This One is For Breezy the Dodger

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arakish's picture
This One is For Breezy the Dodger

@Everyone

You ain't got to read this. Unless you want to. If so, then I suggest you get a few brews and kick back for this is long one. More like a dissertation on these forums.

@Breezy the Dodger

Here. Answer this. It is a Forum Dissertation...

If a person cannot suffer from two different disorders such as narcissism and inferiority, then please explain how Bipolarism ever came about as a single disorder. What exactly is Bipolarism?

Although there are more than one basic type of Bipolarism (I'm pretty sure you already know this), all are characterized by a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, activity, energy, thoughts, and the ability to carry out daily tasks. It is also know as Manic-Depressive Disorder.

Before it ever got called bipolar disorder or manic-depressive disorder, here was a disorder that looked to be two different disorders that are diametrically opposed. One could be called Major Depressive Disorder. The other Major Manic Disorder.

However, through extensive and intensive studies, it was categorized as a single disorder.

Now, reiterating, look at Post Traumatice Stress Disorder. When looking at ALL possible symptoms of PTSD, you will find the symptoms of many other disorders, some diametrically opposed to others. Again, here is the list in a more cognitive method.

  • Major Depressive Disorder (yep, I have that)
  • Major Manic Disorder (yep, I have that)
  • Schizophrenic Delusion Disorder (yep, I have that occasionally, not as often)
  • Disassociative Disorder (yep, I have that occasionally, not as often)
  • Social Anxiety Disorder (yep, had that, kind of still do)
  • Substance Abuse Disorder (yep, later developed that, kind of still do, but is tempered way down)

The substance abuse is usually not a part of PTSD and comes about from having PTSD. However, most psychiatrists and therapists and psychology professors I have talked with, tend to include it in with the PTSD.

That is five (not counting the last) major disorders rolled into one gigantic miasma of corrupted mental fugues.

Pause and think about that.

One single disorder that may have the symptoms of FIVE major disorders. One.

And you say a person cannot suffer from narcissistic personality while also suffering inferiority complex. They can if they have the mind set to become an inexorable religious believer. Such persons do suffer from the combination of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Schizophrenic Delusion Disorder, and Inferiority Complex Disorder. Additionally, you can throw in Disassociative Disorder in there as well.

Now let's discuss how this can happen.

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Inferiority
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Simple, the ideology of Original Sin and Man's Downfall. That is the main culprit for the cause of inferiority. However, there are also many additional lessons in the indoctrination process that further drive this disorder into the mind of children. Absolutists teach their children, that they are worthless scum unless they a magic zombie virgin to forgive them. They cannot ever hope of achieving a nonexistant afterlife without believing in a god who sacrificed himself, to himself, to save his creation from his own damnation and wrath. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Beat your children down. Teach them they are inferior to all other humans, unless they believe in the magic zombie virgin.

And here is an exerpt from my Riding Some Wild Tangents book.

You Absolutists usually begin the training from early childhood through a controlled, systematic, totalitarian indoctrination process which utilizes mental rape, emotional molestation, and psychological terrorism when a child’s mind, especially in the ages of 4 to 14 years, is at its most susceptible and most vulnerable to cultural conditioning. Tyrannically dictated norms of fidelity are imposed such that children are trained to vomit conflicting ideas and to never consider their veracity. I know this for fact because it is the ghastly, abhorrent, and terrifying nightmare I endured as a child for seven years.

You Absolutists are trained to react to ideas, and to reject them no matter what you are told, presented, and/or taught. You are taught to never question your beliefs. You are militantly trained to maintain and preserve the faith. And, due to this designed abusive training and indoctrination process, you shall do so with apologetics, beguiling dialectical semantics, distorted and perverted data, emotional whiny-ass pleas, and sometimes divinely-inspired violence. Worst of all, your conditioning is so ingrained that you never question why you need to defend your belief at all. This form of indoctrination, no matter its intended outcome, is actually “child abuse” in the form of psychological terrorism. All of which is immoral in any moral landscape. However, due to the First Amendment, religion gets a free ride to practice all the immorality they wish. One only has to prove it is religious to prove it is not immoral.

An indoctrination process which teaches you to never think for yourself, but to close your mind against all things except for what some sky-faerie in an obsolete and irrelevant and barbaric and savagely immoral Bronze Age religious text commands you to think. For me, that is the most heinous of acts, especially to do it to children. And no matter whatever you may say to the contrary, this is child abuse. Ask Richard Dawkins.

