Dan Ceppa:
Caroline Evans:
In a psychology textbook (Behavior and Life by Frank Bruno) the following
conversation between actual institutionalized psychotics was reported:
This conversation was included in the text to give the reader a
"feel" for psychotic belief systems and the squirming replies
psychotics offer to those who find objections to their beliefs.
I can see no difference between the insistence by Patient One that he can
walk through walls and the many insistences that the religiously deluded
offer for their beliefs. Their steadfast resistance to reality pretty much
settles any doubt as to the psychotic nature of these beliefs.
"Invisible magic beings" may have been a reasonable hypothesis
for a naked prehistoric bushman who was trying to understand the world
around him. It is not a rational belief for humans who have acquired the
wealth of knowledge that we have today.
The hypothesis of "invisible magic beings" has been shown to
be false and those who cling to bushman beliefs are no more suited to
function in the real world of today than would be a Zinjanthropus.
If we had a largely unpopulated planet with practically unlimited
resources, as did the primitive bushmen, then lunatic beliefs are no
problem... the nuts can head out in the wilderness and believe insane
thoughts without infringing on others. Nowadays is an entirely different
story. The planet is fully populated and there is no "someplace
else" the deluded can head off to.
We have discovered that the human brain is very malleable in its first
decade and that evil visited upon children can have lifelong and
inescapable consequences.
Actual physical/chemical pathways are laid down in childhood while unused
ones wither and die. A child's brain eventually becomes less malleable
and as adults the learning process is much less efficient. Pathways set
down in childhood tend to remain. Destroying a child's right to think
clearly is no small damage. A religious upbringing that includes
irrational beliefs in invisible magic beings tends to destroy the child's
ability to think rationally and thus tends to destroy the child's sanity.
A parent who lobotomized her healthily noisy five year old child to make
him quiet and compliant would be condemned as evil beyond description.
A parent who physically damages a child's brain with irrational beliefs
has committed an act that is equally evil and should be condemned equally.
The habit of irrational thought carries through to other realms... making
the victim less able to learn to think logically and rationally about
non-religious subjects. This is where we see compartmentalization...
folks block off the "religious/irrational beliefs section" from
the rest of their thought processes.
This compartmentalization is akin to that of serial killers, like Ted
Bundy, who compartmentalize "the beast" and function otherwise as
upstanding "young republicans". A compartmentalized belief system
may temporarily allow its believer to function in the real world while
privately holding insane thoughts in check. Despite outward
"normalcy", however, the tension between the two beliefs is
always there and stressing the believer.
We can see this here in this echo. Regularly, the religiously deluded
offer up religious beliefs that are neither internally consistent nor
consistent with observed reality. In virtually every case you will
discover that the deluded were exposed to religious indoctrination either
formally or informally in their early childhood.
Some, however, are quite adept at computer-techie stuff and/or other
workaday subjects in which they display no signs of irrationality, having
resorted to compartmentalization in an attempt to retain their sanity.
Others seem to be incapable of rational thought and offer up all sorts
of nonsense on every subject. They apparently have weak compartmentalization
skills or are in the grips of full blown psychosis.
I think that Bill Kochman is probably a full-blown psychotic.
Those who understand that religion and philosophy are exercises in
abstraction akin to poetry or art can deal with these issues in a rational
manner... they know that abstractions exist within the human mind... but
those who wrongly imagine that these internal abstractions are concrete
external reality have taken the step over the line into the land of
delusion and insanity.
Sincerely,
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Date: Thu 16 Oct 97 15:23
By: Caroline Evans
To: Dan Ceppa
Very few xians have even an inkling as to the origins of the religion
they practice. They know far more of the origins of other religions,
especially those that are called pagan. They decry those religions as
superstitious. Yet, by their same arguments, their very own religion
is just as superstitiously oriented. They just find a way to deny that
fact to themselves.
I think their squirming has a lot in common with another group that clings
tenaciously to delusional beliefs: psychotics.
Patient One : I can walk through walls.
Patient Two : Let's see you do it.
Patient One : I don't do it when people are watching.
Patient Two : So you can't do it if I look.
Patient One : I didn't say that. I said I don't do it while
other people are looking.
Caroline
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