As an athiest I am going to say that hell only 'exists' to put the fear of god into believers, in the hope that people will lead good lives just to avoid it and to earn their shiny halo at the end. God forgives because once someone has sinned once and earnt their eternity in hell, there is no point in turning back to god, and so the sinner might aswell carry on murdering, stealing etc. If god forgives sinners then they have the chance to repent and go back to leading the lives that the church wishes them to live, thus once again earning their fluffy cloud in heaven. To me it's like saying 'be good and go to heaven, or oh dear you've been naughty, but if you behave yourself from now on you wont have to be sent to the firey pits of hell'
I hope I don't offend anyone, it's just my beliefs.
To the second question, as Multi-Snarf has said, there are many causes for psychiatric illness, some are genetic, some occur because of previous psychological trauma. From a biological point of view there is alot to do with chemicals in the brain which are usually carefully balanced, in the case of some psychological and neurological illnesses, these chemicals can become imbalanced or not work in the ways that they should, which will affect the way the brain works and the way you think. (I'm sure I could have explained that alot better but my head is frazzled with biology today)
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