Psychosis and Christianity

No, this isn't yet another blog post calling Christians delusional. This is a blog post calling Christians out for their pathological denial of reality of mental illness.

Sure, Christianity as a whole has come around to the realization that many women burned as 'witches' were in fact mentally ill. They also realize that when someone says they heard the voice of God telling them to murder someone that the person is psychotic. Most of them believe L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith were crackers.

And yet they believe Moses really did see a burning bush and hear God's words through his external senses, not through some kind of seizure, migraine, or hallucination (assuming he existed at all). They believe the dream "science" of the Old Testament was legitimate. They believe Noah really did receive instructions from God on how to build a boat. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus was the act of a real supernatural entity affecting the mind of a sane person in a miraculous way. Mary really did hear God telling her to do the nasty with him and she'd have a holy child. Abraham's god really did speak to him out loud telling him to kill his own child.

Some of my Facebook friends are on the political and religious right. Since the shooting of Rep. Giffords et. al. turned out to be the work of someone with a 31-bullet clip of ammo and a high powered handgun, they are denying that mental illness affected behavior even in that case. No, we shouldn't restrict access to this kind of weapon for everyone -- people need to take responsibility for themselves -- guns don't kill people, people do, etc. They are completely oblivious to the reality that mental illness in society virtually guarantees that there will be people who can't take responsibility for themselves, or who will act on "voices" or ideas as strongly heard or felt as those heard and felt by Biblical figures. They also make the assumption that nobody who is "good" could be driven to do something like that. (That's why you can put crosshairs on maps and let any schmoe have a high powered weapon)

If you want to say that Moses, Abraham, Mary and Paul all had legitimate mental experiences, you are naturally prone to think that you can put guns into the hands of any random citizen because god would never tell someone to shoot at dozens of people within 10 seconds.

But there have been many cases of parents killing their children because they believed them to be possessed, or that God told them to do it. Where are these right-wingers when this happens? Why aren't they posting to Facebook how God must have known that those kids were no good, and that the world is better off without them? Why do those parents go to jail or the nut ward instead of being feted on the 700 Club and FOX News?

You just can't have it both ways. Either mental illness is real, and the Biblical stories of revelations, dreams, and voices were bronze-age explanations for what we now understand, or there is no mental illness and Hinckley, Manson, Loughren and baby-killers are God's warriors.

This supposedly unchanging God, stopped speaking to people and giving clear signs. Instead, he tells sane people to do what they wanted to do all along, and tells crazy people to do crazy things.

Shouldn't a God that speaks to people 1) be a little clearer 2) speak to psychotics and sane people the same way and 3) tell psychotics to take their medication?

When Judge Roll was in Mass minutes before his murder, why didn't God tell him to hang out with the priest for 20 minutes before going to the Giffords' event? Why didn't God tell the mother of the little girl to change her mind about letting her go? Or even better, why didn't God give the little girl a case of food poisoning and put her in bed for the day?

The inevitable answer to the question of God speaking to people is: It's all in the mind. It always was. It always is. It always shall be. There is no revelation, no divine intervention, no answer to prayer from any supernatural source.

Loughren's mental illness follows the course that many first psychotic breaks do: they begin gradually, become more and more overwhelming, psychosis takes the form of whatever the person's interests are, and the resultant personality change reflects their culture, personality, background, and the nature of their psychosis.

Ditto for Abraham, Noah, Moses, Joseph, Mary, Jesus, John, Paul, all the psychotics who made up these stories, and all the psychotics who see "visions" or "hear God's voice" today.

Because our culture puts tremendous pressure on people to believe the dominant belief system, I don't think it's delusional to go along with it. Most of us are force-fed this crap diet without having any say in the matter.

But adults, please, think about it. If someone were to come down from Mt. McKinley today and say they'd seen a burning bush and they had ten rules from God for you to live by, would you believe it?

No, you wouldn't.

That's reason enough not to believe it really happened and really was God 5,000 or so years ago. Grow up and have compassion for the mentally ill instead of worshipping them.

BE NOISY! Because Christians are hard to get through to

ugh ugh ugh ugh:

http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/01/11/are-some-atheists-more-%E2%80%98religious%E2%80%99-than-they-realize/

So... it's not okay to criticize outspoken religionists, but it's okay to criticize outspoken atheists.

If I don't post for awhile it's because I've injured myself pounding my head on my keyboard.

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How Much does an Atheist Need to Know about Christianity?

In the United States, a.k.a. God's Country, if you're not a Christian, you best be sumthin' else or else.... They can relate to their kissing cousins in other religions, and on the whole don't really question others' "choice" of religion. But if you're an atheist, expect to be challenged.

First, there's the atheism catechism. Christians assume that all religions ask and answer the same questions, so they believe an atheist must have asked and answered them too. "Where do you go when you die?" "If there's no rules there's mayhem, so what keeps you from killing and stealing?" "So you think you're God?"

