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You have to seek God with your heart!

How to seek God

" 'You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care;
You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")
 
Learner said:
Just readi a little of the link , a little premature for this response ,would need to read the rest.

But Interestingly; Do former "fundmentalists" who've been persuaded to changed their ways, to instantly change their minds. Would they have that part of the "damage" brain rapidly repair?
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That is a great question! I don't know, but I would guess not, as brain lesions tend to be permanent. However, techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help reprogram brains quite effectively.
 
Learner said:
Just readi a little of the link , a little premature for this response ,would need to read the rest.

But Interestingly; Do former "fundmentalists" who've been persuaded to changed their ways, to instantly change their minds. Would they have that part of the "damage" brain rapidly repair?
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As a former fundy, when I realized that god didn't exist, it was like blinders were removed from my eyes. Everything now made sense; in other words my brain felt "repaired". Have to throw in the quotation marks if Learner is involved.
 
Brains are very plastic, and spontaneous remission of neurological issues is not uncommon.

Many such issues occur on a spectrum, with different individuals affected to different degrees - and with single individuals varying in the degree of affliction over time.

What we know of neuroscience is consistent with religiosity being one symptom of a spectrum disorder. But 'consistent with' is a low bar, and there are not many incentives to work in this area, which is an ethical minefield.
 
‘The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.’
-Joseph Campbell

Here's some background reading, for Learner or anyone interested in the relation between religion and mental illness.

 Religion and schizophrenia
Religious factors in bipolar disorder
Religion, spirituality, and psychotic disorders
 Hyperreligiosity
 Jerusalem syndrome

I haven't been able to find a free copy yet, but I strongly recommend Campbell's article "Schizophrenia: the inward journey", which I first read in his excellent book Myths To Live By.

It occurs to me that this subject might make for a really good thread on its own. If it gets a lot of responses I'll split it off.
 
Jobar said:
‘The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.’
-Joseph Campbell

Here's some background reading, for Learner or anyone interested in the relation between religion and mental illness.

 Religion and schizophrenia
Religious factors in bipolar disorder
Religion, spirituality, and psychotic disorders
 Hyperreligiosity
 Jerusalem syndrome

I haven't been able to find a free copy yet, but I strongly recommend Campbell's article "Schizophrenia: the inward journey", which I first read in his excellent book Myths To Live By.

It occurs to me that this subject might make for a really good thread on its own. If it gets a lot of responses I'll split it off.
Click to expand...

I started a similar thread about religion being brain damage, and the mounting evidence for that position, including an inverse correlation with intelligence.. If you do spin a new thread up, the two could be merged. It's at https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...ge-and-correlates-inversely-with-intelligence
 
And here's some interesting stuff on brains recovering from severe trauma...

This Boy Lost One-Sixth of His Brain, But The Amazing Part Is How His Brain Adapted
Incredible.


JACINTA BOWLER 1 AUG 2018
The human brain is a pretty damn amazing organ. Get rid of one bit, and sometimes the brain will just say "I've got this" and figure out how to repurpose something else.


Take the man with damage to 90 percent of his brain who is out there living his best life. Or the woman who lived for 24 years without ever knowing she was missing her entire cerebellum.


But an incredible new case report shows just how well the human brain is able to recover after losing a large part of its visual system.


When he was nearly seven years old, a boy – referred to in the paper as 'U.D.' – underwent a surgery called a lobectomy, having a third of the right hemisphere of his brain removed in an attempt to control seizures.


Doctors removed the right occipital and posterior temporal lobes, which are incredibly important for vision and word processing.


Although the removal sounds terrifying, the surgery actually has a high success rate for stopping seizures, despite being a very rare procedure, which is only considered for less than 10 percent of patients who have medically intractable epilepsy.


What the researchers found after the operation was that although U.D. could no longer see on his left side, his brain's left hemisphere compensated for visual tasks the missing parts of the right hemisphere would usually have done, such as recognising faces and objects.
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I'm very skeptical regarding the claims that religiosity and schizophrenia or bi polar disorder are closely related. I base that on my many years of anecdotal evidence when working as a nurse who cared for many mentally ill adults. I am currently thinking of the last five patients I cared for that suffered from either pure schizophrenia or bipolar disorder with schizo affective disorder. Most of them were not at all religious, in that they never attended church and never spoke about religion, or mentioned any religious delusions. Their hallucinations were strictly of a secular nature, or they were well controlled by meds and never had an hallucinations.

I read a couple of the links and to be honest, I'm not even sure what type of claims you guys are trying to make. The Duke study revealed that less than 50% of those who suffered from serious delusions, had some religious delusions. Really? Gee. Why is that? Could it possibly be because religion is so deeply ingrained in human culture? Humans that are delusional certainly are influenced by culture. Both of the links I read mentioned that being involved in religious activities often helps mentally ill folks cope. Some of the sizes of the groups were too small to make valid conclusions, for example converts to Baha'i Faith was 8. What was the point of some of this? Are you guys trying to make the common sense point that a lot of delusional people sometimes have religious delusions, or are you trying to say that very religious people are nuts? Or that religion makes one have hallucinations? I'm not sure.