And I wholeheartedly agree with one user at the Atheist Republic forums:

"I despise apologists, especially those who use their skills to sway the minds of children, and rob them of their independence and self-worth. They also begin a journey of life that will always posses fear. I do not like it, and if I had the power, I would prosecute apologists for child abuse.

"You beat a child, they will bruise, but they will recover. Teach them religion, and they lose many admirable characteristics, and be scarred (and pretty messed up) for life. Both are despicable acts, but one inflicts major long term damage."

In addition to prosecuting the Apologist Absolutists, I would also prosecute the parents for condoning and allowing such abuse to be visited upon their child.

And it is from this indignant training from whence comes the Inferiority Complex Disorder.

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Narcissism
========================================

Boy, the perfect examples here are William Lane Craig, Pat Robertson, The Discover Institute (the whole lot), Ken Ham, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, amongst many, many, many, many others. And my favorite one to pick on. Oral Roberts. He got on national TV and pretended to cry like a baby saying God was going to take him home unless he raised eight million dollars. And he had a backer who waited in the wings to make sure it was at least eight million dollars just in case. Now that is narcissism.

Kenneth Copeland and Oral Roberts Brag About Being RICH

Then look at how many mega-churches there are. The Crystal Cathedral is the first one I remember as a young adult. My first thought was, "Just look at how pathetically narcissistic that church has become." And how many mega-churces have been built since then. Just look at this image:

https://i.imgur.com/DkWuczV.jpg

And when your leaders become so damned narcissistic, you sheep follow right behind. I mean look at the size of that main screen. Why in Hell does any church need something that narcissistic?

However, it is when the child finally capitulates to the abusive and repugnant and cruel indoctrination tactics and becomes a full blown believer, is when the Absolutists will also begin the reverse tactic of teaching them they are better than all the other unbelievers since they believe in the ONLY TRUE GOD and all others are going to burn in Hell forever. This is where the narcissism ultiamtely comes from. Then as their lives seem to do nothing but get better and better (for most do anyway), the more narcissistic the Absolutist becomes.

========================================
Schizophrenic Delusion
========================================

There has been absolutely no hard empirical evidence that anything written in the Bible is actually true. In fact, ALL archeaological finds have done nothing but prove everything in the Bible is plagiarized from far older myths and legends. And here are two essays I have written about this: The Noahacian Flood and the Exodus.

The Noahacian Flood Story

Where is the evidence?

The Noahacian Flood story (Genesis 6 to 9; written circa 1440 to 1400 BCE) is nothing more than the plagiarizing of the ancient Mesopotamian Flood Stories.

Here is the accounting as I have found:
The Noahacian Flood story was written 1440-1400 BCE and biblical scholars calculate the Noahacian Flood occurred circa 2300 BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written 2100 BCE (almost 700 years before). The Epic of Atra-Hasis was written 2600 BCE (almost 1200 years before). The Epic of Ziusudra was written 2900 BCE (almost 1500 years before).

The three Mesopotamian Flood Stories were probably stories about when the flood plain of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers was flooded circa 2900 BCE. River flood sediments in the ruins of Shuruppak, Uruk, Kish, etc. have been radiocarbon dated to circa 2900 BCE. Radiocarbon dating is generally limited to dating samples no more than 50,000 years old, as samples older than that have insufficient C-14 to be measurable. Radiocarbon dating has an accuracy rate of ±0.4% at up to 10,000 years. Since that flood occurred about 2900 BCE, that places the flood about 4918 years ago. Well within the 10,000 years. That means the flood occurred within the range of 4819 to 4937 years ago (2900 BCE ±19 years).

If it were not for the series of dams and irrigation projects on the upper Euphrates and Tigris Rivers basins, then the floodplain would still flood today. On a biblical scale as it did almost 5000 years ago. Even the climate in southern Anatolia area was different than today. About 4 to 8 thousand years ago, the southern Anatolia area was wetter. Proof is in the sediment layers in northern Syria and Iraq, and southeastern Turkey have shown this to be true. Southern Anatolia includes the northern regions of Iraq and Syria AND southeastern Turkey. Many ruins that are over 5000 years old have been found completely buried under fluvial sediments in the area marked “Floodplain” in the image below. There has even been some found in the areas surrounding the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in the “Dams Project Areas.”

https://i.imgur.com/FvTnaIE.jpg

Since there is evidence of a catastrophic flood in the “Floodplain” area circa 2900 BCE, it is my contention is that all three Epics are stories about this event. In fact, the Epic of Ziusudra specifically states, “Then the flood swept over. After the flood swept over, kingship descended from heaven; the kingship was in Kish.” However, like any story of the “Fish That Got Away,” the retelling is embellished until it literally becomes a falsely assumed global event.