Next, there's the no true atheist fallacy. You just don't "know Christ" well enough, or in the right way, or you haven't tried enough, or you're in denial. When you're in that foxhole, atheist, you're going to beg God to forgive your sins and let you into heaven.... but you better do it fast because unlike us Catholics who clean up our sins weekly, or us Baptists who got one good scrubbing, you have a lot of truth-telling to do! When that final minute comes, you'll change your tune!

Then there's the "angry-at-God" fallacy. They get angry at God all the time. It's a constant challenge for them to handle the many many unanswered prayers and acknowledge God's seeming indifference. They pray for everyone who gets sick, and not all of them get well. WTF? Hey how come Mr. Jerkface down the street wins the lottery and my house gets struck by lightning? Why does my chain-smoking father-in-law cling to life at 90 but my 3-month-old baby gets meningitis and dies? Yep, if there were a God, there would certainly be reason to be pissed at him. Luck is a much more fickle God than even the asshole god who lets babies die (so their pastor tells them). So atheists couldn't possibly intentionally place more "faith" in luck! You'll get over your anger as soon as someone you love goes into remission or you get a promotion, they assure us.

The funniest ones are the professional theologians. I gave up dialoging with one when he switched platforms but it was fun to watch the mental gyrations it takes for someone who's actually read the bible and studied its sources to keep up a belief in it. It's rather too easy to make them angry, too. They've faced their doubts, the bible's errors, the political history of their religion, and all the philosophical conundrums their belief system creates, and they've stared them down. In a metaphysical game of chicken, they're way out ahead of the rest of us. They'll toy with us unbelievers until they get frustrated by our lack of education, then finish us off with the ad hom that we just don't know what we're talking about so we're not justified being atheists.

I always interpret this as a win on my part, of course. If I ask why Jesus has two genealogies if 1) the bible is inerrant and 2) the gospels are historical and 3) he wasn't a descendent of Joseph... apparently I'm showing my ignorance. *snicker*

Today I was talking with a co-worker about the church I went to when I was still trying to believe. The sermons were very psychologically oriented, which made it worth the trip, but I knew the whole time I went that I didn't believe most of what I was mouthing on Sunday mornings. After this discussion I remembered part deux of that experience: Bible study.

I went to Bible Study because I thought that if I just understood the Bible better, I would come to believe that all that stuff was true and then I'd be a real Christian. Alas, I asked the wrong questions in Bible Study too. The one I remember best is when I defended Pontius Pilate. It went something like this: If Jesus was destined from the beginning to be sacrificed, then Pilate must have been part of the plan, so Pilate was really carrying out God's will. Besides, under the circumstances, Pilate didn't have a lot of choices.

That didn't go over too well.

So... how much do you have to know? Do you have to know more than the theologian with a Ph.D.? more than a pastor with a seminary degree? More than your Sunday School or Bible Study teacher?

Shhhhh don't tell Christians, but if you don't believe the fairy tales in the first place the more you learn the more ridiculous Christianity seems.

One of the top apologists for Christianity is, in my opinion, on the ropes. He claims that belief in God is "properly basic," which means that none of the arguments against Christianity and God mean squat if you believe what you believe. ...I think. Sadly, I've never put my head so far up my arse as to be able to type in philosobabble, so I'll let William Lane Craig mumble for himself:




Yes, he really is as stupid as he seems:

Correlation or Causation?

The attack on Rep. Giffords brought many thoughts to mind, including the issue of women in politics. In the 1970s, when I was learning what my limitations would be in this world as a female, women were just starting to get a toehold in the big wide world outside of the kitchen. Women like Bella Abzug led the way, proving that it's okay to be ugly and smart as long as you're Jewish. (ditto, Joan Rivers, one of my heroes). You could have a public career if you were a female Christian, but it had to be something girly, like writing cookbooks or advice columns. Then of course Phyllis Schafley came along and made a living saying that women shouldn't work for a living. She's the one who really convinced me I didn't have to buy that Christian bullshit about women being Less-Than.

So... anyway... an asshole schizo male shoots a smart, successful female politician and I had to wonder... how many women are out there with targets on their backs? I found a MAP! And looky! Coincidentally, there are more women in state legislatures in "blue" states than in the red stripe up the middle. My current unfortunate geographic choice has about 20% females among the elected officials.

Correlation, causation, or coincidence?

The Power of Prayer?

People are praying for Representative Giffords, which is very nice of them. Meaningless but nice. She's in a medically-induced coma so she doesn't know they're praying. If she knew they were praying for her she might have a somewhat better outcome, but she doesn't so they're wasting their time.


Or are they?



