Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on October 2, 2009 at 3:42pm

How many fundies does it take to screw in a light bulb? O.o

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Permalink Reply by Nix Manes on October 2, 2009 at 5:37pm

Christians: Christianity's biggest liability.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on October 2, 2009 at 11:32pm

You have to remember that "Crazy" is the operative word here. These people suffer from a major mental illness: schizophrenia, bi-polar illness, delusional disorder, or other psychotic disorder. These are caused by either structural or neuro-chemical problems in their brains.

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on October 5, 2009 at 9:36am

Actually; I wouldn't give the ppl who have bipolar an excuse for their behavior. I HAVE BIPOLAR and I DON'T act like that, because I take my medication LIKE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT. BIPOLAR IS HIGHLY TREATABLE WITH MEDICINE!!! Therefore, if some wacko decides not to get or take their medicine, that's THEIR FAULT!!
With someone who has a confirmed diagnosis of Bipolar, it is their responsibility to take their medication so that they can behave themselves. If they are a minor, then it is their parent's or guardian's responsibility to make them take it, if they refuse.
MENTAL ILLNESS IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR BAD BEHAVIOR!!!

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Permalink Reply by Wassabi on October 4, 2009 at 5:15pm

not all theists are crazy, and not all crazies are theists. i wonder if the most extreme fundies aren't just insane in their own right- and just happen to be christian.

while taking religion too literally is by no doubt dangerous to your health, i'm pretty sure that the most extreme fundies already had some preconditon towards insanity- and religion just triggered it with its uncompromising and intolerant nature...

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on October 4, 2009 at 6:46pm

I worked with the chronically mentally ill for 20 years, I can't remember even one schizophrenic who didn't have either a religious or supernatural component!

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Permalink Reply by Nix Manes on October 5, 2009 at 6:08pm

Your comment has me thinking of something I hadn't considered fully before (maybe not "fully" now). If everyone who is schizophrenic has some sort of religious or supernatural components weaved in, then maybe there's a clue there to something. I'm just a lay person when it comes to this stuff, but I'm playing with a thought or two I'll share...

When a person is having trouble making sense of the body's sensory input (because the input paths are faulty and/or internal manipulation of the information is skewing it), a search for answers is not abandoned. An answer might next be sought by observing others. If that doesn't satisfy, the person might then ask others for information.

If the answers offered don't provide satisfaction, the brain is forced to turn once again to itself for a resolution. This is the point that some people will begin to build a non-sensical thought structure on top of the mental and/or physical problems they had to begin with. The answers they provide themselves will fill that void, but they will likely also be unrealistic to everyone and everything else because the questions they are trying to answer are flawed to begin with.

For them, it works, at least in a limited sense in their own personal universe. But for everyone else the situation results in what we call delusion and mental illness.

There is a complex sliding scale for this kind of thing. The problem may be specific to one type of perception, or one question, which could be major or minor, and could or could not spill over into other areas, great and small. I think we all hold some thoughts as true (or probably true) that others would see as delusional.

The amount of delusion we all hold is wildly different from one another, though. Some things are very minor, others are major and pervasive. Plus, some know they're delusional in one area and can keep it to themselves, with no one else knowing anything about it. Others try to hide it but fail.

Then there are some who try to get others to see it their way as a method of confirmation that their answers are right and their questions are valid--they are not crazy if other people can see and feel what they do, even if it takes some convincing.

Religion makes its way into some people's psyche this way.

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on October 6, 2009 at 11:20am

Not all religious extremists would qualify as "mentally ill" even though most of us would prefer it otherwise, for the sake of making it easier to "label them." The difference between a lot of "religious" schizophenics and simple "irrational religious extremists" is that often a severely mentally ill person's perception/ and or religous beliefs are very far from the norm for that religion. For example, my mother was a psychology major, and for her student community work she spent some time studying patients in an institution and described to me meeting a man in the ward who seriously thought that he was Jesus Christ. To this day, I have NEVER met a non-mentally ill religious person who believes something like that. So don't make the mistake of thinking that severe irrationallity always means severe mental illness. However, it is true that MANY religious extremists ARE mentally ill in some way.

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Permalink Reply by Misty: Baytheist Living! on October 6, 2009 at 11:56am

I was recently reading something somewhere (helpful, I know) that was postulating that schizophrenia can now be traced to the prefrontal cortex. This area is what identifies 'Me' from 'you' or 'them'
When this area of the brain is damaged, it's very likely that they cannot tell that our thoughts are our own, and not projected manifestations from another source.
It was really an 'ah ha' moment for me.
If you look back through history, schizophrenics have gone from believing that the government has implanted microchips in their spines, television signals in their brains, radio receivers in their teeth ....
It follows the perfect pattern of our development of technology. After all, you can only blame the MiB for putting a radio receiver in your tooth if you know what a radio receiver is, and if one exists in common day, right?
So what did people think before microchips, before radios and before televisions?
Deities were the only outside source that couldn't be readily identified, that could be confused.....It was the only reconciliation a brain could get for when it hears itself, but something disrupts the recognizably of it being 'itself.'

This is pretty proven with our other senses as well. Folks suffering from degenerative eye diseases get very sane, very plausible scenes of hallucinations. They know the faces and shapes in front of their eyes aren't real (because they are otherwise healthy, logical people undergoing treatment from a doctor) but when the brain stops getting information from a trusted source, it makes up it's own to fill in the gaps. Same with the blind spot between your eyes. Same as the fact that most people don't even know that peripheral vision has no color. We think we see color out of the 'corner of our eye' but we don't. Our minds just put in whatever to fill in the info. (test it yourself)
Anyway, just an interesting thought. More than likely if we were to do full scale genetic tests (and have the technology to understand it) we'd find that anyone with religious inclinations are also carrying a few points of interest, too.

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