Gods, were called religiosi, religious, from relegendo “reading over again, or practising;” as elegantes, elegant, ex eligendo, “from choosing, making a good choice;” diligentes, diligent, ex diligendo, “from attending on what we love;” intelligentes, intelligent, from understanding, for the signification is derived in the same manner. Thus are the words superstitious and religious understood; the one being a term of reproach, the other of commendation. » [The treatises of M.T. Cicero On the nature of the gods, …/literally translated … by C.D. Yonge. (Bohn’s classical library) 1853, book 2, section 28, page 71].

Religion also has the characteristics of a drug : a little stimulates; too much enslaves; an overdose dehumanises.

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