They are the ones reaping any benefit. We all want to be able to help people in need, and that's a good thing. It's frustrating when there's nothing we can do, so prayer offers us that salve to our conscience.

By "us" I mean "they" of course.

Christians have claimed that any neuroscience that explains prayer or belief shows that God intended humans to be believers and made the brain that way. A better explanation is that evolution resulted in a species that survived by cooperation and community. The instinct to intervene when disaster happens, to care for the injured and sick, and to pull together in a crisis is an evolutionary advantage for us humans. We don't all have to be that way for the species to have arrived at our current state, but enough of us are for us to have survived well enough to populate the planet.

So it's only natural that when we can't help in a tangible way, our frustration is difficult to tolerate. Turning to a supernatural entity seems like the only resort. Then when the outcome is positive we credit the supernatural entity, which makes us even more likely to pray in the future.

A reporter asked one of the doctors who worked on Rep. Giffords about what he thought was the reason for her relatively good outcome so far. He ran down a list of all the people who helped her starting from the first moment after her injury, to the surgical staff. Then he added "And luck" for having a survivable wound.

He didn't credit any sky-daddy at all! I bet the reporters in the room heaved a disappointed sigh. TV news loves to report and repeat instances where God gets the credit for good news.

But then there's Judge Roll, who was killed ... right after praying at Mass... because he was "in the wrong place at the wrong time." He had been threatened in the past, and he wasn't the target when he was killed. His demise was an unfortunate instance of bad luck. Likewise, the other victims.

Any time there is a disaster in which there are both fatalities and survivors, the fallacy of counting only the "hits," or confirming instances, rears its head. This time the news that I've seen seems to be holding back on that, though survivors haven't been interviewed yet. I'm encouraged to hear "luck" mentioned. The people who died and the people who lived were both the target of random chance, dependent on the shooter's will and skill, not any sky-daddy's intervention.

We don't like luck. It evens the playing field, and we all want an advantage. But acknowledging the role of luck or chance and learning to cope with the frustration of not being able to influence it is part of growing up.

Deconversion is more than just deciding that certain beliefs are bogus. It's also a gradual process of learning to deal with frustrations such as this. Prayer won't help Rep. Giffords. She doesn't need our blood donation. Her doctors and family are caring for her. We're just bystanders watching the TV news. We can't do anything for her, though we would if we could.

Despite all Christian hoopla to the contrary, most people are nice to other people. Most people would help a person in need if possible. Most of us want to see the rest of us survive and prosper. And that includes atheists.

Science changes its mind again! oh noes!

This week we have another example of science being self-correcting. Andrew Wakefield's "data" blaming vaccination for autism turns out to have been fraudulent. The motive? He was paid by a legal team that planned use the data in lawsuits. How many thousands of children were denied a much-needed vaccine because their parents believed this study?

Of course there was controversy before and after this study. It wasn't "the last word" but it was cited by the anti-vaccination pseudo-science camp, because they needed some "reliable" data to back up their claims. Most responsible doctors and scientists didn't pay much attention to it because there was so much evidence on the other side. But the "believers" loved the bad news. Even if other scientists came up with different results, they had their guy and their study to point to. Most of the sheeple in the anti-vaccination movement won't look for contrary data, but even if they did, the leaders of this "religion" had a fall-back position of "If the experts disagree, then wouldn't it be better to err on the safe side?" It's a medical version of Pascal's wager.

Authority is the main issue dividing believers from skeptics/non-believers, in my opinion. Believers don't just trust their authority figures. They trust that authority itself means "unchanging," and so they won't admit contrary information even if it comes from "trustworthy" sources. This is true of religious people, New Agers, and conspiracy theorists alike. And they will cling to their authority figure even if dozens of authority figures argue contrary positions and back them up with good data.

Fortunately for the world's children, epidemiologists and pediatricians are scientists. They trust the process rather than authority. They know that "information" can change, and the good ones will keep up with the latest research in order to make the best decisions. We everyday non-scientists have put our trust in them though, so they become authority figures for us.

And we don't like change. We want what we learned in middle school science to stay the same. Absorbing new information is exhausting. There's so much of it, and even if we could find it and understand it, how do we know what is "right" when "even the experts disagree?" Medical "journalists" love reporting on the shifting sands of research. They are just as guilty as Wakefield, perhaps more.

We have to trust the judgment experts. And think of how many we trust! We may need a doctor, lawyer, auto mechanic, dentist, veterinarian, exterminator, elevator inspector, 747 pilot, etc. We can't possibly learn what we might need to know about all those fields. Heck, they can't know it all either. Good ones have a network of colleagues to confer with, and there are researchers behind all the people we meet who have been putting together the data to arrive at the conclusions that they pass along in their services.