Two of the links state that religion is often used by mentally ill people as a coping mechanism. I would concur with that. My most religious mentally ill patient was less religious compared to her entire family, but she did always seem to look forward to church. ( poor dear ) What I have found is that very religious people sometimes consider mental illness, when accompanied by hallucinations and delusions, to be demon possession. This is something that I found deplorable as mentally ill folks are already treated terribly by many people and they are often the targets of extreme prejudice, due to ignorance.

I've read several books on the topic and I've taken many continuing education courses on mental illness. We have a good deal of evidence that mental illness, especially bi polar disorder and schizophrenia are largely genetic. I have numerous family members that have suffered from various manifestations of bi polar disorder. ( there are several different types ) as well as a few that suffered from severe depression,one to the point of suicide. The only religious one was my father, and that was not until he was well into adulthood. All of these mentally ill relatives were all on the British side of my family, but I'm not going to try and say that people of British heritage tend to be nuts! :D:D Then again...:)

I would agree that extreme religiosity may be a symptom that something's not quite right in the brain, but then again, there are a lot of humans that are easily influenced by cult like figures. I don't think they are all mentally ill. I don't think that we have all the answers, but humans traditionally seem to need or desire alpha male or sometimes alpha female leaders. It's common among many primate species and apparently so is religion and other made up stuff when it comes to Homo Sapiens. In fact, just about everything about Sapien culture is made up.

I haven't read any Joseph Campbell recently but I did get the impression that he believed that mythology was a very important part of human culture, often in a positive, although often symbolic way. He just felt it was dangerous when it was taken to extremes. Ok. This is already too long. Sorry.
 
Jobar said:
‘The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.’
-Joseph Campbell

Here's some background reading, for Learner or anyone interested in the relation between religion and mental illness.

 Religion and schizophrenia
Religious factors in bipolar disorder
Religion, spirituality, and psychotic disorders
 Hyperreligiosity
 Jerusalem syndrome

I haven't been able to find a free copy yet, but I strongly recommend Campbell's article "Schizophrenia: the inward journey", which I first read in his excellent book Myths To Live By.

It occurs to me that this subject might make for a really good thread on its own. If it gets a lot of responses I'll split it off.
Click to expand...

Cheers for that Jobar,

It makes you wonder , for "thousands of years" when practically everyone was religious (in all its various forms) , why we still existed for generations, as their descendants, sort of side-stepping natural-section so to speak i.e. no changes or heriditary adaptations or influence from generations and generations of so-called brain damage in this regard. Or is this an opinionated bias study by a "non-believer?" ;).

(Seriously ..When I can I'll check them out)
 
In many societies, those who exhibited psychosis, epilepsy, or other conditions we today would classify as mental illnesses were often considered 'touched' by the gods, or God. Many of the more functional ones became shamans, prophets, or priests. (Again I recommend searching out the works of Joseph Campbell.)

The central question here, IMO- is there a causative link between religion and psychosis? Does psychosis tend to generate religious behavior, or religion generate psychotic behavior?

The Duke study which sohy refers to, my third link in post 66, does appear to be the most worthwhile of the ones I've read in the past few days. I do have some problems with it, though. From the first section-

Psychiatrists often treat patients with psychotic disorders who are religious or spiritual in some way. Most scientifically trained psychiatrists and other mental health professionals believe in a scientific, secular world-view. Sigmund Freud thought that religion caused neurotic and possibly even psychotic symptoms. In Future of an Illusion, Freud (1927) wrote:

"Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity... If this view is right, it is to be supposed that a turning-away from religion is bound to occur with the fatal inevitability of a process of growth. If, on the one hand, religion brings with it obsessional restrictions, exactly as an individual obsessional neurosis does, on the other hand, it comprises a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find in an isolated form nowhere else but amentia, in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion."

Thus, Freud thought that religious beliefs were rooted in fantasy and illusion and could be responsible for the development of psychosis (although Freud never directly attributed psychosis to religion, only neurosis). This negative view of religion in the mental health field has continued into modern times with the writings of persons like Albert Ellis (1988) and Wendell Watters (1992), who have emphasized the irrational nature of religious beliefs and their potential harm. The personal religious beliefs of psychiatrists and psychologists (especially when compared to those of the general population) likewise reflect the secular and generally negative views toward religion that are prevalent within the profession (Neeleman & King, 1993; Curlin et al, 2005). For years, religious persons were portrayed as examples of psychiatric illness in diagnostic manuals (prior to DSM-IV) (Larson et al., 1993). This negative perspective regarding religion, however, was not based on systematic research or careful objective observation. Rather, it was based on the personal opinions and clinical experience of powerful and influential persons within the psychiatric academia, who had little experience with healthy religion.
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Bolding mine. I question how correct that is; how can Koenig state that with confidence? Although it's slight, it seems to me that Koenig has a noticeable pro-religion bias; I'd like to know what his own belief status is. Still, that paper is definitely worth the read.
 
Indeed, Its an interesting topic and worth checking out for me to comment further to this study.

