Religion and Psychosis

Obviously, evaluating anything without a frame of reference is impossible, however, the attempt is always objectivity. By identifying that which appears to be deeply rooted in human nature we can go a long way toward dissuading false assumptions which our based only on our current cultural outlook.

I am most certainly not claiming empathy. I believe you misrepresented certain historical figures and used a psychological term to make a moral judgement without showing how the two were related, so I was correcting you. How is that ignorance?

As for my theistic bias, although I probably do have some bias, you don’t know in which direction it leans, something I purposely avoided. You might be somewhat surprised, however, if you found out.

My bias in this case is clear. I have a real problem with gross, misleading oversimplifications such as:

The one-to-one comparison is silly and childish. You’ve made no attempt to understand the allegorical meaning behind the story of Abraham, nor have you looked at the situations leading to the woman and her children.

Although this is a free country and you are allowed to hold any opinion you like, I believe this kind of junk is counterproductive to a society already corrupt with intolerance and emotional judgements like this one.

If your ire is at the jab I took at you at the end of my post, know that I’m only attacking what appears to be an emotional outburst. Something we’re all guilty of (including myself) from time to time. I therefore apologize, as I was being quite a bit childish myself.

Ah but there is no sanity, so I don’t see the need to call anyone crazy

Sigmund Freud is very often referred to as ‘the founder of Modern Psychology’. I don’t feel as though I have to back this up. I lumped Jung and Adler together with him because they were his contemporaries in the Psycholanalytic movement who probably would have agreed with my asessment.

All three, however, were most certainly phsychologists.

Since I don’t have any numbers on various opinions in the field, I can only disagree. In any case, it’s not central to my argument.

I wholeheartedly agree. However, if the speculation has flaws, they should be brought forth, especially if the motive and tone behind the speculation is not understanding but derision, which I believe it is.

My feelings exactly.

No, that would be William James. And they’re not psychologists; psychology is a science and their methods were not scientific.

I mentioned a few in the other thread, and have many more.

It’s speculation because it comes from indirect evidence, not because of any doubts about its validity. And derision has nothing whatsoever to do with it. These observations are objective for the purpose of expressing possible historical connections with modern interpretations.

The meat of my argument wasn’t whether Enigma’s argument was science or speculation, it was that it was not self-consistent. The theory still has to be consistent, whether its science or speculation is irrelevant.

The motive behind the argument was certainly fair game once mine was questioned. Derision is not an argument against his theory, its a justification for my desire to respond, which I was forced to justify because it was challenged.

And I concede the point about the psychology history. I didn’t research it before I posted and was going from memory (which was admittadly poor). We can call Freud/Jung psychological philosophers. Nonetheless, like I said, it wasn’t central to my argument nor does it derail my argument. I was essentially being skeptical. My own positive opinion I stated in an earlier post.

What’s not consistent? We evaluate the past with understandings of today. We have no choice.

You don’t believe that hearing voices, God telling you to kill your children, seeing unnatural visions are comparable over time? Fine. I however think they are. If “God” tells you to kill your kid today or five hundred years ago, the behavior is still the similar in my opinion.

Such antagonistic responses just exemplify my point: It is imposed that we are “not permitted” to compare today with the past, but rather only to compare the past with the present in regards to many theistic standards.

I still think it is very interesting that many of the behavior of “revelations” of long ago are considered the psychoses of today. Rationalize it all you like; the similar behaviors cannot be refuted.

Of course there are similarities between situations that you yourself invent- you invented them to be similar. Take the Abraham/Isaac situation. You know nothing of what was going through Abraham’s head, nothing of his mental state, nothing of how the ‘voice of God’ was presented to him, nothing at all that would make you capable of analyzing the scenario psychologically. All you have is your own ideas about religion, and a bunch of stuff in your imagination about how the scenario must have unfolded.
Now, let’s look at the ‘mother kills her kid because God told her to’. You aren’t referencing any particular case, as far as I can tell, which means it’s a hypothetical, which means the details come (once again) from your imagination as needed. So yeah, there are irrefutable similarities between a situation which is 100% a product of your imagination, and a situation which is 90% a product of your imagination. All that proves, though, is your ability to use your imagination to support your views.

Well my “imagination” certainly can’t rationalize acceptance of anyone during anytime willing to kill their children because “God” said so.

The theistic imagination runs pretty much in any direction it wants to which explains why people are arguing that hearing voices that tell you to kill your children aren’t REALLY insane … as long as it happened in the bible.