On the stone tablet WB-82, the line following the mentioning of Ziusudra reads: “Then the flood swept over.” The next line reads: “After the flood swept over, kingship descended from heaven; the kingship was in Kish.” The city of Kish flourished in the Early Dynastic period soon after an archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other Sumerian cities. This flood has been radiocarbon dated to circa 2900 BCE. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period (circa 3000 BCE) was discovered immediately below the Shuruppak flood stratum.

Finally, guess who was traveling through this region about 200 years after the Epic of Gilgamesh was written? Yep, Abram. The same guy who stole the Laws of Hammurabi and later became Abraham.

If the stone plaque mentioning the Epic of Ziusudra surviving a “catastrophic flood” was dated to 2900 BCE (the same time as the real catastrophic flood event) and the plaque with the Epic of Atra-Hasis happened around 2600 BCE and the Biblical Flood supposedly occurred circa 2300 BCE… Well… You get the idea. And here is another disagreement. When did the Noahacian Flood occur? Dates I have found range from 2400 to 2200 BCE. I settled on 2300 BCE since it is the median date between the extreme ends of the range. And how do you explain the fact that there were empires (Egypt, Hittite, Assyria, Persia, Hurria, Kittim, Macedonia, Akkadia, Elam, etc., etc.) that existed BEFORE the Biblical Flood and existed in the same state AFTER the Biblical Flood? And with absolutely NO written records of any kind of flood ever happening, except in Babylonian myths (the Epics of Ziusudra, Atra-Hasis, and Gilgamesh)?

Since Ziusudra was the son of Suruppak, then king of Shuruppak and the Sumerians, Ziusudra became the king in the city of Kish, which flourished under his rule. Furthermore, Ziusudra being a king from Shuruppak is supported by the Gilgamesh XI tablet, Line 23, making reference to Utnapishtim (Akkadian translation of the Sumerian name Ziusudra) with the epithet “man of Shuruppak.”

I could continue, but this alone is proof the Bible was plagiarized from far older myths and legends.

And here is my conclusion: Why should I even believe in a God who is so ruthless he feels he must destroy ALL of his children? If your God is truly omnipotent, why is it such a bungling incompetent creator? The Bible certainly confirms such a diety. A deity that screwed up its creation so badly it had to flood the entire planet, killing everything to start over from scratch. This makes me wonder since your God is omnipotent, yet it needed such a clumsy and heavy-handed method for restart when it could simply will a new existence into being without genocidal floods and the unnecessary suffering? And why did this global flood suspiciously leave absolutely no geological evidence?

That is just one of the stories I am writing about in my book Riding Some Wild Tangents 2. To me it appears you are well on your way to proving what I have spent 30 years doing.

As far as I am concerned, Abram (Abraham, Ibrahim, whatever) never existed. Since this is true of the "father" of the Big Trinity of the Faiths, then I am skeptical that even Isaac and Ishmael ever existed. Thus, probably none of the others that followed ever existed.

Basically, as far as I am concerned, ALL religions are nothing more than lies created by con-men with hopes of enslaving the entire human species.

The Exodus

The Exodus story is completely false.

Hereafter, I shall use the term “Hebrew” to mean Hebrews, Jews, Israelites, et. al.

In the many, many decades of archaeological exploration, there has been NOT one piece of evidence ever found to prove anything in Exodus. Even Rabbi David J. Wolpe, the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple, announced: “The truth is that virtually every modern archaeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with so very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.”

It NEVER happened. How long were the Hebrews supposedly enslaved in Egypt? Four hundred thirty years? Impossible. If they had been in Egypt for 430 years, then words from each language would have had words exchange into each others’ language during such a long period of time. In other words, the Hebrew language would be half Egyptian, and vice versa. However, neither language has any words that are even close to the other language in their language. Perhaps the only exception is “Moses” which is a bastardized version of the Egyptian names like Ahmose, Thutmose, Amosis, etc. Most scholars have quietly concluded that the epic of Moses never happened, and even Jewish clerics are raising questions. Others think it combines myth, cultural memories, and a very few kernels of truth.

