strange message

Well, in my unscientific opinion, and that would be the proper level to conduct this discussion, it would seem that schizophrenia and religion are one and the same condition. 

What is the difference between believing your life is directed by some unseen, never proven Almighty Power, or by little green men from Mars? 

The difference is on two points. 

First, promoting the idea that our lives are controlled by little green men from Mars has no value to the Ruling Class in their control over the masses.  They already have this long established, well defined Fairy Tale that allows them many options in maintaining their power position. 

And secondly, the little green men from Mars have worked very hard to cover their tracks and make it appear that God Almighty is the Ruler of Planet Earth. 

 

Carl Jarvis

 

    ----- Original Message -----

From: Roger Loran Bailey

To: Blind Democracy Discussion List

Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 9:59 AM

Subject: Re: dave's at it again/strange message

And faith is just that, a mental lock down. It denies even the validity of
truth seeking at all. Your point about schizophrenia is telling too. That is
a point I mentioned to Dave. In downtown Charleston, West Virginia there
used to be two group homes for the mentally ill. The residents were mentally
ill to varying degrees, but were all functional enough to be allowed to live
in a setting like that. If you spent much time downtown you were bound to
meet them. One of the reasons that you are bound to meet them is because
while it is a kind of an unspoken social convention that you do not just
walk up to a total stranger on the street and strike up a conversation,
those who are mentally ill do not necessarily have that compunction, so I
ended up meeting a number of them. Some of the schizophrenics would tell me
about their delusions. Some of those delusions were extremely intricate and
internally consistent. They were also absolutely ridiculous and often
involved being ppersecuted by space aliens or demons or personally having
supernatural powers. Well, I am not one to humor anyone when they hold
absurd beliefs, so I challenged them. It was exactly like arguing with Dave.
They had absolute faith in the truth of their absurd delusions. This led me
to wonder about something. It seems to me that there must be a connection
between schizophrenia and religiosity. I look at the differences between a
schizophrenic and a religious fanatic and I see only two differences. The
first is that a schizophrenic usually has some amount of a problem
functioning in everyday life. If that were not the case there would be no
need to have these group homes and other institutions for them. The effect
of the schizophrenia is variable, though, and not all of them have that
functional problem and religious fanatics do not. However, the functionality
issue has little to do with the actual delusions themselves. The second
difference does. The second difference is that religionists seem to need
each other to reinforce their delusions. They actually have institutions
like churches and priest hierarchies to reinforce those delusions. In the
case of schizophrenics the delusions are usually personal and if any
reinforcement is needed then they tend to reinforce themselves. I do note
very much, though, that a schizophrenic delusion is no more nor less absurd
than religious doctrine. So I am wondering, could it be that the same brain
process that allow religious belief also permit schizophrenia? Could
schizophrenia be just a stronger form of religion? I am certainly no
neuroscientist, but it really does strike me as something that the
neuroscientists should be investigating.