My “imagination” also recognizes that the behavior of such “revelations” are amazingly comparable to the psychoses of today. Do I expect you to accept that hearing voices and such hallucinations are really mental problems? Of course they are … except in the bible which gets a theistic exemption for rationality from it’s followers.

That Abraham sure was a great guy, he nearly murdered his son because “God” said so.

What if God knew that the child was intent on killing the rest of the family; mother, father, other siblings, etc, and His only option was to have you kill them first. Moral judgements can get very sticky.

The ‘theistic imagination’? What is that? I’ll grant you that there are a lot of people who use the Bible to justify immoral activity. A similar thing could be said about Nietzsche and Hitler or Hegel and Marx. (I’m not using this to justify Hitler or Marx, only to say that any philosophy can be misconstrued). If you’re argument is against that kind of attitude, MAKE THAT ARGUMENT! You’ll find me in complete agreement. But, to clothe a moral judgement in psycological speculation is just deceptive. Also, to assume that such a large group of people, such as ‘theists’, share your interpretation of the events is small-mindedness.

I already explained that they are different phoenomena. Psychosis is almost always acccompanied by sustained fear, angst or other negative emotions. None of your historical examples display that characteristic. If they did, I would agree with your assessment.

Abraham did not murder his son. The story, if its really a historical event, and not just allegory, is meant to show that his acceptance of ‘God’s will’, whatever that is, was greater than his emotional attachment to his son. But in the end he did not kill his son. It’s very simple really, if you make an attempt to understand.

The point is, that in order to criticize something, it’s a good idea to try and understand it first. Religions tend to be highly metaphorical and symbolic. The meanings are often subtle. Your attitude shows that you have not given sufficient credit to that subtlety. If you did, you’d probably find that there is a lot of wisdom littered throughout all religious texts.

a) Check out Euripides’ Medea for women killing children

b) Vincent van Gogh heard voices and hallucinated and had epileptic fits so that means we can dismiss and trash his art…

c) It is those who ‘live on the edge’ that contribute most; while critics and pedants - well, what do they give to the world?

Of course it can't, and that's my point. All you have to go on that says Abraham was crazy is your imagination, which makes for a piss-poor argument.

Sooo....if I disagree with you, I must be one of 'them'? You've got this wrapped up pretty tight, it seems. Like I told someone else, it's impossible to have a fair discussion with someone you think is insane. You really need to give pause and wonder if it's worth sullying yourself to talk to theists. 

Give me an example. Tell me what was going on in Abraham’s head when he thought God was talking to Him, explain to me any history of mental illness in his past or possible in his parents, and related it to someone experiencing delusional psychotic events today. As you attempt to do this, you’ll notice that you have to make stuff up, and that’s my point.
Traditional crazy people in cartoons claim to be Napoleon, therefore Napoleon was crazy for claiming that he was Napoleon. After all, he demonstrated classic crazy-Napoleon-guy symptoms: Sticking his hand in his shirt, barking orders, wearing a funny hat…you can’t deny the similarities!

Where’s the link between van Gogh’s artwork, which is there for all to see, and the contents of an epileptic hallucination, which are there only for the epileptic to see?

Speculative diagnoses in the literature aren’t based on any “making up” or assuming what the individual might be thinking but on biographical accounts of symptoms and, in some rare cases, on examination of bodily remains.

Yes.  We can't do any of that with Abraham, so saying how similar he is or is not to any modern delusional person is 90% going to be based on what we imagine to be the case with him.  Hearing the voice of God is the only symptom, and it's only a symptom in the first place if you assume it can't be legitimate.

What link? I can’t quite see what the question is…

The point I was making was that virtually all great art comes out of some kind of madness. If we trash ‘great’ religious ‘leaders’ we may just as well trash all art and indeed entire cultural oeuvres. Madness and creativity go together hand-in-hand.

If you want to see insane art then look at Vincent’s later work, especially after Arles and the Gauguin episode. Look at ‘the Night Cafe’ or ‘the Starry Night’ or a host of paintings that speak only of despair and ruin. And yet there is something so noble, so of the greatness of the human spirit, so of the triumph of good over evil, so essentially powerful… yes, and so tragic… and paradoxically so without hope and yet full of hope and love!