Proof of this language hybridization is in American English. How long has America existed, including the Colonial Period? About 400 years? Actually, 411 to be more exact (1607 to 2018). Yet look at how many words in American English are direct integration into American English from other languages, especially Spanish. Ever heard the term Spanglish? I think it was an Adam Sandler movie... One good example is the term for “goodbye.” There is goodbye, ciao (msp?), adios, arrive deutsche (msp?), bon voyage, etc. Far too many other examples for me to even attempt to list only a few. Something like language infusion and hybridization is inevitable even if the two groups co-exist for only 40 years, one-tenth what the Hebrews supposedly spent in Egypt.

However, there is absolutely no evidence of any Hebrew word in Egyptian, or any Egyptian word in Hebrew. And to say that the two kept themselves that separated while living together is bollocks. A huge pile of horse hoowhee. Additionally, the ONLY source of the enslavement in Egypt is only found in that Hebrew book of faerie tales known as the Bible. There is absolutely no other evidence of the Hebrews spending 430 years in Egypt. Since the Exodus Story never happened and the 430 years enslavement never happened, that means Moses never existed. There was no exodus from Egypt. There was no 40 years of being lost in the desert. And the best proof the Hebrews were never in Egypt is the fact that they never mentioned the Pharaoh’s name during the time of the exodus. They do not mention his name because they never knew his name since they were never there.

Many, many decades of archaeological excavations attempting to prove the biblical account of the Exodus true, archaeologists have found no conclusive evidence that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt. They were never enslaved. They never wandered about on the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years. They never conquered the land of Canaan under Joshua’s leadership. The prevalent view has now become that almost all of Joshua’s famous military campaigns just never did occur. Archaeologists have uncovered ash layers and other signs of destruction at the relevant time at ONLY ONE of the many battlegrounds mentioned in the Bible.

There has not been one shred of evidence discovered in the Sinai Desert that a large number of Jews had wandered for 40 years. Of course, that may not be such a big deal. It is a desert, is it not? Sandstorms probably just buried all the evidence. The more you get to thinking about this story of 600,000 Hebrew men (not including women and children), however, the more the lack of evidence was actually a fairly damning difficulty. According to the book of Exodus {12:37} The children of Israel traveled from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot who were men, in addition to children. It only lists the number of men, then says there were children also, but not how many. And it never even mentions women. Talk about misogyny.

Anyway, that is still a lot of Hebrews wandering around in this desert, and it seems extremely unlikely, bordering on virtually impossible, for this many people to leave absolutely no trace.
Especially when traces have been found for smaller groups of people which predated the Exodus in that same desert.

And here is a very excellent point made by Thunderf00t (https://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t) in one of his videos (have long since forgotten which one). I am repeating here from memory. Thus, if you see the video and I did not copy it exactly, then blame my Alzheimer’s. How many Hebrews were there? The Bible only states that there were six hundred thousand men… And that does not include the women and children. Here is a measurement of the route about which I am going to speak:

https://i.imgur.com/3EUxQNB.jpg

See the measurement of 631.6 miles? I know I screwed up and forgot to switch to kilometers, but that is a fairly easy conversion: 1,016.46 kilometers. Or, 1,016,460 meters. Now let’s assume that each man will occupy at least 1 meter of space if they were to walk in single file. We use 1 meter so each man will not step on the heels of the man in front of him while walking. That would be a line 600,000 meters long. And that does NOT include the women and children. If we assume there are as many women as men (current world average is 52% female, 48% male), then the line gets to be 1,200,000 meters long. The path I traced which goes from Cairo all the way to the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula, then up the other side of the Sinai to Amman Jordan, then across the Jordan River to Jerusalem. If we subtract (1,200,000 – 1,016,460) that would leave 183,540 men and women still waiting to leave the Cairo area. And we still have NOT included the children! Think about it! And the path I chose was as long as possible without having it just completely leave the area and head on over to Baghdad. Or over to China.

Reiteration: There is absolutely NO evidence whatsoever that the Hebrews were ever enslaved in Egypt. In fact, it is very unlikely that if it did happen that the Hebrews would have been numerous enough for there to have been 600,000 men (not including women and children). Yes, there is the story contained within the Bible itself, but that is not even vaguely a historical source. No matter how hard you dig, you will find absolutely NO evidence any Hebrews were ever in Egypt. There is not even any evidence whatsoever in all of Egypt that the Hebrews even existed until almost 500 years (c. 900 BCE) after Moses supposedly died, circa 1400 BCE. The oldest artifact I have ever found in all of Egypt’s antiquities that mentions “Hebrews” is dated to about 900 BCE. As said, 500 years after the Exodus.