The scientists behind our technological culture are supposed to be following a code of ethics, but even if they aren't, science will correct the lies because that's what science does. The stance of researchers could be summed up as "Trust but verify." They know that results can be ambiguous, accidental, erroneous or fabricated. The first scientist puts out the preliminary results and accompanying theory, then others set about testing whether the results were valid. So what happened this week is exactly what's supposed to happen: after repeated testing without replication of results, the original study is discredited. The motives of the original researcher really don't matter. Wrong is wrong. Science moves on.

Religion is the opposite. God is the ultimate authority, not data. The people who become the "authorities" on God have hallucinations (like Moses) or suffered a psychotic break (like Paul), or have simply read enough and thought enough about the subject to be smarter than the average person. Priests, pastors, rabbis, imams... they are the auto mechanics of the soul. They study the manual and work things out so you don't have to.

Christians are in a funny bind that way. They accept the authority of Moses, but not of Muhammed. They trust their pastor/minister/priest to discern the truth of the Bible but not an outsider. They even cling to the King James Bible because it has that ring of authority that only outdated grammar can achieve.

New evidence from archaeology, astronomy, biology, and psychology falls on deaf ears amongst a huge segment of Christians (and some other religionists too). They cling to discredited "facts" because to question any of them would be to question their authority figures, right up the chain to God. They also don't want to modify their beliefs because they never put much thought into them in the first place. If they question one tenet that they had blindly accepted as children, then how many others could be up for debate? Religion was taught to them in stories and songs, not in academic journals. They just had to learn the basic points and memorize some words, and they were all set. And deep down they worry that they are living in a house of cards.

Andrew Wakefield's license has been revoked, but I predict his believers won't be deterred. Just like Christians, Jews, Christian Scientists, New Agers, and all the rest, they will continue to point to his "research" as "proof" in shoddy books and websites, and ignore the overwhelming research that contradicts it.

ahhh I can already hear the voice of the Christian internet troll "But you atheists have made up your minds and you won't be convinced no matter what proof is offered!"

• Reminder #1: Most of us were brought up as believers, just as you were
• Reminder #2: Most of us would accept definitive proof of the supernatural. It just doesn't exist.
• Reminder #3: Most of the "proof" offered by Christians has either been debunked thoroughly or is of a nebulous nature in a difficult to research area, such as neurobiology.
• Reminder #4: The ad hominem is the last resort of the losing debater. The "tu quoque" (Oh yeah? You too!) is the weakest of the ad homs.

Jesus vs Shirley MacLaine

Christians have no trouble dismissing Shirley MacLaine's hokum, but they seem completely blind to the thinness of the claims for Christianity.



Let's see how well they compare:

• Jesus (supposedly) claimed to fulfill the historic prophesy of the Hebrews.
• MacLaine's website points to the writings of known historical figures, and these people supposedly back up her claims. Unlike Jesus' prophets, MacLaine's list of luminaries includes people from various epochs, cultures, and walks of life. (Though, strangely, none of them was one of her prior selves)
• Jesus' exploits are written down in four books called "The Gospels," which were most likely written 60-100 years after his death/resurrection.
• Shirley MacLaine wrote eight books about herself (herselves?), and a few other people have written about her. She's also been interviewed dozens of times, and she wrote her own biography for her site. In fact, it's hard to shut her up. So she's much better documented than Jesus.
• The Bible gives us rules to live by, and guidance for everyday decisions. Shirley MacLaine's website includes a daily horoscope, which is much more specific and useful.
• Christianity gives its adherents a community for mutual support.
• Shirley MacLaine's community includes a forum, a chat room, and an e-mail newsletter. You don't have to dress up on Sunday morning, just log on and chat in your jammies.
• Jesus Christ rose on the third day and he lives in the souls of Christians.
• Shirley MacLaine is alive today, and judging by the number of times she's been reincarnated, is likely to be reincarnated again, though three days might be a little fast.
• Christ spent 40 days in "the wilderness."
• Shirley MacLaine went on the pilgrimmage to Santiago. It took her 30 days. A pretty long time considering she was twice the age Jesus was when he went camping.
• Christians, on the whole, are pretty nice people, because they fear going to Hell and hope to go to Heaven.
• People who believe in reincarnation tend to be pretty nice people, because they fear returning as cockroaches or meth heads, and hope to return as Shirley MacLaine.
• Jesus said (supposedly) "I am the way, the truth, and the light."
• Shirley said "I'm a Taurus."
• Jesus has inspired miraculous conversions, including Paul's conversion.
• Christians can persuade God to heal them through prayer, and really popular Christians can get prayed for in prayer circles.
• Shirley's forum has a "Healing Circle" section where people can put in requests for "healing energy."
• Christianity must be valid, because so many people believe in it.
• Shirley MacLaine's books have sold millions of copies, and her website is popular.

Well? I think Shirleyism has just as much claim as Christianity for the souls of humanity. How about you?