Interesting to know if there are his findings on toxins,hallucinogens ,chemical abuse, the everyday physical and traumatic stress , etc.. that can cause and be influencial to mental illness "before" having any form of belief of some kind or.... a "belief" progessively forming to an extreme (illness untreated or overuse and abuse in drugs over duration).
 
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More from Koenig-
How common are religious delusions found among persons with psychotic disorders? Prevalence rates depend on the particular psychotic disorder and the location in the world where the person lives. In less religious areas of the world, for example, one study showed that only 7% of 324 Japanese inpatients had delusions of persecution and religious guilt (Tateyama et al., 1998). This rate is similar to those from a nation-wide study of hospitalized patients with schizophrenia in Japan involving 429 patients, where the prevalence of religious delusions was 11% (Kitamur et al., 1998).

In the United States, a number of studies have examined religious delusions in patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The first of these reported results of a small study of 41 psychotic patients in New York City, finding that 39% of those with schizophrenia and 22% of those with mania had religious delusions (Cothran & Harvey, 1986). In a much larger study of 1,136 psychiatric inpatients in the mid-western and eastern United States, 25% of patients with schizophrenia and 15% of those with bipolar disorder had religious delusions (Appelbaum et al., 1999). Compared to other delusions, religious delusions appeared to be held with greater conviction than other delusions. Finally, Getz and colleagues (2001) compared the frequency of religious delusions across religious denomination in 133 inpatients (74% schizophrenia) at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Religious delusions were documented in 24% of 33 non-religious patients, 43% of 71 Protestant patients, and 21% of 29 Catholic patients.

In Europe and Great Britain, one study of 251 inpatients with schizophrenia in Austria and Germany reported a prevalence rate of 21% for religious delusions (Tateyama et al., 1998). One of the most detailed studies to date from Great Britain found that 24% of 193 patients with schizophrenia had religious delusions (Siddle et al., 2002a). Patients with religious delusions had more severe hallucinations and bizarre delusions, had poorer functioning, a longer duration of illness, and were taking more anti-psychotic medication than other patients. Thus, in studies of patients with schizophrenia, religious delusions are present in 7-11% of Japanese patients, 21-24% of Western European patients, and 21-43% of patients in the United States.
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I find those numbers interesting, in particular the ones from Japan.

Those of us who posted at Secular Cafe in 2012 had a fascinating discussion with satsujin, who suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy; Talking with God. Those interested in this topic might enjoy reading the whole thing.
 
There's a bit to read but have now a new interest in this area for discussionm, later.
(Bear with me for now)
 
Since there are also quite a few Christian psychologists and psychiatrists, it might be interesting to get their take on this, if anyone has the desire to do the research. My sister spent several weeks in a Christian psychiatric facility in New Jersey when she was a teenager. I think she was admitted, after the police picked her up for vagrancy. The charges were dropped as long as she agreed to receive some psychiatric care. She was never delusional, other than the one time that she did some LSD a year or two after that happened. It doesn't seem fair to only get the opinions of atheist/agnostic scientists on this, does it? Atheists can be every bit as biased as other people. It's a human tendency. Even scientists often have bias. Frans de Waal, who is an atheist himself, discusses scientific bias in one of his books. Nothing that we humans think is totally free of bias. People are often willing to believe all kinds of nonsense that doesn't have evidence to back it up. Maybe that's why placebos are often effective.

Campbell wasn't an expert on mental illness. He was just an expert on religious mythology. I don't take anything he says about mental illness seriously. Sure, it may be that ancient cultures thought that delusional people were some sort of religious prophets, but we've made progress in our understanding of mental illness since those times. Now that we have MRIs, CT scans, etc. we understand that mental illnesses are diseases of the brain. As I mentioned the last time I visited this thread, mentally ill folks who suffer from psychosis have many different types of delusions, and sometimes they involve religion. For that matter, look at how many people seem to believe the delusional ramblings of the current US president, no matter how obvious it is that he's either lying or delusional. How did that happen?

And, then there are dreams, the ultimate delusions that we experience every single night. We might not remember our delusional dreams but if we sleep, we all spend part of our nights dreaming. So, why do you think we are all delusional during part of our sleep cycle? I doubt it has anything to do with religion. It's more likely because there's some weird shit going on in our brains while we're asleep. Maybe mentally ill folks who suffer from delusions are experiencing similar brain activity while they're awake? I have no idea if that's true. It was just a passing thought, or delusion. :p
 
As a religious person myself, I am not surprised that t ht e mentally ill find solace in religious language. Which is better than the language of science, when it comes to expressing the inexpressable. The narrative of speaking to angels is much kinder and gentler than the way medical professionals talk about hearing voices. "Delusion" is both a supposed medical term, and a common street insults. MOST medical terms for mental illness double as insults in fact. Wh as t is the sttraction of seeing yourself in that way, when on the contrary or from another perspective, yo uh are offered dignity and compassion, even a position of honor?
 
"Delusion" is both a supposed medical term, and a common street insult.
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A medical term, sure- but on most streets I think it would be "fuckin' looneytunes".
 
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