About the same time that the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) was written (1440 to 1400 BCE), there is evidence that there were widespread plagues through the empires of Egypt, the land of Canaan (modern day Israel), Lebanon, Mesopotamia, the Hittite Empire, and all between circa 1446 to 1431 BCE. Fifteen years worth of plagues. Damn.

https://i.imgur.com/vIDI4kD.jpg

The map above shows the extents of the plagues for which I could find evidence for having occurred (circa 1446 to 1431 BCE). Exodus supposedly occurred circa 1440 to 1400 BCE (at the same time the Pentateuch was written). Below shows a map of the Levant circa 1400 BCE. It shows the sphere of influence held by the three major kingdoms during that time: Egypt, Hittite, and Assyria. There is hard empirical evidence which shows that the below is very highly probable. Meaning that at the time of the story of the Exodus, Egypt was in control of the area of the Land of Canaan (basically Israel). Thus, when the plagues hit the area of the Levant, the three major empires pulled out of that area, only further spreading the plagues into their core regions.

https://i.imgur.com/IS7KmFZ.jpg

For clarification yellow is Egypt, magenta is Assyria, and cyan is Hittite.

I submit that this was simply the illiterate Hebrews (originally Assyrians) creating a ludicrous and ridiculous story to account for what had happened at that time. They reversed the story of the plagues making them seem to be God’s judgment against Egypt for not releasing the Hebrews from enslavement. Did you know that the word “Hebrew” did not come into existence until circa 1000 BCE (400 years after the plagues AND the writing of the Pentateuch) from the Aramaic language which originated with the Assyrians inside the Assyrian Empire at that time? I also say that the Hebrews were Assyrians that had a religious schism and migrated to the Land of Canaan due to these plagues. This schism was what led to the preposterous beliefs system and faerie tales of a God named Jealous, giving the Hebrews the Land of Canaan. Later leading to the genocidal and ethnic cleansings of the entire region of Canaan. Which in the end, completely failed because the Hebrews lost too many men. Nothing says love like, “Our God says he hates you, and that you must die.”

Of course, if the Hebrews did have 600,000 men, then just the Hebrew men alone out-numbered all men, women, and children in the entire Land of Canaan which are believed to have been about 435,000 to 550,000 total. If the Hebrews could not completely conquer the Land of Canaan, that means although they may have won a tactical victory, they still had their asses handed to them. Thus, they lost too many men to conquer the Land of Canaan due to their inability to fight. Proof there was no god on their side. Think about it. The Hebrews had 600,000 men against 550,000 men, women, AND children. Even using pessimistic math, that 550,000 total population would mean AT MOST about 180,000 men. The Hebrews had the men out-numbered at least 3 to 1, and still lost their asses. Damn.

Searching for answers is what it is to be human, instead of a robot and being force fed the data. Although none are required to believe, I did actually start those 20+years of research with the full intention to prove the Bible was correct. However, all of the research I have ever done has done nothing but lead to the fact that EVERYTHING in the Bible is false. And that I wasted 20 years proving the Bible is a lie when I could have done something more useful.

The supposedly historical events written about in the Bible are nothing more than plagiarisms of far older myths and legends. And some of those myths and legends are thousands of years older than the Bible and plagiarisms within. Or, they are complete fantasies about what never truly happened. Do your own research.

Additionally, there are many books, far too numerous to list here about legitimate scientific research into the veracity of the Bible. I have been been wasting my time for decades. It is just that I have not been able to prove anything in the Bible. And I have grown weary of researching this. I would rather write about how I have wasted my life on that damned lying, irrelevant, and obsolete Bronze Age text.

Well, there is one thing. There are records of a “street evangelist” who had been crucified sometime in 34 CE, about four years after the “official accepted” crucifixion of Jesus. However, there are absolutely NO records of such occurring in 30 CE. At least not in Jerusalem. Perhaps this is where the Jews get the idea and proof that there was no Jesus? No name was ever recorded for this crucified “street evangelist” in 34 CE. Thus, this is possibly the ONLY record of the existence of someone similar to Jesus from which the myth arose.

Otherwise, the only other “official records” (which they are not) are the four Gospels. However, even these are suspect since the oldest versions have been dated to only around 120 CE. That is 90 years after the supposed crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Additionally, that is 30 to 60 years after the “official” writing of those Gospels when going by the dates given by the Absolutists ranging from 60 CE (Mark), 70 CE (Matthew), 75 CE (Luke), and 90 CE (John). If true, then why is the oldest copy of Mark only dates to about 120 CE?