Look at the brushwork of these later paintings - there is nothing before like them in the entire history of art. Madness has taken centre stage…

Or look at William Blake; or James Ensor; or Edvard Munch…etc., etc…

My “imagination?” Abraham didn’t try to kill his son because God said so? This behavior is, whether you like it or not, IS crazy by contemporary standards.

Does your “imagination” accept that it is NOT crazy if someone tries to kill their children because God said so?

Ok, Abraham tried to kill his son because “God” said so. Do I really need to explain what is going on in Abraham’s head? Here, I’ll help you out:
"Must kill son. God says. "

Now I realize that no matter how I put it, you will not recognize that murdering your healthy children for ANY reason is a bad thing … especially because “God” told you to.

Say your neighbor comes up to you and tells you that God told him to murder your children. Are you going to consider that your neighbor may not really be crazy? Heck, might as well see if he can babysit the kids next week, right?

Here you are arguing that I have some bizarre imagination (even questioing my sanity) because I think someone is crazy because they are willing to murder their children because God told them to. I think the same applies to you. You have to have a completely irrational imagination to justify that attempting to murder your children for “God” is not only acceptable, but worthy of worship.

What happens if someone tries to kill their children because “God said so” today? It’s horrible!!! They are insane!!!
What happens if someone tried tried to kill their children because “God said so” a long time ago? Hallalujuah!!! They should be praised!!!

Your ad hominem assertions are the only things that are really piss poor.

What’s crazy? I’m not aware of such a disorder. I’m not just picking at you here, I just don’t think it has any meaning, at least not in your comparison.

See above.

I would say that murdering your son for 99.9% of reasons would definately be a very, very bad thing. However, being told to do so by an Omniscient Being fits into that 0.1%
You can’t say ANY reason though, unless you want to say parental love is absolutely unconditional (life experience puts that in doubt, though I love my parents very much). Even then there could be a good reason to kill him.

I’d say he was crazy! HaHa (j/k)!
Seriously though, my neighbor doesn’t exhibit any qualities that might lead me to believe that he’s in close contact with God. If, in some difficult to imaginable way, he convinced me that it was so, I’d begin to question my kids. What else could I do?

Again, if God is Omniscient, its perfectly rational. To not do so is irrational.

The point of the story is most definately NOT that Abraham should be praised, its that God should be listened to. Anybody who interprets otherwise is mistaken.

Enigma, I know you don’t think you believe in God, but if you’re going to judge people that did, you have to understand what the reality of that concept would mean. Traditional morality goes out the window.

Also, Uccisore didn’t make any ad hominem assertions.

Continual foolishness!

Confusing fantasy with reality! (Abraham was over 100 years of age!)

To reify that which is tropological in nature is the psychosis!

What’s crazy about attempting to murder your children because “God” said so?

Well it is a 100% very bad thing from my end. You never know though. I guess there is a remote chance in your opinion that God could have you go on a killing spree … and you obviously have the room to justify it.

Are you joking? If your neighbor was religious (as if that should actually matter) and wanted to kill your kids, you would question your “kids?” WTF?

Wow!

Perfect. Fucking perfect. Kierkegaard wrote under the pseudonym “Johannnes De Silentio,” who, (all planned by the clever Soren), set out to decipher the biblical story of Abraham. After having become terribly confused(again, part of the plan, of course) and failing every attempt to understand, he begins to suspect his own intellectual capacity because he also sees everyone else claims to understand the story perfectly well(Kierkegaardian irony once again).

The most horrifying part was that the people held Abraham to be an exalted hero, while Johannnes denouned him viciously:

“How did Abraham know it was really God? How did he know it wasn’t a nightmare? How did he know it wasn’t his unconscious mind? How did he know he got the message(order from God) right?”

Forever this plagued Kierkegaard secretly. Soren obsessed about this story and was perplexed.

He called it a “teleological suspension of the ethical,” a place where the human condition is revealed naked and penetrated. For what was Abraham to do? What would you do?

Johannnes was filled with dread. To suspect that an order from God to kill one’s son could be heard, and that if one were certain of such an order, that one must obey, is Abrahams ethical leap into absurdity and resignation to God( a “Knight of Infinite Resignation”).

Renouncing everything that Abraham would ever believe, his ethical values, his son, his wife, etc., for God, was a dreadful test.

“Dread is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy”- Kierkegaard

That is, knowing that one can do something, but also that they can choose not to, fearing this ability of choice, and loathing in it.

Its a great story. Kierkegaard shows a side of it that’s all to often forgotten.