This would mean for about a century, the only stories about Jesus were passed down by “word of mouth.” And we all know what happens with “word of mouth” stories. They get embellished in the same exact fashion as those “The Fish That Got Away” stories. BTW: Did I tell you the story of the fish that was “THIS” big that broke my fishing line and got away?

As said, do the research for yourself. Wikipedia can be a good starting point. However, do NOT completely rely on the Wikipedia web page itself. Reason: Anyone with a Wiki account can alter those pages on a whim. Instead use it as jump off point to the more trustworthy web sites at universities and scientific institutes (not the religious apologetic sites that pretend to be science sites). Especially focus into the “See also,” “Notes,” “References,” “Further reading,” “Bibliography,” and/or “External links” sections at the bottom. These may actually lead to some official peer-reviewed journal articles/papers.

And that is something I love about science. It is the ONLY set of disciplines where you will have official articles/papers that are peer-reviewed before they are even eligible for publication. This is something you shall NEVER see in any religion. Anybody can write anything religious and publish it without any recourse or peer-review.

In summation, the story of Exodus is actually a fantasy story reversing the actual exodus of the Egyptians leaving the land of Canaan due to the plaques that ran through the Levant and was spread into Egypt.

And finally, any persons who are going to believe faerie tales because they are simply within the pages of the Bible, are sadly schizophrenic and delusional. Always remember this that I read in Richard Dawkin’s book The God Delusion (I paraphrase): “Absolutists are rarely capable to determining what is real from what they wish to be real.”

And now for the ultimate disorder.

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Disassociative Delusion Disorder
========================================

I ain't got to say much. Just watch these videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a54iqEr1flQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyQkjfj5kp4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwGGte4JmDc

And if you say these ain't mental disorders...

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Religious Tramatic Stigmatic Disorder
========================================

That is what I call all the above mental disorders rolled into one. Much like PTSD has five, RTSD has four.

For now, that is all I have to say because I am hungry and I am going to go fix some tacos.

Be back in a while.

rmfr

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LogicFTW's picture
Starts reading...

Starts reading...

You ain't got to read this. Unless you want to. If so, then I suggest you get a few brews and kick back for this is long one. More like a dissertation on these forums.

Hmm..
*reads a bit more*

Okay I know arakish can get verbose (as he puts it, so can I!)

How long does he mean by long?
*starts to scroll*
*scrolls some more*
*eyes widen*

....

Yeah I will take your advice and grab a few brews. I may not be coherent by the time I finish though :) Although my drug of choice is tetrahydrocannabinol, perhaps a mix of the two? Will probably have to respond the next day when I sober up :)

arakish's picture
Although my drug of choice is

Although my drug of choice is tetrahydrocannabinol...

So is mine. Just don't know who I can trust around here.

rmfr

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
Thanks for this Arakish....I

Thanks for this Arakish....I never really thought of the OT myths. You have comprehensively demolished at least two of the bastions of the theists bulwarks.
Reading your essay combined with my studies of early christianity and the provenance of the gospels reinforces my opinion we have been sold a crock of shite in the Western World.

We should disarm the middle east and let the fuckers fight over Jerusalem with their bare hands again.

Thanks again.

arakish's picture
And you are very welcome. I

And you are very welcome. I have spent 30 years researching specifically Christianity and the OT Hebrews. Even took some vacations to that area to investigate an artifact I found reference to.

Just wished I did not have so many DVDs worth of backed up data AND did a better labeling job. Some are labeled: "Data Backup 1994 - 1995." Talk about being a dumb ass. And here is another "Bkup19960824112616" being in the format of YYYYMMDDhhmmss. Like that kind of bullshit tells me anything about what is on the disk.

Most often, I might get through about 20 of them and give up. All total, I might have about 4 Terabytes of info. And that is one my weaknesses. I cannot get rid of old books nor old info.

rmfr

Grinseed's picture
Well shoot, I have read the

Well shoot, I have read the lot, but unfortunately, I read it straight. My cardiologist advised against indulging the green anymore.

Thanks Arakish for sharing a small part of your work here.
Is it OK to copy and paste for future reference? It fills in a lot of spaces in my own readings, I keep checking things out in the history of christianity, fascinating subject and I only do it out of personal interest, for ammunition if you will against absolutist family members of my own. Old Man has been very helpful in this regard too.
(I never used to use the term 'absolutists' before but I find myself using it in conversation and thought more and more, a very useful description.)

I too cannot throw out any books or cds, and I once owned a bookstore! I still have all my son's university physics papers. My stuffed garage is my information centre and I have no reference system besides what is written on the outside of the carton ie Precambrian stuff, Arab vs Jew, All of Vietnam almost, Space Things, etc .

arakish's picture
As far as I am concerned,

As far as I am concerned, anything I write is free for use. Now if you want to use in a book to sell, then a nice 5 figure royalty would work. ;-P

Yes, Old Man has helped me a lot with the NT which seems to be his specialty. Mine is the OT.

At least you seemed to have catalogued better than I have. Books I have the spine. The disks, well, that was pure idiocy.

rmfr

Cognostic's picture
@ And you say a person cannot

@ And you say a person cannot suffer from narcissistic personality while also suffering inferiority complex.

I can weigh in on this one. An inferiority complex can manifest as narcissistic personalty disorder. "Napoleon Complex" and "Short Man Disease" are two such common examples with their common street names. This has nothing at all to do with being bipolar. It really is a person with an inferiority complex.

This is a classic Reaction Formation: Reaction Formation
This is where a person goes beyond denial of his or her own emotions, thoughts and behaves in the opposite way to which he or she thinks or feels (A. Freud, 1936). By using the reaction formation, the id is satisfied while keeping the ego in ignorance of the true motives. This has been hypothesized as the reason behind Hitler's hatred of the Jews. He had Jewish blood in his linage and managed to destroy all family records. kill some family members, and respond to the "Jewish Problem" with hatred. (A man fearing inferiority and acting like a complete narcissist.

Frankly, I only scanned the rest but it seems like a walk through the DSM. Certainly I agree that most of these Mega Church shit-bags are narcissistic as narcissistic gets. Is it all based on the same internal issue? I'm sure these dirt-bags are mentally ill but it will take a bit more than seeing them on TV to formulate a diagnosis. I am convinced some are outright sociopaths and con-men while others are simply ignorant and have conned themselves.

Grinseed's picture
One other thing about the

One other thing about the exodus story is that the 600,000 men and the unnumbered women, children and old folks, some two or three million people, some estimates are higher, were forced to wander in the wilderness for forty years as a punishment for making and worshippiing the golden calf while Jehovah and Moses were working on the twenty one commandments.

Jehovah was so indignant that the Hebrews had so quickly forgotten the demonstration of his mighty powers over the Egyptians (the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea) he decided none of them would enter the promised land. Miracles were cheap as chips in those days apparently.Only their descendents would be allowed to cross the river Jordan.
Moses was also banned for some other perceived slight against Jehovah.

So there should have been a continual line of burial sites following the path of their wanderings all over the Sinai (up to 3 million graves) but the archaeologists have found nothing of the sort.

Cognostic's picture
Heck with the graves. There

Heck with the graves. There was nothing to eat but each other so they et each other bones and all. The amazing thing is that all the survivors managed to avoid taking a shit until they got to Israel. Not one shit from all those people in the entire desert. Now that is a miracle.

ʝօɦռ 6IX ɮʀɛɛʐʏ's picture
The are two fundamental

The are two fundamental problems with your perspective. The first is the apparent misunderstanding of the role, function, and interpretation of such psychiatric disorders, and the mix between them and outdated theories of psychology. The second problem is your application of such things, towards the religious. I’ll focus on the second problem in this response, and depending on the longevity of the conversation, post a response on the first.

The damaged brain behaves much like the undamaged brain. A happily married woman that presents with a tumor in the frontal or temporal lobes, might suddenly want to divorce her husband and move to Los Angeles to become a star (Sheth, Harris, Cho, & Caughey, 2007). That does not mean that wanting a divorce is pathological, nor that only brain-damaged people move to Los Angeles. The same is true with psychoactive drugs; they merely hijack the normal functions of the brain. These drugs intensify or suppress normal behaviors and experiences. Stimulants such as cocaine or amphetamines are sympathomimetic drugs, that means they mimic the physiological effects of emotional arousal; people experience mood elevation, increased talkativeness and sociability among other things (Higgins & Stitzer, 1988). Yet clearly, this does not imply that talkative and sociable people are taking stimulants.

The attempt to pathologize religious experiences, or explain them as emerging out of less noble human behaviors, is nothing new. The father of American psychology—William James—commented on such arm-chair explanations during his time:

“Alfred believes in immortality so strongly because his temperament is so emotional. Fanny's extraordinary conscientiousness is merely a matter of over-instigated nerves. William's melancholy about the universe is due to bad digestion—probably his liver is torpid. Eliza's delight in her church is a symptom of her hysterical constitution.

A more fully developed example of the same kind of reasoning is the fashion, quite common nowadays among certain writers, of criticizing the religious emotions by showing a connection between them and the sexual life. Conversion is a crisis of puberty and adolescence.

Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George Fox's discontent with the shams of his age, and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a symptom of a disordered colon. Carlyle's organ-tones of misery it accounts for by a gastro-duodenal catarrh” (William, 2016, pp. 8-11)

You will always find similarities between abnormal behavior and normal behavior. Each emotion experienced by religious people, such as happiness, sadness, narcissism, or whichever other experience you want to isolate, is merely that normal emotion directed towards or stemming from the religious. Religious happiness is happiness directed towards the religious. Religious love is love directed towards the religious. The fundamental behaviors are universal, and do not become something else when experienced by a religious person as opposed to a secular person. You’ll make a mess of reality if you judge normal behaviors, by how closely they resemble the behavior of individuals with problems. Take a closer look at anyone and their behavior, and you’ll eventually see its similarities between them and some psychopathological condition. OCD and the medical field, masochism and firefighters, psychopathy and military, autism and atheism: “Whereas schizotypal tendencies may be associated with religiosity, atheists might have symptoms of autism spectrum disorder. Norenzayan and Gervais, who have proposed that religious disbelief may arise from multiple pathways, called this kind of atheist mind-blind: These atheists, like ASD individuals, may have difficulties in making inferences about other people’s thought sand, consequently, in conceptualizing mindful supernatural agents. Autistic spectrum traits may thus be inversely related to belief in God” (Lindeman & Lipsanen, 2016, p. 183).

Moreover, since you’ve taken courses in abnormal psychology, you know that atypical behavior is also synonymous with behavior that is not culturally expected. Cultures nurture our behaviors, defining what is and isn’t normal within any given framework. Religious behavior falls within these such frameworks. Sometimes behaviors are considered abnormal because they are infrequently, they deviate from a statistical average; at other times a behavior is abnormal if it violates social norms (Barlow & Durand, 2015).

The neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky gives us an example of such culturally expected behaviors. While working with the people of Masai in Africa, the villagers came to him describing a person having a psychotic break. The woman killed a goat and was frantically attacking the villagers. The villagers restrained her, put her in a psychiatric hospital and called it a day. Sapolsky then asked his guide for her perspective on the event:

“I had just gotten my first taste of cross-cultural psychiatry […] I recognized a wonderful opportunity to learn more about their view of mental illness… I began laconically, ‘what do you suppose was wrong with that woman?’

She looked at me as if I was mad. ‘She is crazy.’

‘But how can you tell?’

‘She’s crazy. Can’t you just see from how she acts?’

‘But how do you decide that she is crazy? What did she do?’

‘She killed that goat.’

‘Oh,’ I said with anthropological detachment, ‘but Masai kill goats all the time.’

She looked at me as if I were an idiot. ‘Only the men kill goats,’ she said (Sapolsky, 2002, p. 138).

Typically, those like you, that attempt to pathologize states of mind for which you have antipathy, also convince themselves that they are above subjectivity, to be objective in their deductions. We saw a similar approach in the thread about fundamentalists being brain damaged. Such people “portray themselves as purveyors of harsh truth and their opponents as sentimentalists, ideologues, and wishful thinkers” (Gould, 1996).

References:

-Barlow, D. H., & Durand, V. M. (2015). Abnormal psychology: An integrative approach (7th ed.). Stamford: Cengage.
-Gould, S. J. (1996). The mismeasure of man. W.W. Norton & Company: New York.
-Higgins, S. T., & Stitzer, M. L. (1988). Time allocation in a concurrent schedule of social interation and monetary reinforment: Effects of d-amphetamine. Parmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior, 227-231.
-Lindeman, M., & Lipsanen, J. (2016). Diverse cognitive profiles of religious believers and nonbelievers. The Interntional Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 185-192.
-Sapolsky, R. (2002). A primate's memoir: A neuroscientist's unconventional life among the baboons. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
-Sheth, K., Harris, O. A., Cho, T. A., & Caughey, A. B. (2007). Neurolgy: Clinical cases. Philadelphia: -Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
-William, J. (2016). The variety of religious experience. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

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